A group of engineering students at Robert Gordon University (RGU) have won a project award from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), which allowed them the opportunity to present research at a major industry conference.
The £1,400 grant meant the students were able to attend the European Conference on Nanofilms (ECNF2018) where they delivered their paper on additive manufacturing and surface engineering technology found commonly in the aerospace industry.
The team, which included Jordan Davidson, Adam White, Alexander Muir and Christopher Pegg worked on their project with RGU School of Engineering staff members Dr Nadimul Faisal and Dr Sheikh Islam.
Jordan, who delivered the presentation ‘Multiscale modelling of thermally sprayed particle impact and coating formation’ on behalf of the group, commented: “Our project was on the computational modelling of the coating formation via the cold spray process.
“We employed advanced computer simulations in the form of molecular dynamics and smoothed-particle hydrodynamics to study everything from bonding mechanics and surface alloying at the atomic scale through to stresses and strains at the micro- and macroscale.
“We came to refer to the project as ‘from atom to aero…’ and our aim was to gain an insight into aspects of coating formation that cannot easily be studied experimentally, due to the time and length scales involved, with the hopes of optimising process parameters.
“This was our first experience at an international academic conference and we were graciously funded by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), through the Group Project Award.
“We all found the experience extremely rewarding – not only did we see cutting-edge research in thin film coatings, but we fielded some challenging questions related to our presentation that led to a few last-minute refinements in our final thesis.
“We have now submitted our final thesis and plan on writing a manuscript for submission to academic journals in the summer.”
