Processing of Advanced Materials

Welcome to the research group page for Patrick Grant, Cookson Professor of Materials at Oxford University. Research activities are focused on the link between heat and mass flow during manufacturing processes, and the resulting material microstructure and properties. Many projects are concerned with solidification behaviour, and/or the use of liquid metal, ceramic or polymer droplet sprays to create unusual materials. The group works closely with industry and has many specialised synthesis and fabrication facilities, most of which are based at Oxford University's Begbroke Science Park, 5 miles north of Oxford - click here for a virtual tour. A new 350sqm Advanced Processing Laboratory at Begbroke was completed in June 2006 and is now the hub for the group's research, linking with other universities and companies in the UK and around the world. Patrick is also the Executive Director of those elements within the TSB's Materials Knowledge Transfer Network concerned with transport and sustainability.

Much of the group's work involves major collaborations with other universities and industry.

The PAM Group is involved in EPSRC Programme Grant Materials for Fission and Fusion Power (MFFP). The research focuses on gaining a thorough understanding, at the microstructural level, of key structural integrity issues which underpin development and application of alloys for high-flux, high-temperature neutron environments. We are researching the manufacture oxide dispersion strengthened steels.

The PAM Group is one of the core partners of the new EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacture in Liquid Metal Engineering - LiME, involving Brunel and Birmingham Universities, and industrial partners. Click here to find out more about this major project to reduce dependency on primary metals, increase recycling and boost the performance of castings.

The PAM Group is also one of the groups in a recently annouced EPSRC Programme Grant entitled The Quest for Ultimate Electromagnetics using Spatial Transformations (QUEST). The research involves four universities (Queen Mary, St Andrews, Exeter and Oxford) and focuses on developing practical applications of spatial transformations for communication, wireless energy transfer, sensors and security. The PAM Group will develop the new materials and manufacturing technology required for practical applications. These are so-called metamaterials unavailable in nature in which the microstructure is contrived to create unusual electromagnetic properties such as bending of electromagnetic waves.

The PAM group investigates the manufacture of next generation electrodes for supercapacitors and batteries as part of the EPSRC's SuperGen Energy Storage collaboration. Our work focuses on the manufacture of thin film electrodes based on nanomaterials including carbon nanomaterials and transition metal oxides. In all cases, the emphasis is on scale-up manufacture, often using bespoke equipment developed in the group.

Research students: There are currently no research students places available with allocated funding. Please check back another time.

Postdoctoral positions: There are currently no postdoc jobs available with allocated funding. Please check back another time.

Spray forming of alloys

Spray forming is a specialist casting route for highly alloyed materials. Using our large scale equipment we are studying the processing and properties of Al-Li alloys, bulk nanostructured Al alloys, Ni superalloys and speciality steels.

Vacuum plasma spraying

Our research is focused on the manufacture of multi--millimetre thick tungsten and ceramic coatings on steel and other substrates. One of the key applications is very thick tungsten coatings for plasma facing components in fusion reactors such as ITER.

Processing of nanostructures for energy applications

Nano-structured materials are attractive for energy storage applications because they can provide high specific surface areas leading to high energy densities. We are fabricating various novel nanostructured supercapacitors, using nanotubes and nanoparticles.

Advanced electronic packaging for extreme environments

Advanced electronic packaging for extreme environments Down-well temperatures of 250ºC and pressures >1,000bar provide a harsh environment for multi-material electronic packages (right) to endure. We are developing processing technologies and lifetime models for new interconnect and die attach materials.

Lead free solders in aerospace application

We are investigating the Pb-free solders in the harsh aerospace environment. We are using nanoindentation to study the properties of individual phases in ball grid arrays manufactured in-house (right) and incorporating the data into numerical models of lifetime.

Other Projects - archive

A variety of other projects have just started or have just finished, including basic studies on dendrite fragmentation during solidification, freeze casting of ceramics, spray formed rapid tooling, smart composites and WINGNet - an EPSRC funded project on sustainability in the aerospace sector.

Our five most recent journal publications:

An implicit parallel multigrid computing scheme to solve coupled thermal-solute phase-field equations for dendrite evolution, Z. Guo, J. Mi and P.S. Grant J. Computational Phys., (2011). doi:10.1016/j.jcp.2011.11.006

An Al-Si-Ti hierarchical metal-metal composite manufactured by co-spray forming, A.J. Kelly, J. Mi, G.V. Sinha, P. Krug, F. Crosa, F. Audebert and P.S. Grant, J. Mat. Proc. Tech., 211 (2011), 2045-2049. doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2011.07.001

The role of nanomaterials in redox-based supercapacitors for next generation energy storage devices, X. Zhao, B. Mendoza Sanchez, P.J. Dobson and P.S. Grant, Nanoscale, 3 (2011), 839-855. doi: 10.1039/c0nr00594k

Fully vacuum-deposited planar heterojunction polymer solar cells, P. Kovacik, G. Sforazzini, A.G. Cook, S. Wllis, P.S. Grant, H.E. Assender and A.A.R. Watt, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 3 (2011), 11–15. doi: 10.1021/am1008985

A quantitative study of solute diffusion field effects on heterogeneous nucleation and the grain size of alloys, D. Shu, B. Sun, J. Mi and P.S. Grant, Acta Mat., 59 (2011), 2135-2144. doi:10.1016/j.actamat.2010.12.014

Contact:

Professor Patrick Grant
Department of Materials, Oxford University
Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PH, UK
T: 44-1865-283763 or 283324
F: 44-1865-848785
patrick.grant@materials.ox.ac.uk