School of Chemical Engineering

Manufacturing and characterization of advanced materials group

Professor Han Huang is a world leading expert in machining, manufacturing and materials mechanics and has a wealth of experience in materials properties characterization in micro and nano scale.

He is currently leading a diverse and strong research team of 8 PhD students and 4 postdoctoral fellows; the research programmes of the team are largely concerned with manufacturing and characterization of advanced materials.

The group has recently established a new AM Laboratory, which houses a DTM2500 Plus SLS, a desktop Sharebot SLS system and a customised SLM (selective laser melting) system for studying laser melting of metal and ceramic powders. The group also has a world-class laboratory that are dedicated to materials preparation, mechanical testing and surface characterization.

Facilities

  1. Hysitron Nanomechanical Testing Instrument (Triboindenter)
  2. Polytech Laser Doppler Vibrometer (MSA-400)
  3. Bruker Surface Profiling System (DektakXT)
  4. Olympus LEXT OLS 4000 3D Confocal Laser Microscope
  1. DTM Sinterstation 2500 Plus Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) System
  2. Selective Laser Melting (SLM) System
  3. OKAMOTO Ultra Precision Profile Grinder (UPZ315Li)
  4. Other facilities

8. Other facilities

UQ CMM and ANFF centres have a number of world class electron microscopes and other advanced analytical tools.

In particular, the Philips Tecnai F20 TEM has the capability of imaging specimens at elevated temperature (up to 1000 °C), which makes it extremely useful for studying in-situ microstructure evolution and solidification in metal AM.

The FEI Scios FIB and Zeiss Sigma FESCEM and 3View will enable the 3D reconstruction of metallurgical structures and mapping of elemental segregation at surfaces and grain boundaries.