8th Postgraduate Research Symposium on Ferrous Metallurgy Showcases UK Steel Research
Head of Education and Professional Development Dr Diane Aston FIMMM recounts her experience.
It was a pleasure to return to the Armourers’ Hall in London on Tuesday 26 February for the 8th Postgraduate Research Symposium on Ferrous Metallurgy as Head Judge on the judging panel. The event, organised by the Materials Processing Institute (MPI) in collaboration with the Armourers and Brasiers’ Company and co-sponsored by IOM3 with the Iron and Steel Group, provided the perfect opportunity for postgraduate students to showcase their research.
Since inception, the symposium has gone from strength to strength. Both the poster and presentations sessions were over-subscribed, and the Hall was packed with an enthusiastic audience from academia and industry.
Terry Walsh, CEO of the Materials Processing Institute, welcomed everyone before introducing the first session, chaired by Gill Thornton FIMMM of Globus Metal Powders Ltd, which focussed on product development. The three presentations explored the use of ferrous alloys as radiation-damage-resistant materials for fusion, 3D strain quantification in neutron-irradiated steels for fusion applications, and the design and microstructure of low-activation bainite steels.
Professor Hongbaio Dong FREng CEng FIMMM of the University of Leicester, chaired the session on process improvement. The presenters discussed their research on the effects of cold-wire gas metal arc welding process variables on energy input and deposition rate during the repair of S275JR structural steel, the impact of high recycled content on high formability products, and ferrite grain size control via two-stage cooling for structural steel tubes.
After the final presentation of the morning Professor Mark Rainforth FREng CEng FIMMM, winner of the 2024 Bessemer Gold Medal, presented the Bessemer Lecture where he discussed designing steel for a low carbon future.
The final session of the day focussed on structure measurement and property prediction. The Chair, Dr Richard Thackray MIMMM of the University of Sheffield, introduced presentations on the correlation between electrical resistivity, ultrasonic measurements and microstructure changes in SS316 under high-cycle fatigue, an investigation of fatigue and fracture mechanics of structural steels in adverse environments, a computational approach towards proactive scale management for steel pipelines, and the influence of iron oxide corrosion on hydrogen uptake and the susceptibility to embrittlement in pipeline steels.
Before the presentation of prizes, the audience heard from the keynote speaker, Dr David Bowden from the UK Atomic Energy Authority. His lecture entitled ‘Increasing the heat: Developing next-generation high-temperature steels to deliver commercial fusion energy’ provided insight into how the NEURONE (Neutron Irradiation of Advanced Steels) consortium is tackling the challenge of developing steels to use in fusion plants and how the existing UK infrastructure can be utilised to deliver the volume of material required by 2030.
The panel of judges that I was part of (comprising representatives from the Armourers and Brasiers’ Company, MPI and IOM3), agreed that the standard of posters and presentations had been higher than ever this year. After some difficult deliberations, the Master of the Armourers & Brasiers’ Company, Professor Emma Ream, presented the best poster prize to Mohammed Siddiqui from the University of Leicester for his work entitled CFD modelling of the electric arc furnace process for sustainable steel. The runner up presentation prize was awarded to Lucy Fitzgerald from the University of Birmingham and the best presentation prize was to Megan Kendall from Swansea University. Finally, the 2025 Millman Scholar was announced as Molly Watson and the Ashok Kumar Fellowship was presented to Joe Greaves.
The organisers would like to thank the event sponsors, Tata Steel, the Henry Royce Institute, the Cast Metals Federation, and UKRI Interdisciplinary Centre for Circular Metals, for their support for the event and the staff at Armourers Hall for their incredible hospitality.
For more information, please visit the website or contact [email protected].
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