Professor Steve Brown

Professor Steve Brown

Professor Emeritus (Engineering), Faculty of Science and Engineering

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Available For Postgraduate Supervision

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About

Professor Stephen Brown has a PhD in metallurgy (1986, Swansea University) and has spent his career in the computational modelling of materials processing. He became a Professor in Computational Materials Science in 2007.

Apart from UK-centred research projects with various industrial collaborators (e.g. Rolls-Royce, Tata Steel, Airbus/EADS) he has previously worked on a range of EU-funded projects in FP5 (e.g. SmartWeld) and FP6 (e.g. ALCAS) including coordination of 14 active partners in the work-package on computational materials modelling in the FP6 IMPRESS project (project value €40million); graded at the top level by two EU assessors. A recently completed FP7 project (concerning multiscale modelling and characterisation for hydrogen-embrittlement problems) was ‘MultiHy’ and Swansea is also part of the current ‘AMAZE’ FP7 project. Professor Brown is also a member of the Technical Evaluation Panel for the recently created Metallurgy Europe Eureka project.

Current collaborative research with UK and international companies includes advanced Discrete Element Modelling of granular flows, Combinatorial Metallurgy approaches for alloy discovery and Additive Manufacturing of metallic components (both modelling and experimentation).

Areas Of Expertise

  • Computational Materials

Career Highlights

Research

Professor Brown's recent and ongoing projects include:

  • Nano scale modelling of ageing of steels using Kinetic Monte Carlo Method (Tata Steel Company)
  • Nano scale modelling of the leaching of Raney-Ni catalytic powders using Kinetic Monte Carlo Method (European Space Agency, CERAM, Johnson-Matthey, Leiden University Holland among others)
  • Micro scale Computational Fluid Dynamics modelling for numerical determination of permeability during dendritic solidification of alloys
  • Micro scale electro chemical modelling of localized corrosion (Tata Steel Company)
  • Micro scale diffusion modelling for Ti alloys (Rolls-Royce plc)
  • Macro scale FD/FE simulation of moisture ingress into CFRP aerospace materials (Airbus UK)
  • Macro scale FE radiative heat transfer modelling (DSTL Farnborough)
  • Macro scale electro-thermo-mechanical modelling of hot-forming, hot-rolling, coiling & several resistance welding processes (Tata Steel Company)
  • Macro scale heat transfer and solidification modelling of casting processes (several Welsh-SMEs via ASTUTE project)
  • Discrete Element Modelling of Granular Flow for Blast Furnace and Granular Material Transport (Tata Steel Company)

New project work has now begun involving Lattice-Boltzmann Modelling of Additive Layer Manufacturing (new EU-FP7 Research Project with European Space Agency).