"This thesis can be transferred directly to companies"
Baiwei Zhu has defended his doctoral thesis in Gjuterisalen at the School of Engineering at Jönköping University. His opponent was professor Rajan Ambat, Technical University of Denmark.
Baiwei Zhu has defended his doctoral thesis in Gjuterisalen at the School of Engineering at Jönköping University. His thesis tries to implement the application of anodising in casting components.
- This thesis can be transferred directly to companies and contribute to a combination of technical and economic benefits, says Baiwei Zhu.
Baiwei Zhu says that the years he has spent on his doctoral dissertation at the School of Engineering at Jönköping University have taught him how to become a good researcher.
Baiwei Zhu started his research in September 2014. His doctoral thesis is named "Casting and Anodising of Alloys-Alloy Design, Manufacturing Process and Material Properties". He believes there´s a very big marking and great potential in anodising the cast Al components. However, due to the material and the processing, the quality and performance of anodized cast aluminium components is not as he expected.
Materials design and manufacturing process control
In the doctoral thesis he has worked on the materials design and manufacturing process control (both casting and anodising) to obtain cast aluminium components with good mechanical and anodising (corrosion and wear resistance) properties.
The benefit of society in his research is that companies are seeking the optimised way to apply anodising in cast Al components to have better corrosion and wear resistance. The knowledge of this thesis can directly transfer to the companies and contribute a combination of technical and economic benefits, says Baiwei Zhu.
The most difficult parts of his thesis has been in the experimental works, he says.
- Since this thesis is truly multidisciplinary, I need to perform all different parts of experimental works by myself: casting, surface treatments, testing, analysis.
Some failures along the way
He admits that there were some failures along the way. For example, one Friday when he and a colleague performed a set of castings together, and the casting machine was stuck by some unexpected melt.
- So we have to disassemble the machine and fix it, and we work from 6 am to almost 10 pm on that day. And this is not only happened once. However, these are also funniest parts in these five years, we meet problems, we solved them, and we got very good results in the final, says Baiwei Zhu.
Baiwei Zhu is Chinese and will soon go back to China. He has received and accepted a job offer from a Chinese university.
- Although I am going to move back to China, I want to keep in touch with my department and Jönköping University 100 percent, he says.
International experience from Jönköping
In the future, he will work in materials and manufacturing, but says that he will remain in the academic world at any university. He says that the almost five years he has spent on his doctoral dissertation at the School of Engineering at Jönköping University have taught him how to become a good researcher. He also believes that his international experience during this time will help him a lot during his career.
