Welcome to materials and manufacturing group web site

The Materials and manufacturing group is a research and teaching unit within the Department of Engineering, CECS, ANU, Australia. Our research spans the fields of mechanics, advanced materials, and manufacturing technology. The focus of the mechanics section is to carry out research and development related to Trefftz Finite element method, Meshless method, Smart materials and structures, Biomechanics, Fracture and damage mechanics, Piezoelectric composites, Cell biomechanics; Materials research covers  several classes of materials including fibre-reinforced polymer composites, porous ceramics, piezoelectric composite laminates,  biomaterials, micromechanics of dentine composites, electronic and novel non-linear optical materials, biomaterials, natural fibre composites, and nano-technology. The activities range from enquiry into the fundamental atomic or molecular building blocks of matter, to the design, synthesis and characterisation and simulation of materials with desirable properties for technological application. Research activities in manufacturing include a broad area of activities from material processing and transformation to organisational management, in particular, the development of forming processes for new materials, modelling of forming processes, investigation of processing phenomena such as the effect of friction, characterisation of manufacturing processes for knowledge based applications, development of knowledge systems, geometric characterisation and modelling, modelling of scheduling and how systems and the effect of constraints on decision making processes. A key theme for all research topics is to view the process as a system and understand the interactions within the systems and the effect of variability on the system output.

Important to the work of the group is its relevance and applicability to industry. Strong collaborations have been established with industrial organisations with many projects being partially undertaken within company premises. In addition, the group is part of the STAMP Centre for Manufacturing with the Ford Motor company and the CRC for Automotive Technology launched in 2005.