PhD Studentship - New Optical Techniques for Non-destructive Sensing and Monitoring

How to apply: uom.link/pgr-apply-fap

This 3.5 year project provided is fully funded for home students; tuition fees will be covered plus an annual tax free stipend set at the UKRI rate (£19,237 for 2024/25).

Technical paints provide essential corrosion protection to our infrastructure, which is vital to ensure public safety and drive down the unacceptable economic and carbon cost associated with the replacement of metals. Corrosion engineers continually strive to improve the performance lifetime of these systems, however for on-site maintenance, the detection of corrosion onset beneath industrial coatings remains an issue.

In Manchester, initial work with advanced infrared microscopy has shown that the buried substrate and substrate/polymer interface can be probed rapidly, reliably and non-destructively using infrared reflectance. Preliminary modelling work has suggested applicability in situations highly relevant to the early detection of corrosion for predictive and preventative maintenance, including: the earliest stages of substrate corrosion, blisters / debonding / delamination of coatings, bulk water ingress or changes to water uptake.

This PhD project will extend this approach to non-destructive optical techniques suited for mobile sensing devices, for example: SORS (spatially offset Raman spectroscopy) technology already applied in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries to “see through” packaging; the hyperspectral infrared reflectance techniques used in art conservation; handheld IR devices used for preventative maintenance in the aircraft industry. The student will develop new methods to study coatings, using advanced laboratory-based optical spectroscopies, including data processing and modelling pipelines; and adapt these techniques to be applicable “in the field”. This project will suit a student with an interest in materials characterisation and with a background in chemistry, physics, materials science and engineering, polymer science, corrosion science or related disciplines.

The project will be based at the University of Manchester in the Department of Materials – Metallurgy and Corrosion, where over the past decade, specialised tools have been developed in close partnership with AkzoNobel (Europe’s largest paint company) to explore the fundamental phenomena underpinning the performance of corrosion protective coatings from the aerospace, marine and packaging sectors. The Ph.D. student will be embedded in a dynamic research environment located in the new Engineering building, with unrivalled access to facilities including purpose built state-of-the-art corrosion laboratories, electron and scanning probe microscopy suites, and extensive polymer and surface characterisation capabilities.

Applicants should have, or expect to achieve, at least a 2.1 honours degree or a master’s (or international equivalent) in a relevant science or engineering related discipline.

For more information, visit our funding page or search our funding database for specific scholarships, studentships and awards you may be eligible for.

Please contact the supervisors before you apply: Dr. Suzanne Morsch and Dr. Stephen Edmondson: suzanne.morsch@manchester.ac.uk stephen.edmondson@manchester.ac.uk

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