For Mechanical & Material Engineering PhD student Mehdi Farrokhnejad, his research is all about finding mistakes.
Mechanical & Material Engineering PhD student Mehdi Farrokhnejad is generating research on magnesium alloys and its potential benefits in the auto sector.
Having finished his master’s last year under the supervision of Engineering professors Tony Straatman and Jeff Wood, Farrokhnejad is delving into the use of magnesium alloys in the auto sector.
Since 2001, a partnership between Meridian Lightweight Technologies Inc. and a research team supported by the AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence, has been exploring how to resolve magnesium defects.
AUTO21 is a national research initiative supported by the federal government that brings together more than 220 Canadian researchers at 45 universities with more than 200 industry and government partners. The annual research budget is about $11 million.
The team’s first project, led by Wood, investigated how to improve magnesium die-casting. Magnesium is attractive because it is substantially lighter than conventional materials used to build cars and trucks. Lighter materials add to fuel effiency and reduce emissions.
By 2004, approval was received for the second phase of the project, and this past year additional funding added another three years to the research project.
“Magnesium is light and has the potential for part consolidation, so it’s a good candidate for this purpose,” says Farrokhnejad.
The safety challenge, however, is to build structural components that bend, deform or break in a predictable way, instead of breaking suddenly. Currently, it is not possible with magnesium to predict the size and exact location where this will occur.
“Understanding the location and size is crucial because for some applications small pores within the interior of a part may not interfere with part’s function, but in some could result in unexpected fracture of the part,” says Farrokhnejad.
By working with castings, Farrokhnejad is trying to predict the location of critical casting defects such as microporosity and gas porosity, as well as the mechanical properties.
“Knowing that, it may be possible to move these spots to areas within the casting that do not compromise the part’s integrity,” says Farrokhnejad, whose work is focusing on the instrument panel beams of vehicles.
“I would personally love to solve the problem and I hope at least I can take a few steps further in solving it in the next three years of my PhD work.”
Farrokhnejad’s work toward a solution may be closer than he thinks. He recently competed in a national competition called AUTO21 TestDRIVE, where his research was ranked as one of the top seven brilliant ideas that could help the auto industry.
As a result, he moved to the second round of this competition (this past February in Ottawa), where he made a presentation to top business people to assess the market value of his research.
While he didn’t garner one of the two scholarships, the experience was priceless.
“I was honored to meet the most successful people in industry and politics, including the Minister of Industry, and create a good network for my project and future works,” he says. “Every moment of this competition was a learning experience.”
Farrokhnejad’s research has also landed him a story in the upcoming issue of Canadian Die Caster magazine.