Engineering Atoms – Materials Technologies For Next-Generation Gas Turbine Applications

In this talk, George will outline the current challenges faced by the civil aviation sector, giving an overview of current and future technologies, and explaining the continued motivation for the development of materials for gas-turbines. There are a diverse range of materials used within a civil aero engine, however the metallic alloys employed within the hot-section of the turbine are operating under some of the most extreme conditions of mechanical load and temperature encountered by any structural materials. George will explore the physical metallurgy of the “superalloys” used in these demanding environments, beginning at the atomic lengthscale and progressing to the manufacture and production of macroscopic components. By elucidating the links between atomic structure and properties, we can explain why these materials possess the unique combination of properties that makes them invaluable for aviation as we know it. Through careful control and exploitation of these mechanisms, alloys with improved performance compared to current commercial materials can be produced.

George Wise is a Research Associate based within the Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre (UTC), at the Department of Materials Science And Metallurgy, University of Cambridge. He completed his undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences, specialising in Materials Science, at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge in 2017. He subsequently completed a Masters degree at the same institution under the supervision of Professor Nicholas Jones, investigating a novel class of metallic alloys with multiple principle elements. In 2018, he began his doctoral research, in conjunction with Rolls-Royce plc and under the supervision of Professor Howard Stone, where he developed a new, low-cost polycrystalline Ni-base superalloy for gas turbine applications. His research has covered a wide range of metallic systems and processing operations, including melting, deformation and joining practices, applying state-of-the art characterisation techniques to assess the response of materials to these operations. His work is complemented by the experience gained from industrial experience at Rolls-Royce Deutschland (Berlin), and BAE Systems Applied Intelligence Laboratories (Great Baddow).

Refreshments will be available from 30 minutes before the advertised start time.

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