Brunel University - Equipment Account

在过去的几年里，EPSRC在布鲁内尔的研究机构BCAST的金属铸造研究方面投入了大量资金，特别是2010年的EPSRC中心- LiME（600万英镑），2011年的TARF-LCV计划（420万英镑）和其他响应模式项目（100万英镑）。LiME和TARF-LCV计划都是基于我们对金属全循环的长期愿景：全球对金属材料的需求应该通过再生金属的全循环来满足，每年只增加有限的原生金属，这可以通过有效再利用，再制造，闭环回收和有效回收再生金属来实现。这种全金属循环代表了冶金科学、制造技术和工业格局的范式转变。LiME的成立旨在为金属的全面流通提供坚实的基础。虽然在LiME和TARF-LCV下，在对非均质成核的基本理解、开发新金属材料和先进铸造技术方面取得了实质性进展[3]，但研究成果的工业采用和开发受到限制，主要是由于缺乏放大设施，无法将实验室验证的概念和加工技术提升到适当的水平，工业公司愿意承担风险进行工业试验。我们建议在布鲁内尔大学的先进金属铸造中心（AMCC）建立一个独特的国家级轻金属铸造研究放大设施。AMCC旨在弥合基础研究和工业应用之间的差距。AMCC将与EPSRC液态金属工程创新制造中心（简称LiME）一起，提供高性能轻合金、资源节约型铸造技术和零部件创新，以满足汽车行业的长期和中期需求。为了建立AMCC，我们要求EPSRC提供390万英镑，以匹配布鲁内尔大学对资本设备和基础设施的250万英镑投资，以及我们的工业合作伙伴为初始研究项目提供的315万英镑现金和336万英镑实物捐助。扩大规模的设施将安装在一个专门建造的1000平方米的实验室中，配备电力，水和天然气供应。新设施将使我们在许多不同领域的研究能力得到加强，如液态金属工程、合金开发、加工技术和零部件创新。我们将与汽车行业及其供应链密切合作。

Over the last few years EPSRC has invested significantly in metal casting research at Brunel's research institute BCAST, notably in the EPSRC Centre - LiME (£6M) in 2010, the TARF-LCV programme (£4.2M) in 2011 and other responsive mode projects (£1M). Both the LiME and TARF-LCV programmes were founded on our long-term vision for full metal circulation: that the global demand for metallic materials should be met by a full circulation of secondary metals with only limited addition of primary metals each year, which can be achieved by effective reuse, remanufacture, closed-loop recycling and effective recovery of secondary metals. This full metal circulation represents a paradigm shift for metallurgical science, manufacturing technology and the industrial landscape. LiME was founded to provide a solid foundation for full metal circulation. Although substantial progress [3] has been made in the fundamental understanding of heterogeneous nucleation, developing new metallic materials and advancing casting technologies under both LiME and TARF-LCV the industrial adoption and exploitation of the research output has been constrained, mainly due to the lack of scale-up facilities to take the lab-proven concepts and processing technologies to a suitable level, at which industrial companies are willing to take the risk to conduct industrial trials. We propose to establish a unique national scale-up facility for light metal casting research to be hosted in the Advanced Metal Casting Centre (AMCC) at Brunel University. AMCC aims to bridge the gap between fundamental research and industrial applications. Together with the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Liquid Metal Engineering (LiME for short), the AMCC will provide high performance light alloys, resource efficient casting technologies and component innovations to meet the long- and mid-term needs of the automotive industry. To set up the AMCC we are requesting £3.9M from EPSRC to match a £2.5M investment by Brunel University for capital equipment and infrastructure and £3.15M cash and £3.36M in-kind contributions from our industrial partners for the initial research projects. The scale-up facilities will be installed in a purpose-built 1000m2 laboratory complete with power, water and gas supply. The new facilities will enable and enhance our established research capability in many different areas, such as liquid metal engineering, alloy development, processing technologies and component innovation. We will work closely with the automotive industry and its supply chain.