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....from George Simon
Welcome to the first issue of the newsletter from Materials Engineering at Monash University in 2007. I hope you find it interesting, and as we continue to produce them, that they will allow you to keep in touch with what is happening in the Department in terms of research, people, capabilities and so on. It’s been a while since the last newsletter was posted out, and we have moved with the times and gone electronic, but many other things have also changed over the last few years. We have lots of new faces in the Department, which are adding to those of us who have been here a while, making it an exciting place to work. Much of this growth is due to the fact that, as well as getting individual research grants, much of our work is tied up with larger research structures. For example, we are part of a number of large Australian Research Council (ARC) Centres of Research Excellence, one in the area of light metals and another in involving electromaterials. We continue to be big players in the Cooperative Research center (CRC) scheme in two of the manufacturing CRCs (CRC for Polymers and CRC for Cast Metals Manufacturing). In this newsletter we have included some information about them, so you can see the type of research they do. As mentioned, these and other research initiatives bring good staff from Australia and overseas to us, and in some cases, include Aussies returning home. A number of them are featured in this edition as well.
We were very proud, a year or so ago, to hear that my predecessor as Head of Department, Barry Muddle, received an ARC Federation Fellowship (FF). This is a prestigious scheme whereby the government funds top level researchers to work in their area of expertise. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, and as part of his role as FF, Barry is the Research Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Design in Light Metals and this has since expanded to encompass the CSIRO Light Metals Flagship and CAST into a truly Australian Light Metals Partnership. Another important aspect of this growth in activities in aluminium, magnesium and titanium alloys has been the funding of a Victorian Facility for Light Metals Surface Technology, by the Victorian State Government (DIIRD). In charge of this is Nick Birbilis; an ex-Monash graduate who has returned home, a profile of him can be found within these pages. We have a joint appointment with CSIRO, Professor Yuri Estrin, also joining us in March this year working in this field. Light metals, of course, have been a strength in the Department for many years, due to the influence of Professor Ian Polmear, the founding Chairman of the Department. Happily, Ian is still around in the Department and at CSIRO as a highly active Emeritus Professor, and he was kind enough to write a brief history of the early days of the Department for this newsletter which I think you will find very interesting.
Nanotechnology in its various forms is being used by many researchers to produce materials with new or improved properties. The ability to manipulate materials at the nanoscale (tens of atoms) is matched by the requirement to be able to image them at this size scale. Electron microscopy and various types of probe techniques allow us to do just this. The electron microscope center, previously housed in the Materials Engineering department, has now become a University facility because of the need for new, even higher resolution equipment. Fortunately we have or are ordering this gear, and it will be housed in the new Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy (MCEM) building being built on the eastern side of the campus. The demanding conditions for the high end gear, screening off vibrations, magnetic fields, stray currents etc., make it a very special and unique building that will be open from the middle of 2007, more on this elsewhere. The synchrotron being built across the road and due to be commissioned later in 2007, will also be important, a number of staff members currently travel overseas to access such facilities. Researchers in our department are using nanotechnology in areas as diverse as making better and cheaper solar cells, improving the properties of melt processable biodegradable polymers, making metal alloys with excellent mechanical properties, improved lithium batteries, making cheaper and healthier alternatives to fluorescent lights, producing biodegradable scaffolds to put in the body to encourage stem cell growth and regeneration, to producing nanostructured metals for either improved magnetic properties, or for hydrogen storage. In this issue you will meet Udo Bach, a research fellow whose various areas fall squarely in the nano-domain. Biological engineering is becoming important at Monash in the faculty as a whole, and this is no exception in Materials Engineering. This covers biomaterials, as well as bio-nanomaterials. As well as the tissue engineering mentioned above, there is work in improved materials for prosthetics, to the use of proteins to form interesting nanomaterials. From some of the above areas, you can see that improved or alternate energy sources are also a growing theme (light metals plays its part here – lighter engines from such alloys clearly require less fuel and produce fewer emissions). More about some of these areas in future newsletters.
In the teaching arena, we are teaching to a wider range of undergraduate students than ever these days – from straight Engineers specializing in Materials Engineering, to materials science subjects in the Science faculty, as well as a whole range of combined degrees with arts, science, law, commerce and a very new one which is particularly exciting, with the biomedical science people at Monash. We have a number of partner Universities in China with whom we have what we call “2+2 programs”, which is where these students do 2 years at their own University and then the last 2 years with us, gaining a degree at both Universities. Our second cohort are now just in 4th level, and are doing very well.
Enough for now from me. Please feel free to have a look at our web pages to see other things that are happening, more information about our research, the people we have and the equipment and technical capabilities we possess.
http://www.eng.monash.edu.au/materials/
Please contact people in the Department directly with any questions you may have. We have tried to put email links in the articles in the newsletter, but also feel free to contact me should you have a general request, question or comment about what we are doing, or maybe some way in which we can interact with you. One such way is with our Industry Consultative Group, which we will consult with to keep our courses relevant and useful to industry. We already have some volunteers for this (only a couple of hours a year), but if there’s anyone else who would like to be involved, please let me know. We value and enjoy such links!
Regards
George Simon
Head, Department of Materials Engineering
george.simon@eng.monash.edu.au |
