Advanced Metal Casting Centre opens

Innovative technologies to make automotive components lighter and completely recyclable can be tested under industry conditions, now that Brunel University London has opened its Advanced Metal Casting Centre (AMCC) — an on-campus car component research facility.

The £17 million, 1,500sq m building is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Innovate UK, global aluminium component producer Constellium and Jaguar Land Rover. The primary aim is to scale up from fundamental research carried out in the Brunel Centre for Advanced Solidification Techniques and the Liquid Metal Engineering Centre under Professor Zhongyun Fan.

Officially opening the AMCC last month, Brunel’s vice-chancellor and president, Professor Julia Buckingham, announced that work will shortly begin on a second facility — the Advanced Metal Processing Centre — so that a broader range of components can be produced and tested against current practice.

She said: “Professor Fan and his team are at the forefront of research which holds the promise of cars that are not only significantly lighter — and so more fuel-efficient — but can also be recycled much more easily into new ones at the end of their working life.