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Upcoming Events
28th September -3rd October 2025
28th September -3rd October 2025
22nd International Conference on Fusion Reactor Materials (ICFRM-22), Shizuoka, Japan
22nd International Conference on Fusion Reactor Materials (ICFRM-22), Shizuoka, Japan
Sophie and Sam will be jetting off to Japan to present their work on reduced activation steels and complex concentrated alloys for fusion applications.
30th November - 5th December 2025
30th November - 5th December 2025
MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit, Boston, USA
MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit, Boston, USA
Kathy will be delivering an invited talk in the Materials at High Temperatures—Fabrication, Characterization and Performance session on Friday the 5th of December. Come say hello if you're around!
Recent News Stories
July 2025
Diamond Light Source Experiment!
A great 72 hours at the Diamond light source last week for our first grazing incidence experiment studying machining induced deformation for Jonah's project and also exploring some magnetic ribbons from our collaboration with MatNex. Many thanks to the phenomenal Francesco Carlá for putting up with us the whole time.
3-4th July 2025
International Sympsium on Advances in Metallurgy
Sheffield had a strong representation at the first international symposium on advances in metallurgy expertly organised and held at Imperial College London. The symposium brought together metallurgists from across teh globe in two days full of inspiring talks, demonstrating that metallurgy's role in powering industry. Kathy also had the great pleasure of being one of the judges for the poster awards and even got to announe the winners during the dinner at Ironmongers hall!
June 2025
Armourers & Brasiers Cambridge Forum, 2025
Several members of our group represented us at the prestigious, annual Armourers and Brasiers Forum in Cambridge. Kathy was one of the invited lecturers this year giving a talk on AI and Metallurgy, whilst Ben, Josh and Xianyuan all participated in the Brief Encounters session and rose to the challenge of presenting their work in 3 minutes!
June 2025
Masters students complete and we wave goodbye to Dr. Fran Synnott
June always brings with it a number of departures. We had the great pleasure this year of working with five exceptional undergraduate students that completed their dissertation work with us; Emma Bryant, Will Donaldson, Toby Pettit, Georgia Morris and Michael Chrimatopoulos. All received excellent marks for their project, completing with a first class and rewarded for all their hard work over the year. We can't wait to see what they will all achieve as they embark on their professional careers!
Rather bittwesweetly, Dr. Fran Synnott is also leaving us for pastures new to take up a position as a Materials Technologist at the Aerospace Technology Institute! Given our strong links with the Institute, we're sure professional interactions with Fran will continue long after she takes up her new role. Congratulations Fran!
May 2025
Eurosuperalloys 2026 Organising Committee Meeting
From Gotherburg to Paris! The excitement continued in early May with Kathy travelling to Paris to participate in the abstracts discussion for the Eurosuperalloys 2026. Hosted in the south of France in May 2026, the Eurosuperalloys meeting will bring together the community once more. The hard work of all individuals behind the scenes, particularly Prof. Nathalie Bozzolo and Prof. Jonathan Cormier, will make this once more a fantastic meeting. A full day of discussions and heated debate at Safran Tech allowed us to put together a great programme. We hope to see many of your at the conference next year!
May 2025
Talk and defence at Chalmers
Kathy travelled to beautiful Gotherburg and Chalmers University of Technology for her first "opponent" role for a PhD defense. The candidate, the extremely capable Shaafi Shaikh produced an extensive thesis comprising some beautiful work on additive manufacturing of superalloys.
While at Chalmers, Kathy also had the opportunity to tour the CAM2 facilities, long time collaborators of our MAPP hub here in Sheffield, and also explore the number of characterisation labs available at Chalmers!
21st - 25th April 2025
TOTEMIC Training School 2025: Tools for Energy Materials
Kathy and Josh recently attended the TOTEMIC Training School on Tools for Energy Materials Modelling Acceleration at the Institut d’études scientifiques de Cargèse, Corsica. They delivered a talk and hands-on demonstration on using large language models to support research workflows, highlighting a case study on literature data scraping to build large-scale databases. This work stems from an interdisciplinary collaboration with Xianyuan Liu and Alan Thomas from the AI Research Engineering team at the University of Sheffield.
The school featured an excellent programme of talks and interactive sessions, with strong engagement and insightful discussions throughout. With stunning Corsican weather to match, it was a fantastic opportunity to share ideas and build connections across the materials and AI communities.
23rd-27th March 2025
Materials Processing Institute’s 8th Postgraduate Research Symposium on Ferrous Metallurgy
In March, Kathy, Alex, Fran, Martin, and Sophie attended the annual TMS conference at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Each team member delivered a presentation, summarising their research objectives and results. The conference was a great opportunity to network with fellow metallurgists from all around the world, to attend symposia on the latest material science developments, and to showcase the work of the IDEAs group and of the University of Sheffield.
25th February 2025
Materials Processing Institute’s 8th Postgraduate Research Symposium on Ferrous Metallurgy
At the end of February Sophie presented her work on the use of ferrous alloys as radiation damage resistant materials for fusion at the Materials Processing Institute’s 8th Postgraduate Research Symposium on Ferrous Metallurgy at the Armourers Hall, London. It was great to connect (and reconnect) with fellow researchers from across the iron and steel industry and see the wide variety of research ongoing in the field.
A particular highlight was the keynote presentation from David Bowden (Metallics Group lead within the Materials Division at UKAEA) outlining the important role steel will play in the future of fusion and how collaboration through the NEURONE project is working towards the development of fusion steels - a field I continue to be excited to work in!
9th January 2025
National Materials Innovation Strategy Launch
Kathy had the pleasure of representing the Advanced Metals Processing research area with Ed Pickering at the launch of the National Materials Innovation Strategy with the Henry Royce Institute at the Houses of Parliament. The strategy pulls together over 2000 contributions from academia, industry, RTOs and beyond to create a vision for materials to concentrate the community’s efforts towards the most pressing needs over the next decade. From a metallics perspective, the requirements and opportunities are enormous and now more than ever the need for a strong community to tackle the challenges we face with decarbonisation, net zero as well as circularity and sustainability, is clear. Linked to the work of our group, we’re pleased to see the recognition of materials 4.0, digitalisation and informatics as well as sustainability and circularity recognised as cross-cutting priorities for the successful delivery of a resilient materials sector. Stay tuned for updates from our research area on how the strategy will help guide our future. Find the full strategy and summary here: https://lnkd.in/eGtYNQwE and check out the metallics section from pages 85-90.
18-19th November 2024
Thermocalc Workshop
Recently, Ciaran and Milo were lucky enough to attend a Thermocalc workshop held by our colleagues at the Royce Hub in Manchester. The workshop allowed us to get hands-on experience with some of the add-on modules including their diffusion and additive manufacturing modules, both of which are big parts of our research. A big thanks to Carl-Magnus Lancelot and Magnus Anderson for hosting the workshop as it proved an excellent opportunity to pick the brains of Thermocalc experts!
5-9th November 2024
2024 KRICT Forum & Hackathon
Kathy and Josh had the pleasure of participating in the 2024 KRICT Forum & Hackathon, representing the wider IDEA group. Kathy was invited to deliver a talk on the group’s efforts in assembling materials property data from literature through use of LLMs. The Forum was an incredible opportunity to meet other researchers in the field and gave us many more ideas on where we could apply some of these tools to our portfolio of research towards the acceleration of alloy development. Josh also had to suffer on a team with Kathy during the Hackathon, exploring how some of the datasets already published through KRICT’s ChemDX could be used in different ML and data analysis studies.
October 2024
Jonah Shrive visits to Stockholm & Sandviken
Recently third year PhD student Jonah Shrive was given the opportunity to visit industrial partners Sandvik Coromant of Sweden to use specialist equipment in the characterisation of highly deformed samples. Supervised by Sheffield alumni and former STAR member Alex Graves, and aided by skilled experimantal officers and Sandviken, Jonah collected valuable TKD data using state of the art equipment. Speclailised TKD is required due to the difficulty of indexing highly deformed material using conventional EBSD. This data will enable Jonah to compare the novel XRD method developed over the course of his PhD to techniques already employed in leading facilities, and bring new insights into the deformation caused by machining.
Jonah also had the great privilege of touring Sandvik Coromant's site in Stockholm and in Sandviken, where the current state of the research was presented and a great volume of excellent coffee drank. Thank you Sandvik.
October 2024
Henry Saunders’s Interview on Instruct3D
Henry Saunders is a 2nd year PhD student in our group and the Director of Instruct3D, a spin-out company specialising in machine instructions for metal 3D printers. The company aims to improve process reliability, decrease cost, and work towards part qualification.
As part of the University of Sheffield comercialisation conversations Professor Conchúr Ó Brádaigh FREng FRSE interviewed Henry, in an insightful interview exploring the company's goal, the process of making a spin out and how the university is supporting the spin out.
See the interview here
October 2024
IDEA group welcomes new dissertation students
Another academic year is upon us bringing the excitement of new students and trainees to our group! This year we're joined by 5 students that will be working on their dissertations with us ranging from microstructural quantification, to inoculation of additively manufactured Ni-based superalloy, to ML for alloy design. Stay tuned for their profiles.
18th September 2024
ATI "Manufacturing Net Zero Aviation" Event co-hosted by Kathy at Sheffield
We had the pleasure of co-hosting the Aerospace Technology Institute's "Manufacturing Net Zero Aviation" event right here in Sheffield. Kathy realised all her Oprah ambitions and hosted a panel of experts discussing the most pressing issues facing UK aerospace manufacturing and its path towards sustainability. An inspiring and mildly terrifying day realising all the possibilities that lie ahead from metals, to composites to simply the way we measure data to account for their sustainability in the longer term.
8-12th September 2024
Superalloys 2024!!!!
After 8 long years, we're finally back at 7Springs, PA for the 15th installment of the International Symposium on Superalloys 2024. As ever, the conference didn't fail to deliver an exceptional technical and social programme. We had the pleasure of contributing to multiple talks, including Kathy's "Eutectic Superalloys for Laser Powder Bed Fusion". Naturally, no trip to 7Springs is complete without a visit to Falling Water. 🤩
August 2024
Josh and Martin publish new review papers in Materials Science and Technology
The Journal "Materials Science and Technology" might have ended their longstanding literature review competition but that didn't stop Martin and Josh from putting together two review papers published in the journal.
Find out about "Metallurgical development in steam-methane reformer tube alloys" by Martin here and also about "Supervised machine learning for multi-principal element alloy structural design" here.
6th-9th August 2024
Josh and Kathy Attend Accelerate 2024 in Vancouver
Josh and Kathy attended Accelerate 2024, a conference about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the future of science, hosted by the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada. Kathy gave a talk on the use of natural language processing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs) to create a database from the growing literature on Complex Concentrated Alloys (CCAs), aiding alloy development by efficiently extracting and curating compositional and material property data from research publications. The talk was very well received by a packed room with plenty of questions and follow up discussions during the intervals.
8th/9th July 2024
Universities Nuclear Technology Forum 2024
Sophie spent 2 days at the Universities Nuclear Technology Forum (UNTF) at the University of Leeds. The conference included talks and posters (including Sophie’s and 4 others from the University of Sheffield) from students and staff involved in nuclear research across UK universities. The key notes were delivered by staff from the leading industry partners, particularly focussing on the future of the nuclear field both technically as for career progression. Overall the event gave an insightful overview as to the wide range of research and careers available across the nuclear sector from fission waste disposal to nuclear medicine.
July 2024
Imaging Additive Samples at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
In July, Alex and Henry travelled to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), in Grenoble, France to assist on an experiment with our colleagues at UCL led by Dr. Alex Leungh. They brought additively manufactured samples that they’d built on Sheffield’s in-house 3D printers, to be internally imaged at the ESRF’s XCT facilities. Using XCT to identify pores and structures deep within the metal samples allows for a better understanding of the printing process. Alex’s samples were Inconel-718 pieces, which had been monitored with a thermal camera during manufacturing, and had keyhole and lack-of-fusion defects deliberately placed in them. Henry’s samples were Ti-6-4 pieces, with embedded microchannels to allow for fluid flow.
22nd July - 2nd August 2024
Nuffield Placement
Over the summer, Niels, Sam and Ciaran were pleased to offer a two-week placement via the Nuffield scheme. The placement saw five A-level students getting a crash course on alloy design, where they could design both an AlCu and AlZn alloy based on compositions they had agreed on via their own modelled phase diagrams. The students were also taught how to use and interpret SEM, XRD and hardness testing data to efficiently characterise their alloy. With the students having thoroughly enjoyed themselves and having written exceptional reports, we look forward to welcoming them back in the coming weeks for the poster presentation on their placement.
July 2024
Advanced Metallics CDT Conference, Manchester, UK
Martin and Ciaran previously attended the Advanced Metallics System CDT Annual Conference held in Manchester, where they presented their work investigating creep behaviour of hydrogen reformer alloys and evaluation of AlSi coatings respectively. We also had the pleasure of hearing from the keynote speaker Prof. Susanne Norgren share Sandvik’s ICME approach in understanding tool/workpiece interaction in metal cutting. Last but not least, we also thoroughly enjoyed the wide range of presentations and posters presented by our fellow CDT peers on all things metals!
Of course - let's not forget about a memorable dinner amongst some cool dinosaurs with great friends.
24-25th June 2024
Past Metallurgists Society
We attended a lecture series honouring past metallurgists by telling both their stories and how their work and accomplishments drive and inspire the state of the art research in the field of material science today. Kathy was invited to speak and gave a fascinating talk on the birth of CALPHAD as we know it and the people who worked hard to make it a reality. In particular highlighting the women who were instrumental in getting CALPHAD to where it is today. Kathy then discussed how CALPHAD is used today in her own work involving both superalloy design for jet engine application and the implementation of materials informatics for materials design. All the talks by the invited speakers were fascinating and prompted significant discussion about both the challenges of the past and the challenges of today.
30th May 2024
Advanced Metallic Systems CDT Trip to Advanced Forming Research Centre in Glasgow
On the 30th of May, Alex, Fran, and Henry joined several other PhD students and academics, as part of a trip to the Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC) in Glasgow, organised by the Advanced Metallic Systems Centre for Doctoral Training, which they are each members of. The tour of the AFRC included seminars and Q&A sessions with several researchers based at the facility, followed by a tour of the impressive forming and forging equipment. The AFRC, in collaboration with the University of Sheffield, undertakes cutting-edge research in Near Net Shape manufacturing, and the possibility of post-graduation opportunities was discussed with all of the students on the tour.
22 May 2024 - 23 May 2024
Royce Training: Ion Beam Irradiation and Characterisation – Best Practice II
Royce Training: Ion Beam Irradiation and Characterisation – Best Practice II
In late May, Sophie attended the ion beam irradiation and characterisation workshop held by the Henry Royce Institute at the University of Manchester. The 2 day event included talks from industry and academia outlining the planning, preparation, and running of ion irradiation and characterisation experiments. This aimed to give participants knowledge beyond standard use cases and ensure best practice of the equipment and results analysis.
https://www.royce.ac.uk/events/ion-beam-irradiation-and-characterisation-best-practice-ii/
1st May 2024
Kathy Christofidou Promotion and Royce Role
It is with great pleasure that we announced that Kathy Christofidou has been promoted to Chair in Digital and Sustainable Metallurgy at the University of Sheffield. Kathy becomes the first woman professor in metallurgy at the University of Sheffield in the 140+ year history of the department. In addition to this promotion, Kathy will be taking over from Prof. Martin Jackson as the “Advanced Metals Processing” research area lead for the Royce Institute in Sheffield, helping to bring together the metallurgical community in the UK. Find out more about Kathy’s appointment to research area lead here: https://www.royce.ac.uk/news/katerina-chrisotfidou-takes-over-the-helm-of-advanced-metals-processing-at-royce-at-the-university-of-sheffield/
March 2024
TMS Annual Meeting and Exhibition 2024
Kathy, Fran, Josh, and Alex travelled to Orlando, Florida in March this year to attend the TMS 2024 Annual meeting, where they all presented their recent work. Final year PhD student Fran wrote about her experience:
“Earlier this year, I attended the TMS 2024 Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida, alongside some of my IDEA colleagues, where we all presented our recent PhD work. I presented my work "Investigating the Oxidation Mechanisms of Polycrystalline Ni-based Superalloys at 800°C With Varying Ti:Ta Contents" in the Advances in the State-of-the-Art of High-Temperature Alloys: Environmental Effects session. As a final-year Ph.D. student, it was an excellent opportunity to present my work before I finish later this year and, of course, to network with other students, academics, and industry professionals. While in Florida, we also witnessed some high-temperature materials in action at a SpaceX launch at Cape Canaveral, where four astronauts were onboard to travel to the ISS 🚀 Definitely a trip to remember!”
Superalloys 2024 is right around the corner and the IDEA group are travelling to Pittsburgh, USA for another action packed conference.
27th Feburary 2024
Sophie Barwick attends Ferrous Metallurgy Symposium
PhD student, Sophie presented a poster at the Materials Processing Institute’s 7th Postgraduate Research Symposium on Ferrous Metallurgy. The event was hosted at the Armourers Hall in London and displayed, through posters and presentations, a wide range of work happening with ferrous metals, from additive manufacturing to antimicrobial coatings. Sophie’s poster outlined her work so far on model ferrous alloys as radiation damage resistance materials for fusion applications and future plans for her project. In attendance were postgraduate students, academics and industry professionals which allowed for insightful discussions regarding potential techniques and developments for her project and the wider industry. A highlight of the day was the keynote speaker – Dr Pam Murrell – with her thought-provoking talk on the challenges of transitioning to net zero and the upcoming work in the casting industry, topics which are particularly relevant to the future of the metallurgy sector.
20th September 2023
Kathy and Elaine attended AAMS2023
Last month Kathy and Elaine attended AAMS2023 at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid alongside Iain Todd, Rob Snell, Olly Dew, Frances Livera, Lucy Farquhar and Minh Ahn Luan Phan from the EPSRC future manufacturing hub, MAPP.
Everyone gave very engaging presentations that produced high quality questions from the audience. Elaine presented her work titled 'Microstructural Control in LPBF Inconel 718' which forms a large part of her final PhD thesis. With the conference being fairly small scale, a lot of networking took place between sessions and several soon to be finishing PhD students left the conference with exciting future job opportunities.
4th September 2023
Will Donaldson Completes his Summer Project with the Modern AlChEME Group!
For the past 6 weeks, we have been lucky enough to have 2nd year materials student Will Donaldson along for a summer project. He has been working alongside Josh and Ciaran to gain some experience with machine learning and the application of coatings. Will’s work with Josh has seen him working with an experimental database to train the machine learning into predicting sought after parameters for a vast set of aluminium-based alloys. With Ciaran he has been focusing on the effectiveness of hot-dipping in applying Al-Si coatings to automotive steel. It has been a pleasure to work with Will, who has been enthusiastic and eager to get stuck in. We wish him all the best for his 3rd year!
20th August 2023
Alex and Ben host Nuffield Placement Students
In August, Alex and Ben had the privilege of welcoming Freya and Rahime, two A-Level students, into Sheffield University to undertake their Nuffield Research Placements. For three weeks, Alex and Ben guided the pair through a range of experimental, data analysis, Python coding, presentation, and report writing tasks, all of which were intended to both give the students a realistic insight into the world of scientific research, and provide a self-contained project from start to finish. The pair built a set of single-line scan test samples on the Laser Powder Bed Fusion machines that Alex uses for his research, and performed data analysis that will ultimately be of use in Alex's PhD. Both students performed fantastically throughout the placement, and will have promising university careers ahead.
24th July 2023
Members of the Group visit Volkswagen Factory
Recently, Kathy and Ciaran were lucky enough to have partaken in a visit to the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg. The trip allowed the opportunity for a guided tour of their assembly line as well as an in depth tour of some of the more specialised steps of the process such as the pressing and stamping of steel sheets. Ciaran was also able to give a short presentation on his mini project he has just finished for VW on the effectiveness of Al-Si based coatings and gain some valuable insight into his research of HEA based coatings. We thank VW for such a brilliant opportunity.
21st July 2023
Experiments at the ESRF in Grenoble
Alex, Henry, and Kathy travelled to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble in July 2023, to run tests on some turbine blades that were additively manufactured from a nickel-based superalloy. The ESRF uses X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT) to non-destructively detect the internal structures of components, that would otherwise only be possible to view by cutting the pieces open. The aim of Alex and Henry's experiments was to search for internal porosity, hidden deep within the turbine blades, and link these pores back to the laser parameters that were used to build the blades. The experiment was a huge success, with all samples being scanned smoothly inside the XCT beamlines, at a resolution of 7.7µm per pixel. The team returned home to Sheffield with several hundred Gigabytes of data, to spend the next few months analysing.
19th July 2023
Advanced Metallic Systems CDT Student Conference
A massive 'well done' to all presenters at last week's International Advanced Metallic Systems Centre for Doctoral Training conference, with the theme of "Readying metals manufacturing for net zero and beyond". We had a few of our very own researchers showcasing their work:
The presentations were:
Alex - The Effect of Part Geometry on Melt Pool Geometry in Laser Powder Bed Fusion
Ben - Exploration of Local Structural Effects in NiCoCr to Cryogenic Temperatures: A Neutron Total Scattering Investigation
A number of posters were also presented:
Ciaran - Assessment and Evaluation of Al-Si Based Coatings
Martin - CALPHAD-Assisted Superalloy Design for Blue Hydrogen Reformer Applications
We learned so much from the wide range of presentations, and if any of these topics interest you, feel free to get in touch!
17th July 2023
Master's Student Graduation
On Monday one of our Master's Students, Rob Hilier, graduated with a 1st in Materials Science and Engineering. He also won the Nesthill Medal for outstanding work in physical metallurgy! We wish him a huge congratulations and good luck in his new role as a graduate consultant at Indicatura.
5th July 2023
Engineering Researcher Symposium
Last month members of the Group attended the Engineering Researcher Symposium organised by the Researcher Society within the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sheffield. This provided an opportunity for members of the research community across all departments to come together and discuss their research topics. There were a really good selection of talks including one given by Professor Kirill Horoshenkov on pervasive sensing for our buried water infrastructure, and Professor Lizzy Cross on her work on revolutionising operational safety and economy for high value infrastructure using population based simple harmonic motion.
It was also great to read all the posters presented at the event. The themes for this were Energy, Engineering for Life, Infrastructure and Environment, and Manufacturing, all with an emphasis on sustainability.
30th June 2023
MAPP Second Annual Conference
On the 28th and 29th of June, the EPSRC Future Manufacturing Hub in Manufacture using Advanced Powder Processes (MAPP) held its Second International Conference at the Novotel in Sheffield. Elaine, Henry, Alex, Karol, and Kathy were in attendance, to listen to keynote speakers deliver lectures on groundbreaking research, industrial successes, and organisational updates. All postgraduate researchers involved in the MAPP community delivered flash presentations, highlighting the unique points of their individual projects, and showcased posters to better network with potential collaborators. The two-day event proved to be a great opportunity to learn more on relevant topics, find fellow MAPP researchers working in similar fields, and stay posted on the latest developments in international powder manufacturing.
27th June 2023
BeAM Magic 800 Direct Energy Deposition Training
Last week Will and Josh from the group completed an intense two week training course run by AddUp: Metal Additive Manufacturing Solutions on the Magic 800 direct energy deposition machine we have in-house at Sheffield. The training covered all aspect of usage, from complex five-axis construction, to printing in an inert atmosphere and general maintenance. During the training process they produced many test pieces for both practice and to calibrate the equipment. In these runs 316 stainless steel powder was used. After this training they hope to use the equipment to investigate the printing of nickel based superalloys and novel HEA compositions using a state of the art hopper system to feed multiple different powders into the beam simultaneously.
24th April 2023
First-year students present at the AMSCDT mini-project Symposium
Last week our first-year Advanced Metallic Systems CDT students Niels, Martin and Ciaran presented at the CDT mini-project symposium, providing insight on the topics of structure analysis using XRD, CALPHAD-assisted alloy design and the evaluation of Al-Si coatings.
21th April 2023
Henry is through to the 2023 YPLC UK Finals!
Henry won the regional heats of the IOM3 Young Person's Lecture Competition and is now through to the UK Finals! We wish him all the best for his next presentation titled, "Programmable microstructures: Unleashing the potential of engineering alloys with metal additive manufacturing", at The Armourers' Hall, in London on the 3rd of May!
11th April 2023
Josh and Matt to present their work at the Royce Materials 4.0 Webinar Series
Josh and Matt will present on the "Computational Design of FCC and BCC High Entropy Alloys for Industrial Machining and Nuclear Applications" at the Royce Materials 4.0 Webinar Series in Manchester on the 21st April 2023.
The abstract of their talk is:
High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) present an opportunity for the design and development of new alloys, with desirable properties, suitable for industrial manufacturing and nuclear applications. However, the vast compositional space occupied by HEAs, results in unguided experimental searches being unfeasible. Here, a random forest machine learning architecture, in conjunction with CALPHAD, is trained from experimental HEA databases, to perform high-throughput phase formation and hardness predictions. Based upon the machine learning predictions and further CALPHAD examination, suitable alloys are selected for fabrication and experimental investigation. Mechanical and thermal assessments of these selected alloys will demonstrate their potential suitability for the desired applications, while simultaneously enabling comparison and verification of the machine learning methodology and providing further data for future model development.
We wish Matt and Josh a fun afternoon presenting their work at this event!
1st April 2023
Whiteways Primary School Fun-Science Club
Matt, alongside other members of the Materials Science and Engineering Society at the University of Sheffield, have been volunteering at the Whiteways Primary School after-school club over the past few weeks. The volunteers have been teaching the children about materials in engineering, raising awareness of materials science and also engaging the children with fun science experiments.
Matt had this to say after the experience, "The children at Whiteways made this after-school club amazing and so much fun to teach at each week. They got stuck into each session and we could see how much fun they were having, which made the experience even more enjoyable. We were lucky to interact with such amazing children and all of them have the capability to become incredible scientists. I hope that we helped them to see how interesting science can be!".
30th March 2023
TMS 2023 in San Diego
Kathy, Lewis, Josh and Elaine attended the TMS 2023 Annual Meeting and Exhibition in San Diego, California, from the 20th – 23rd March, which provided them with the great opportunity to present their work to and learn from other engineers, scientists and professionals in the fields of minerals, metals and materials. The group members attended many presentations across several topics including High Entropy Alloys, Computational Alloy Design, Additive Manufacturing, Advanced Characterisation, and local ordering in materials. The presentations were informative, engaging and promoted new ideas on techniques to apply in their own research as well as what makes a successful presentation.
As well as attending presentations, Kathy hosted a symposium on Advanced Characterisation of High Temperature Alloys that included many interesting talks on a wide range of processes and materials. Lewis presented an energetic and captivating presentation on Assessing Local Order in Alloys Using Total Scattering, Pair Distribution Functions and Reverse Monte Carlo Simulations bright and early on the first day of the conference.
For both Josh and Elaine this was the first time attending and presenting at a large conference and both hid their inevitable nerves well, presenting well-received, interesting talks. Elaine presented her work on a new method of achieving microstructural control in Inconel 718 using Laser Powder Bed Fusion on Tuesday afternoon and Josh was the final presenter from Modern AlChEME, presenting his work on the Computational Design of High Entropy Hardmetals on Wednesday morning. Both received and effectively handled multiple engaging questions on their current work and discussed the potential future paths that they were excited to explore and investigate further.
For some members of the group, this was also the first time visiting San Diego, which meant that the weekend days were spent exploring museums as well as the local area. Some of the highlights were walking around the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier, seeing the seals and sea lions at La Jolla, walking around Balboa Park and visiting the Zoo, and watching the sunset at Mission Beach.
A brilliant time was had by all at TMS 2023 in San Diego and we look forward to future opportunities to present and discuss the group's work at TMS 2024!
8th March 2023
International Women's Day 2023
The 8th March marks International Women's Day, a day where the achievements of women from all over the world are celebrated, as well as providing a continuous reminder that true equality still has a way to go. One area in which women are underrepresented is in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths (STEM) disciplines, but we're hoping to show the next generation why STEM is great!
Today we thought we'd celebrate some of the women in the Modern AlChEME Group, Dr Kathy Christofidou, Narcisa Pinzariu, Fran Synnott, and Elaine Livera!
Kathy: "I got into STEM because I always had a passion for the sciences and the exploration of how things work and how we can make them better (let’s be honest fuelled by me breaking a lot of things). Having a career in STEM however, is so much more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. Working in STEM involves a great amount of creativity and idea generation, working with people across different disciplines, industries and backgrounds, forging new relationships and collaborations and it has given me immeasurable opportunities to meet, interact and be inspired by people and technologies across the globe. I would encourage anyone to consider a career in a STEM field, the more diversity of ideas we have the more transformational our world can become!"
Narcisa: "I became interested in engineering at a young age when I moved in with my aunt. She studied Mechanical Engineering and I watched her do her PhD. I always had an affinity for sciences, seeing her solidified my passion and desire to pursue a career in engineering."
Fran: "I’ve always had a great interest in science since I was young which made it an easy decision for me to pursue physics at University, so I could learn more in depth about how the universe works. Studying for a PhD in materials science has allowed me to apply the physics theory I learnt during my undergraduate, to solve real life engineering problems."
Elaine: "My interest in Engineering started when I was around 14 and was able to choose a subject at school called Technological Sciences. We learnt about electronic circuits, programming, and bending moment diagrams and I found it fascinating how numbers and equations always worked out. In adult life, I find that there is real satisfaction in doing a piece of work and finding something genuinely interesting where you can look at the results and go 'That's so cool!'."
3rd March 2023
IOM3 Young Persons Lecture Competition
A massive 'well done' to Modern AlChEME's Henry Saunders and Jonah Shrive for their participation in last night's IOM3 (Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining) Young Persons Lecture Competition heat in Sheffield. Bringing the theory behind X-Ray Diffraction and Additive Manufacture to the masses is no small feat!
An extra, enormous congratulations to Henry, whose FIRST-PLACE finish puts him squarely in the running for the North East regional finals!
8th December 2022
Dr Kathy Christofidou wins the IOM3 Grünfeld Memorial Award and Medal
Huge congratulations go to Kathy for being awarded the Grünfeld Memorial Award and Medal. The award is presented in recognition of professional contribution by an individual in early to mid-career, that has had significant influence on the engineering application of components made from any alloys in the metallurgical industries. For Dr Christofidou, this work focuses on superalloys for propulsion applications.
Dr Christofidou was presented with her award and medal by Neil Glover (Rolls-Royce and President of the IOM3) in December.
Photo Credit to: MLR PHOTO/IOM3
10th December 2022
Diamond Light Source peak broadening experiment
On the 28th November, Jonah Shrive began his PhD experiments at the Diamond Light Source, recording high resolution diffraction data at the I12 beamline. These data will be used to investigate peak profiles as a step to develop NDT methods to characterise surface deformation of Ni-based superalloys.
Many thanks to the I12 beamline staff and to the Diamond Light Source for hosting Modern AlChEmE.
One of the presentations was given by Dr Melissa Orme who talked about Boeing’s AM strategy
6th December 2022
Formnext 2022
Alex Sloane and Henry Saunders attended the Formnext exhibition and industry platform in Frankfurt, Germany, in November 2022. At Formnext, 802 exhibitors from all over the world set up stalls to discuss their Additive Manufacturing solutions and services. Alex and Henry each spent four days at the event, building their networks and chatting AM with as many relevant industry and research organisations as possible. On Alex's agenda, was to better understand the capabilities of CAD slicing and laser control software within industry. Henry spoke to laser powder bed fusion machine makers, trying to find out about what types of pyrometric and in-situ control methods are currently commercially available. After speaking with dozens of engineers, salespeople, and academics, both Alex and Henry returned from Frankfurt with better understandings of the way their specific research interests aligned with the industrial marketplace.
28th October 2022
Say Hello to our new PhD Students!
We have a number of new PhD students joining us this year - Martin Tse, Jonah Shrive, Matt Turton, Henry Saunders and Henry Boyle!
Martin worked with us during his Masters degree and decided to continue on in the group. His research is focussed on accelerated alloy design for blue hydrogen steam reformer applications. In his free time, he's often found in houseplant shops... (Our office now has a mini-botanic garden).
Jonah completed his Masters at the University of Sheffield before joining the group this year. He is working to develop non-destructive evaluation methods for the determination of machining deformation of high-performance Ni-based superalloys. Outside of work, Jonah enjoys include walking and cycling.
Matt’s PhD aims to explore material properties in high entropy alloys through the use of total scattering techniques to look at the local structure of these materials, which will provide significant impacts in the nuclear industry. Outside of his PhD Matt enjoys playing rugby for the Sheffield medicals.
Henry Saunders graduated from the University of Sheffield last year, obtaining his Masters in Materials Science and Engineering. Having done his masters project on additive manufacturing, he is now continuing this work, researching into advanced process control with the aim of tailoring microstructures within a part.
Henry Boyle also graduated from the University of Lancaster in the summer of 2020 and is now studying the tool wear that occurs when machining nickel-based superalloys. Outside of work Henry can be found doing DIY jobs at home in the hope that he will one day finish his house renovation.
18th October 2022
We welcome Dr Sinéad O'Halloran to give a two part seminar on Wednesday 19th October
Dr Sinéad O’Halloran is the Assistant Head of the Department of Graduate Studies for Science and Engineering in the South East Technological University (SETU), Ireland. Sinéad graduated in 2017 with a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from NUI Galway, where she focused on fretting, wear, and fatigue for flexible marine risers for the oil and gas industry. After her PhD, Sinéad joined the SEAM Research Centre at SETU as a Postdoctoral researcher in additive manufacturing before joining the Research, Innovation and Graduate Studies Team in SETU in 2021. Sinéad’s current work focuses on laser powder bed fusion, computational modelling, and material properties of additively manufactured parts.
The first part of Sinéad’s seminar will focus on global-local fretting analysis of dynamic offshore structures, including for the oil and gas industry, communications and renewable energy. The second part will look at material development using additive manufacturing for heat-transfer and automotive applications and the medical device industry.
Please contact us if you would like to listen to the seminar recording!
12th October 2022
Alloys for Additive Manufacturing Symposium 2022
Last month Dr Kathy Christofidou attended AAMS2022 at the Bundeswehr University in Munich alongside Prof. Iain Todd, Dr Felicity Freeman and Lucy Farquhar from the EPSRC future manufacturing hub, MAPP.
Kathy presented her work titled 'Microstructural Control and Optimisation of Haynes 282 Manufactured through Laser Powder Bed Fusion', which was published in Superalloys 2020.
22nd July 2022
Master Students graduate
Many congraultations to Martin Tse, Zoe Papadakos and Sammy Galpin, the masters students in the group who graduated on Friday. Particular congratulations to Sammy Galpin who won the Mappin Medal and the Walshaw award, and Martin Tse who won the De Belin prize in Metallography.
Also amoung the graduates are Matt Turton and Jonah Shrive, who will be joining the group in September as PhD Students, along with Martin Tse who will continue in the group.
11th July 2022
Metallics CDT conference
Several members of the group attended the metallics CDT conference held at the Dublin City University. Congratulations to Josh Berry and Fran Synnott for winning prizes for their oral presentations, and Ben Jolly for a poster prize
6th June 2022
Dr Kathy Christofidou awarded the Grünfeld Medal
We are delighted to announce that Dr Kathy Christofidou has been awarded the Grünfeld Memorial Award & Medal by the IOM3 (Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining). The award is presented in recognition of professional contribution that has had significant influence on the engineering application of components made from any alloys in the metallurgical industries. Many congratulations to Dr Christofidou on the award! See the announcement of the award here.
18th May 2022
Group hosts speakers
We had the pleasure of hosting Associate Professor Paraskevas Kontis from NTNU (Norway) for a departmental seminar. Professor Kontis is one of several speakers we have hosted this term. Dr Christina-Maria Katsari from McGill University and a co-founder of Alpha Iota Alloys spoke on Characterization of Cu powders for cold spray applications. Links to their talks can be found below:
Professor Paraskevas Kontis - https://eu-lti.bbcollab.com/recording/3bdbfbea6d5d4fc5bdfad82ad787e7d6
Dr Christina-Maria Katsari - https://eu-lti.bbcollab.com/recording/8eb96a62b45f4cf9beb2c3ab88d6efbf
16th May 2022
Final year project submissions
Congratulations to our final year project students Sammy Galpin, Martin Tse and Zoe Papadakos on submitting their reports! You will be missed from the group!
12th May 2022
Former Group member graduates
It is always exciting when former group members come back to vist, particularly when they are graduating! Many congratulations to Maria Grace Vazquez Garcia on being able to finally graduate in person post-Covid. Grace also attend our group meeting and presented an excellent talk on her experiences in industry (Solar Turbines) since leaving the group. A link to her talk can be found below:
https://echo360.org.uk/media/99fc7b9f-36c8-4fc4-8be5-02085c494651/public
3rd May 2022
Paper Published!
Many congratulations to Sammy Galpin on the publication of his first paper! Here is a picture of Sammy with his commerative group mug!
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YQGJMZ2Y8EPQ2TPISZSY/full?target=10.1080/02670836.2022.2069332
20th April 2022
Royce Discovery Centre at the Harry Brearley Building Opening
The Royce Discovery Centre at the Harry Brearley Building was officially opoened today. The day featured tours of the new building, followed by a reception in Mappin Hall. The event was well attended by members of academia and industry. Particular congratulations to Corinne Howse (Henry Royce Institute Project Manager), for all her hard work. Our very own Dr Christofidou was also interviewed live on the regional BBC about the event! Have a listen here (starts 2:18:05).
8th March 2022
Martin Tse delivers talk at the Sheffield Metallurgical and Engineering Association
Martin Tse gave a fantastic talk on superalloy design as part of the IOM3 Young Persons Lecture Competition regional heat, hosted by the Sheffield Metallurgical and Engineering Association (SMEA).
1st March 2022
Fran Synott delivers conference presentation at TMS2022
Congratulations to Fran Synott who gave her first international conference presentation at TMS 2022 in Anaheim. Fran presentented her work on load partitioning as part of the "Deformation and Damage Mechanisims of High Temperature Alloys" symposium.
2nd February 2022
Kathy Christofidou joins Materials Open Research Advisory Board
Dr Kathy Christofidou joined the Materials Open Research Advisory Board - a revolutionary new platform for publishing research contributions in materials science. Find out more here: https://materialsopenresearch.org/about/.
1st February 2022
Dr Christofidou delivered the latest Sheffield Metallurgical and Engineering Association Lecture
Dr Kathy Christofidou delivered the latest SMEA lecture on "Lessons on structural alloy development strategies from experimentaion with High Entropy Alloys" through a hybrid event held at the Crown Plaza hotel in Sheffield and attracting an international audience.
27th January 2022
New group laboratory space
After a long day - we now have a brand new laboratory space. Many thanks to all our fantastic students for their hard work cleaning and sorting!
14th January 2022
Data Management Workshop
Join Dr Kathy Christofidou and colleagues from the Univeristy of Manchester for a one-day workshop on "Data Management for Materials Researchers".
2nd January 2022
Dr Christofidou new UCAS Admissions Tutor for MSE and Materials Discovery and Prototyping Technology Platform lead for the Royce Institute.
Dr Christofidou has been appointed the new UCAS admissions tutor for the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Sheffield. In addition, as of the 1st of January 2022, Dr Christofidou is the new Materials Discovery and Prototyping Technology Platform Lead for the Henry Royce Institute. Stay tuned for more information in the near future.
27th December 2021
Funding for International collaborations with the ESRF
Dr Kathy Christofidou among researchers awarded funding through the EPSRC "International Centre-to-Centre" project scheme for the multidisciplinary "Manufacturing by Design" project lead by Regius Prof. Phil Withers at the Univeristy of Manchester. Dr Christofidou will co-lead the workpackage on additive manufacutring with Dr Chu Lun Alex Leung at UCL, working in collaboration with the ESRF to realise advanced characterisation methodologies based on diffraction and tomogra for industrial applications. More information here: https://www.ukri.org/news/international-collaborations-to-develop-technologies-of-tomorrow/
November 2021
Materials 4.0 Funding
"Enabling the Cultural Shift to Materials 4.0" funding announced by the EPSRC with Dr Christofidou as a Co-I, aiming to support short feasibility studies in the transition towards data-centric materials science. More information on how to apply can be found here: https://www.royce.ac.uk/royce-materials-4-0-pilot/
27th September 2021
New Academic Year
Welcome to all the new students starting across the university! A particular welcome to Louise Erkers and Ben Jolly who join the group as PhD Students!
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