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Nick Birbilis Returns to Monash

 

Nick Birbilis

A recent addition to the department and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Light Metals is a former PhD student of Maria Forsyth’s, Nick Birbilis. We are glad to have him back, adding to our surface and corrosion expertise. Nicks research interests include the broad areas of corrosion and corrosion control. Since leaving Monash, Nick spent the last few years working at the Fontana Corrosion Center at Ohio State investigating deterioration of aerospace materials.

Nicks work incorporates metallurgy and electrochemistry to probe the microstructure-corrosion relationships of engineering alloys. At Monash, Nick and his group are hoping to make advances in the development of ‘stainless’ light alloys via alloy design and surface engineering. This multi-disciplinary area of research requires investigations to carried out into the nano-scale, providing the necessary resolution to characterise and ultimately control highly localised phenomena such as pitting, corrosion fatigue and stress corrosion cracking.

Consequently, associated new equipment housed in the department for such purposes includes a range of state-of-the-art potentiostats and electrochemical characterisation facilities; along with a state-of-art Electrochemical Scanning Probe Microscope, which also incorporates Atomic Force Microscopy and Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy.

Nick is the Research Program Leader for the new Victorian Facility for Light Metals Surface Technology (a State Government Initiative), whilst also a Senior Research Fellow in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Design in Light Metals. Enquiries: nick.birbilis@eng.monash.edu.au