PhD in Novel Electrical Steel Development for High Performing E-machines

Funding Source: DTP

Funding Duration: 3.5 years

Eligibly: Available to eligible Home fees (UK) status

Start Date: 30/09/2024

Supervisors: Dr Carl Slater and Prof Claire Davis

Project Overview

E-machine manufacturing has experienced significant growth over the past five years, with projections indicating continued expansion. Improved efficiency can be achieved by design and materials optimization. Currently most e-machines utilize standard electrical steels (approx. 3 wt% Si grades) with materials choices for high-frequency motors being Fe-Co alloys (expensive but used for aerospace) and 6 wt% Si electrical steel (single supplier, expensive, non-sustainable production route). Therefore, there is an opportunity to develop improved electrical steels, produced using conventional mass production processing, for widespread use in e-machines that will directly enhance battery range but also facilitate the redesign of motors, resulting in further motor efficiency improvements.

At WMG, we have developed a new novel grade of electrical steel, based on conventional processing, with significantly superior properties (approx. 40% improvement is magnetic efficiency and 33% improvement in strength). This PhD will therefore focus on developing an understanding on composition-processing-property performance in a novel steel in the context of considering how this alloy could be manufactured using the current commercial processing route. The key academic questions will therefore include:

• What is the strength-magnetic performance balance for the steel and how is this fundamentally related to microstructure including after stamping (e.g. grain size, dislocation density)
• What oxides are formed during processing and how do they differ to conventional electrical steels?

How does the microstructure evolve throughout processing and does a difference in stacking fault energy, caused by compositional modification, change the propensity for defects (for better or for worse)?

We are excited to push this new alloy to market and make real impact.

Essential and Desirable Student background Criteria

Background: Engineering ideally with material science

Essential knowledge - skills – experience: analytical skills, ability to demonstrate independent learning, have a good competency in math and analytics. Good with verbal and written communication. Some experience with practical metallurgy eg heat treatment, tensile testing…

Desirable knowledge - skills – experience: Material science including phase diagrams, characterisation techniques such as SEM, EBSD. Some understanding of steel processing methods i.e casting rolling, annealing and stamping.

Funding and Eligibility

3.5year funding for a student with Home fee or UK domicile EU status

Subject Areas: Metallurgy, Manufacturing Engineering, Thermodynamics, Electromagnetism

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