From materials characterisation to pre-production validation; the role of the research centre in enabling new approaches to providing processing solutions to industry

Advanced Forming Research Centre, University of Strathclyde, PA4 9LJ, UK

^a Corresponding author: paul.blackwell@strath.ac.uk

Abstract

Centres such as the AFRC are targeted at bridging the gap between fundamental University research and the needs of industry. The paper describes some of the elements in the process of translating the products of basic scientific research into useful outcomes for industrial manufacturing companies within the metal shaping sector. This commences with a sound knowledge of material mechanical and physical properties within the relevant forming or forging window. This data will then generally be incorporated into a finite element based process model. More sophisticated models will facilitate the prediction of microstructural development during and after forming. However, such models generally still require validation, and in order for such validation to be reflective of industrial practice then full scale or close to full scale trials may be carried out. The AFRC has a range of industrial scale manufacturing equipment which allows such validation to be performed. The net effect of this is that from a manufacturer's point of view a new process may be significantly de-risked prior to introduction into a production environment. The paper will examine some of the approaches used, with specific reference to some of the specialised testing and processing equipment used to translate research into outputs useful to industry.