Brunel University’s Centre for Advanced Solidification Technology (BCAST) in London is investing in the construction of a new light metals research facility, called the Future Metallurgy Centre. The project has been granted £16 million from the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF).
“We are very pleased with the £16m UKRPIF funding,” said Prof. Zhongyun Fan, director of BCAST. “This will allow us to build the Future Metallurgy Centre, which is part of the planned Advanced Light Metals Research Park at Brunel University London. The completion of the Future Metallurgy Centre will consolidate our international leading position in metallurgical research and provide an effective support to the UK metals industry.”
The Future Metallurgy Centre, the new facility will develop new casting technologies and next generation aluminium and magnesium alloys for things like top-performing cars and planes. The UKRPIF funding will be used to construct the center’s new building and to buy state-of-the-art analytical instruments to analyze advanced metallic materials.
Along with BCAST’s Advanced Metals Casting Centre and Advanced Metals Processing Centre scale-up facilities, the new Future Metallurgy Centre will boost industry technology development — from discovery to rollout. The Advanced Metals Casting Centre focuses on the solidification and casting of metallic materials. The Advanced Metals Processing Centre, which was launched in 2018, provides R&D activity that enables innovations, such as lightweight car parts, to make the leap from the lab to full-scale industrial trials.
The new facility has already attracted the interest of global manufacturers, suppliers, and consultants, who will help train the metallurgists of the future and reinforce the U.K. as a world leader in metallurgical science. It has attracted £40m matching funding from industry partners, including Constellium, Chinalco, Aeromet International, Grainger & Worrall, and Innoval Technology — more than double the UKRPIF grant.