The new centre provides a massive boost for manufacturers to work with Brunel on large-scale research and development activity, enabling innovations to make the leap from the lab to full-scale industrial trials.
The AMPC, which was officially opened at the Brunel Centre for Advanced Solidification Technology (BCAST) on 13 June, is funded by £15 million from the UK government.
This will help to develop future engineers, designers, scientists and materials specialists, and to accelerate automotive lightweighting through the deployment of high-performance aluminium alloys and innovative technologies.
The AMPC’s 1,500 square metres of working space, in a bespoke building on Brunel's campus in Uxbridge, is the second phase of BCAST's scale-up facility, following on from 2016's launch of the Advanced Metal Casting Centre (AMCC).
Professor Zhongyun Fan, director of BCAST, said: "The AMPC is a hugely important investment for both BCAST and for our current and future research partners. BCAST's long-term aim is to reduce the amount of new metal mined from the ground to a minimum. So it is essential that we continue to be able to find even better ways of creating high-quality components and systems from metals that have already been used at least once.
"The additional world-class metals processing capabilities we will be unveiling will ensure that BCAST can help power innovations for manufacturers in the UK and worldwide."
A key feature of the AMPC and AMCC is that BCAST’s researchers and seconded engineers from its partners will work side by side.
At the same event, Constellium announced the expansion of its R&D capability at Brunel. After establishing a University Technology Centre in 2016, Constellium is dedicating an R&D Centre within the campus to transition technology from the laboratory to its production facilities around the world.
Paul Warton, president of Constellium’s automotive structures and industry business unit, commented: “The automotive industry is advancing technology at an unprecedented pace, and the AMPC is a tremendous resource for automakers, allowing rapid prototyping with state-of-the art forming and joining techniques to help shape lightweight, high-strength components for the next generation of vehicles.
“Constellium is thrilled to be expanding its presence at Brunel University London and to be at the forefront of development for aluminium automotive structural components.”
Other speakers at the event, chaired by Dr Mark White, former Jaguar Land Rover technical specialist on Light Weight Vehicle Structures, included Lawrence Davies, chief adviser to the Automotive Team at the Department for International Trade; Alice Frost, head of knowledge exchange at Research England; Andrew Barlow, Evoque programme manager at Jaguar Land Rover; and Professor Julia Buckingham CBE, Brunel’s vice-chancellor and president.
Prof Buckingham said: “The AMPC represents the next major step in establishing a light metals research park in the south-east corner of our campus and this cluster of facilities has already created an unrivalled research zone in Europe of the type of research we're doing.”
