Material and Processes

The University of Edinburgh's Institute for Materials and Processes joins researchers from materials science, materials synthesis and processing, and manufacturing optimisation to carry out world-class research on the design, synthesis, processing, properties and applications of materials.

The Institute is built around a strong research base, encompassing six major research activities as shown below:

• Nanostructured Materials - adsorption and diffusion in nanoporous materials; De novo molecular design; simulation of materials synthesis; and carbon nanotube composites
• Micro- Nano- & Chemomechanics - microstructure characterization; computational micro- and mesomechanics; mechanical properties of surfaces and interfaces; role of mineral chemistry on both fluid and solid mechanics behaviour in a variety of inorganic engineering materials; and thin and ultra-thin polymer and liquid films on surfaces
• Advanced Materials Applications - winter sports engineering (climbing and mountaineering sport technologies and use of embedded sensors and data acquisition/analysis to provide diagnostics of performance for training and equipment design); and ice mechanics (friction on snow and ice, vehicle tyre traction and avalanche research)
• Fluid and Particle Dynamics - reactive flows; multiphase and particulate flows; biophysical flows; environmental flows; and interfacial transport processes
• Biomedical Engineering - mechanical heart valves; and predictive techniques towards arterial disease
• Manufacturing and Process Optimisation - developing improved numerical methods for equation-based process simulation; design and optimisation; particularly using SQP; interior-point and related optimisation methods; shape optimisation; product data management; product lifecycle management; vehicle routing; and other scheduling problems.

The Institute has strong links with the following University centres of excellence:

• Centre for Materials Science and Engineering
• Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions
• Collaborative Optical Spectroscopy Micromanipulation & Imaging Centre

Further information

• Institute for Materials and Processes