Mechanical engineering

Supervisor: A/Prof. Agisilaos Kourmatzis

Eligibility: Strong interest in fluid mechanics. Strong skills in Matlab preferred. WAM>80. Must be at least in Year 3 of degree.

Project Description: One of the most complex fields in turbulent flows is that of multi-phase flows such as droplet/gas or gas-liquid-solid flows. Despite how critical understanding these flows is to our every day lives, from food production, to pollutant control and pharmaceuticals, the physics of these flows remains poorly understood. This results in high inefficiency and waste in a range of industrial systems because our ability to physically model the underlying mechanisms is too rudimentary. In this project, you will work on developing a new multi-phase flow experiment and make use of a new integrated optical coherence tomography and particle imaging method to make the first steps towards helping us understanding this critically important field. Depending on interest, the project may also involve computational fluid dynamics or high-speed particle diagnostics.

Requirement to be on campus: Yes *dependent on government’s health advice.

Supervisor: A/Prof. Agisilaos Kourmatzis

Eligibility: Strong interest in fluid mechanics. Strong skills in Matlab preferred. WAM>80. Must have finished at least 2yrs of degree.

Project Description: The use of intranasal delivery as a means of effective self-vaccination has a lot of interest, but so many questions remain with regards to how aerosol is transported through the human nasal channels and what the mechanisms of drug transport are once the drug has made contact with human tissue. Similar questions persist in our understanding of more traditional inhaler devices as relevant to treatment of respiratory disorders. These inhalers are not only used for treatment of common respiratory diseases such as asthma and COPD, but also for delivery of inhaled antibiotics. At the core of controlling the efficacy of these delivery systems, is a need to understand the turbulent fluid mechanics of droplets in complex geometries. In this project you will work on either experimental work, computational modelling, or in the design of new devices, to improve our ability to deliver pharmaceuticals for specific applications. 

Requirement to be on campus: Yes *dependent on government’s health advice.

Supervisor: A/Prof. Niels Quack

Eligibility: WAM>75 and Undergraduate candidates must have already completed at least 96 credit points towards their undergraduate degree at the time of application.

Project Description: In this project, the student will dive into the exciting world of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS), with the hands-on characterization of MEMS components in cutting edge Photonic Integrated Circuits (PIC), the optical equivalent of electrical integrated circuits. After an introduction to the key features of the experimental setup, the student will measure and extract key performance metrics of the Photonic MEMS Devices, such as spectral response, optical losses and the electro-mechanical response for components on a prototype photonic MEMS chip, such as Photonic MEMS Switches and Photonic MEMS Tuneable Filters for Fiber-Optical Telecommunication Systems. 

Requirement to be on campus: Yes *dependent on government’s health advice.

Supervisors: A/Prof. Niels Quack; Leila Vatandoust

Eligibility: WAM>75 and Undergraduate candidates must have already completed at least 96 credit points towards their undergraduate degree at the time of application.

Project Description: In this research project, the student will simulate and investigate the influence of waveguide width on the performance of Silicon Photonics Arrayed Waveguide Grating (AWG). For this, all simulations will be done using RSoft CAD’s AWG Utility. Different waveguide widths with a fixed central channel will be considered and the Insertion Loss (IL), Extinction Ration (ER), Crosstalk (CT) will be calculated. Then, results will be compared to find out in which waveguide width we can get an optimum performance for the desired AWG. 

Requirement to be on campus: Yes *dependent on government’s health advice.

Supervisors: A/Prof. Niels Quack; Leila Vatandoust

Eligibility: Familiar with SolidWorks

Project Description: In this research project, the student will design and manufacture a mechanical setup to attach a commercially available array either 12, 24 or 48 optical fibers to a photonic integrated circuit chip. The alignment will be performed using a 6 Degrees of Freedom precision alignment stage. The active alignment involves coupling light from a tunable laser into the chip and maximizing the amount of power coupled to the chip by monitoring the optical power on a photodetector. Permanent attachment will be performed by ultraviolet curing epoxy. The student will develop suitable designs of fiber-array and chip holders in solidworks, manufacture prototypes by 3D Printing, and develop the experimental alignment and permanent attachment procedure. 

Requirement to be on campus: Yes *dependent on government’s health advice.

Supervisors: A/Prof. Nicholas Williamson 

Eligibility: General programming skills. A strong interest in fluid mechanics.

Project Description: This project investigates the physics behind fish kill events in Australian rivers.  When inland rivers become thermally stratified turbulent mixing is reduced and oxygen transport through the water column is limited. This project uses laboratory experiments and in-situ measurements to understand the fluid mechanics behind these processes. In this internship you will be involved in the laboratory program, helping conduct experiments. You will also be involved in the development and testing of new instrumentation and analysing turbulent flow data.  The work is be supported by a knowledgeable instrumentation officer and our research group including a PhD student, Post-doc and honours students.

Requirement to be on campus: Yes *dependent on government’s health advice.

Supervisors: A/Prof. Ahmad Jabbarzadeh; Mr Fankai Peng

Eligibility:

• Must have a WAM of 75 or higher. 
• Demonstrate a passion for research and hands on experiments.
• Good understanding of physics and fluid mechanics.
• Willing to learn quickly and work in a team
• Good communication skills

Project Description: Nanobubbles, unlike macro bubbles, can persist in various liquids such as water for extended periods, ranging from days to months. Their high concentration and stability make them beneficial in several applications, including water treatment and fertilization. Despite these known benefits, the fundamental cause of nanobubbles’ stability and many of their properties is still under active investigation in the scientific community. Our recent research, conducted via computational nanotechnology, has identified some unique properties of water-nanobubble systems. In this project, we aim to experimentally investigate the properties of bulk nanobubbles formed in water under different conditions. This research will supplement our theoretical studies in this field. We will specifically examine the concentration, charge, particle size, and rheological properties of water-based bulk nanobubbles, and the impact of flow on their stability and formation. This comprehensive approach will provide a more complete understanding of nanobubbles and their potential applications.

Requirement to be on campus: Yes *dependent on government’s health advice.

Supervisors: Prof. Simon Ringer and Dr. Mengwei He

Eligibility: WAM>75 and Undergraduate candidates must have already completed at least 96 credit points towards their undergraduate degree at the time of application.

Project Description: Point clouds, extensively researched in computer vision and autonomous driving, find a parallel in the atomic structure of materials, serving as a focal point for interdisciplinary exploration. This project focuses on the striking similarities between atomic point clouds and those used in computer vision, highlighting shared attributes such as spatial coordinates. In material science, atomic point clouds are typically represented by the x, y, z coordinates of atoms along with their elemental compositions. Meanwhile, in computer vision, point clouds are enriched with positional (x, y, z) and colour (RGB) information.

Various methodologies exist for processing 3D point clouds, with the reduction of dimensionality to 2D images being a prevalent approach. However, the reduction of atomic point clouds necessitates the integration of real-world imaging techniques such as electron microscopy, coupled with corresponding cameras. Furthermore, precise parameterisation and boundary constraints are crucial for accurate atomic position simulations.

This project endeavours to simulate this integration, leveraging existing algorithms and software to generate a comprehensive workflow transitioning from three-dimensional point clouds to two-dimensional atomic-scale images, thereby advancing research in both fields.

Requirement to be on campus: Yes *dependent on government’s health advice.

Supervisors: Prof. Matthew Cleary, Dr. Matthew Dunn

Eligibility: WAM>75 and Undergraduate candidates must have already completed at least 96 credit points towards their undergraduate degree at the time of application.

Project Description: Solid-propellant rocket motors are a mainstay of high-speed propulsion for rockets for both access to space and defence applications. Due to the intense turbulence, compressible flow features (including shocks) and high temperatures found in rocket motor combustion zones, experiments and modelling are rather challenging but necessary for optimisation of the design, including geometry, fuel composition, nozzle integration etc.

This project will involve working on the establishment of solid-propellant rocket motor experimental and modelling research in AMME. Model rocket motors and essential data acquisition equipment have been procured and your job will be to develop the testing program, including operating procedures, safety protocols and data analysis techniques. Comparison with model outputs will also be considered.

Two research interns will work on this project in complementary areas of focus.

Requirement to be on campus: Yes *dependent on government’s health advice.

Supervisor: Dr. Xianghai An

Eligibility: High achievement in a relevant undergraduate engineering degree (a WAM of 75 or above). This project has the option to be combined with an honours project.

Project Description:Over millennia, the basic alloying strategy of adding small amounts of secondary atoms into a primary element has remained unchanged, limiting the total number of alloys and thus the reachable properties. The recently developed multiple-principal element alloys (MPE) alloys, can essentially address this shortfall, presenting a multitude of new opportunities for materials properties due to the vast compositional space previously inaccessible. It has been revealed that the exceptional properties and functionalities of MPE alloys originate from their compositional heterogeneities at the atomic level.

In this project, we will apply the advanced manufacturing methods to enable the nanostructure engineering of MPE alloys, aiming to intelligently integrate multilevel chemical and structural heterogeneities, from sub-nanoscale and up, into the MPE alloys towards the superior combinations of properties that are beyond current benchmark ranges. By delicately tailoring the parameters, the local chemical composition and nanostructures can be regulated to enable the rapid construction of complex heterogeneities from the bottom-up manner. This project will open up a new avenue for engineer the multiscale microstructure/chemical heterogeneities to design next-generation, high-performance, and sustainable alloys.

Requirement to be on campus: Yes *dependent on government’s health advice.

Supervisor: Dr. Xianghai An

Eligibility: High achievement in a relevant undergraduate engineering degree (a WAM of 75 or above). This project has the option to be combined with an honours project.

Project Description: Materials come with characteristic combinations of mechanical properties. For example, ceramics have high stiffness but break easily; metals have high strength and ductility but limited ability to deform elastically. A vital requirement for all structural materials is that they possess an exceptional combination of stiffness, strength, ductility and damage tolerance. However, these characteristics cannot currently be obtained simultaneously. Although materials with different combinations of attributes can be designed by forming composites of different materials, it is still scientifically and technologically challenging to harvest desirable combination of properties.

To address these issues, in this project, we will propose a multi-design strategy, which encompasses the deliberate modulation of the phase constitution and architecture of metal-ceramic interpenetrating-phase composites that can be enabled by the combination of advanced manufacturing techniques. The newly designed materials will push the boundaries of materials properties beyond current benchmark ranges.

Requirement to be on campus: Yes *dependent on government’s health advice

Supervisor: Dr. Xianghai An

Eligibility: High achievement in a relevant undergraduate engineering degree (a WAM of 75 or above). This project has the option to be combined with an honours project.

Project Description:High-performance alloys are the backbone of decarbonising innovations in manufacturing, infrastructure, energy, and transportation. There is an accelerated demand for high-strength materials to produce lighter, more-reliable structural components. Stronger alloys will substantially improve mechanical and energy efficiencies, which can benefit our economy and environment directly. However, high-strength materials typically have low ductility and are more vulnerable to fracture. Furthermore, they are also susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement (HE) in many service environments for renewable energy applications such as hydrogen transportation and the bearings of wind turbines. Hydrogen-induced embrittlement can lead to unpredictable and catastrophic failures at relatively low applied stresses. These critical shortcomings cause serious safety concerns but cannot be readily addressed by traditional materials development approaches that generally render materials property trade-offs between strength and ductility/HE resistance. 

Gradient structures are an emerging material-design paradigm inspired by nature that has great potential to overcome these alloy design trade-offs. This project aims to develop an innovative design strategy of gradient segregation engineering (GSE) to produce high-performance alloys by synergistically introducing a chemical gradient via grain boundary (GB) segregation and a physical gradient by nanostructure control. The novel GSE will entail a synergy of multiscale strengthening mechanisms that offer an exceptional strength-ductility combination and simultaneously enable the hierarchical HE-resisting mechanisms to notably enhance the hydrogen tolerance.

Requirement to be on campus: Yes *dependent on government’s health advice.

Supervisor: Dr. Xianghai An

Eligibility: High achievement in a relevant undergraduate engineering degree (a WAM of 75 or above). This project has the option to be combined with an honours project.

Project Description: The past two decades have witnessed a rapid increase in demand for micro/nano devices and components, such as micro/nano-electromechanical systems (MEMS)/(NEMS) sensors, micro-engines, connectors, micro-pumps, and medical implants, to push the boundary of property and functionality for many evolving technologies. This essential requirement for device miniaturisation promotes an unprecedented advancement in manufacturing techniques and processes, empowering us to fabricate these small structures at micrometer, submicrometer, and even nanometer scales. During practical application and service, these novel systems would ineluctably suffer from external loading and large deformation. Therefore, their robustness and reliability rely primarily on the mechanical performance of small-sized materials. 

However, when the external geometric sizes of materials are diminished into the micro/nanoscale, their mechanical responses are profoundly distinct from those of bulk counterparts. Comprehensively exploring the mechanical behaviour of the micro-/nano-sized materials is not only significant scientifically to furnish principal insights into their deformation physics to enrich the theory of crystal plasticity, but also crucial technologically to empower us to exert control over the design and development of cutting-edge MEME/NEMS with predictable, reliable, and reproducible performances.   

Requirement to be on campus: Yes *dependent on government’s health advice.

Supervisors: Professor Simon Ringer; Dr Carl Cui

Eligibility: WAM>75; Strong motivation in research

Project Description: Recent advancements in machine learning (ML) have revolutionised atomistic simulations, enabling unprecedented insights into material behaviour at the atomic scale across varying length & time scales. This computational research proposal aims to combine ML techniques with density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to explore some crucial phenomena in modern material science. In particular, this project will focus on understanding the energetics and dynamics of dislocation-cluster interactions and their impact on material mechanical properties, such as strength and ductility in Al and Ti alloys. 

The successful applicant will have access to powerful national computational facilitates, enabling robust and comprehensive simulations. The outcome of this project will provide valuable insights that can inform knowledge-based, rational design for advanced alloys, contributing to the advancement of materials science.

Requirement to be on campus: No