Automotive and aerospace manufacturers world-wide are set to benefit from new metal processing and casting techniques with the opening of an Advanced Metal Processing centre (AMPC) at London’s Brunel University (www.brunel.ac.uk).

They will be able to work with Brunel on large-scale research and development activity, enabling innovations such as novel structures for lightweight car parts to make the leap from the laboratory to full-scale industrial trials.

The AMPC — officially opened at the Brunel Centre for Advanced Solidification Technology (BCAST) in Uxbridge last month — is funded by £15 million from the Government, providing the equipment and infrastructure to attract match-funding from partners such as Constellium and Jaguar Land Rover.

This will help to develop the next generation of engineers, designers, scientists and materials specialists, and to accelerate automotive lightweighting through the deployment of high-performance aluminium alloys and innovative technologies.

The AMPC’s 1,500m2 of working space, in a bespoke building on Brunel’s campus in Uxbridge, is the second phase of BCAST’s scale-up facility, following on from 2016’s launch of the Advanced Metal Casting Centre (AMCC).

BCAST director Zhongyun Fan said: “The AMPC is a hugely important investment for both BCAST and for our current and future research partners.

“Its long-term aim is to minimise the amount of new metal mined from the ground, so it is essential that we continue to find even better ways of creating high-quality components and systems from metals that have already been used at least once.”

The industrial and pilot-scale metal processing equipment at the AMPC enables: the processing and fabrication of extruded metals, such as novel bending processes, machining and advanced joining techniques; further casting processes, such as gravity die casting and sand casting, adding to those available in the AMCC; supporting materials characterisation, such as for testing strength and fatigue, and including 3-D X-ray tomography.