News
Medal award for excellence in Surface Engineering
Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 BST
Dr Gary Critchlow has been awarded the Canning Bi-Centenary Medal, by the Institute of Metal Finishing, for his paper “Hot and cold cleaning methods: CO2 and Nd:YAG laser ablation, sodium hydride immersion and CO2 cryoblasting”.
The work, which was done in collaboration with Cryogenesis Ltd, provides a scientific understanding of various cleaning methods which are now commercially used for removing very tenacious contamination from surfaces.
One particular application is the cleaning of mould tools after their use in the RTM (resin transfer moulding) process, where it has been demonstrated that the various techniques can fully remove crosslinked epoxide resins from mould surfaces without causing physical damage. The CO2 cryoblasting process in particular is now being used in the aerospace sector.
Gary who is a Senior Research Fellow and previously a winner of the Royal Society’s “Corrosion” Award, is part of the Surface Science group within the Department of Materials, which is highly respected for its work, that has included pioneering developments, for example, in creating the best bonding surfaces currently available for steel and aluminium alloys.
Current research activities include creating surfaces that are significantly more non-stick than PTFE, adhesion promoting surfaces from novel electrochemical routes and abhesion promoting, leading to ice-phobic, oleo-phobic and hydrophobic surfaces.
