Robots: science fiction to science fact
Dr Ing. Raphael Grech writes about his love affair with the robot world from Wall-E to the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the USA
Cycling for Children with cancer
Light up my Universe
What is the universe made of? How was it formed? How old is it? Will things stay the same forever?
The night sky is shedding its secrets as Ian Fenech Conti (Institute of Space Science and Astronomy) talks about his work measuring the most elusive matter in the universe.Continue reading
Hips 4 Eternity
All over the world, hip replacement surgeries are on the increase. Provisional data from the hip replacement register at Mater Dei shows that, in Malta during 2014, 145 people needed their hips replaced while another 11 needed revisions to old implants. With costs that run into the thousands, the problem of faulty implants caught the eye of a local research team of engineers and medics. Cassi Camilleri finds out more about their work in solving the dilemma. Photography by Elisa von Brockdorff
Lighter and Stronger Planes
Bonnie Attard talks about the aerospace industry and how it can be improved.
The Mediterranean: a history to be shared
Professor Mostafa Hassani Idrissi will be one of the keynote speakers at the First Annual International Conference on Cultural Relations in Europe and in the Mediterranean, organised by the Valletta 2018 Foundation with the support of the University of Malta, which will be held at the Valletta Campus on 4th and 5th of September.
Gymnastic Polymers
by Alexander Hili
Robot Maps, Robot Moves, Robot Avoids
Robotics is a cornerstone for this century’s innovations. From robot nurses to your own personal assistant, most robots need to know: ‘where is it?’ ‘Where should it go?’ And ‘how to get there?’ Without answers to these questions a robot cannot do much.Continue reading
Wear Resistant Aluminium
Aluminium alloys have a low density and are easy to make. These qualities make them popular in the transport industry which can range from cars to planes. A low density makes them perfect to reduce weight in large metal structures. Unfortunately due to poor wear resistance, aluminium alloys can deteriorate quickly which severely limits their applications.
Dr Clayton D’Amato (supervised by Dr John C. Betts and Dr Joseph Buhagiar) modified the surface of an aluminium alloy (called A356) to overcome such limitations by improving wear resistance. D’Amato used a high power industrial CO2 laser to rapidly melt specific regions of the alloy’s surface. He simultaneously introduced additional alloying elements in the melt pool, which mix with the base metal to form new compounds that reinforce the soft aluminium surface. In this way, he formed a strong composite modified surface. Additional experimentation allowed D’Amato to reduce the loss of material due to wear by about 20 times. He optimised the conditions needed to laser process the surface of the aluminium in a uniform and repeatable manner. Adding nickel increased surface hardness 7-fold due to formation of aluminium-nickel compounds. Additional strength was achieved by adding hard ceramics to this aluminium-nickel structure. D’Amato created fine titanium carbide (TiC) particles in a matrix structure (pictured) by alloying a mixture of nickel, titanium and carbon (Ni-Ti-C). Aluminium treated in this way was much stronger.
The exact hardness was related to the mix of alloying elements in the modified surfaces. Hardness improved wear resistance, with large improvements in both surfaces alloyed with nickel and Ni-Ti-C. They lost 20 times less material than normal aluminium preventing severe damage.
Using a high powered laser allows improved wear resistance just where needed. This saves costs and increases versatility. The above technique could be used to manufacture aircraft pump parts, fittings and control parts, and in automotive water-cooled cylinder blocks.
This research was performed as part of a Ph.D. in Engineering within the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Malta. It was partially funded by the Strategic Educational Pathways Scholarship (Malta). This Scholarship is part-financed by the European Union — European Social Fund (ESF) under Operational Programme II — Cohesion Policy 2007–2013, “Empowering People for More Jobs and a Better Quality Of Life”. The laser processing equipment used in this project was financed by the 4th Italian protocol whilst the characterisation equipment was financed by the European Regional Fund (ERDF) through the project “Developing an Interdisciplinary Material Testing and Rapid Prototyping R&D Facility (Ref. no. 012)”.