Newswise — As the auto industry attempts to rise from the ashes, one thing’s for sure, producing gas guzzlers is not the key to future success. To clean up its act, the auto industry needs to rethink its processes, right down to a car’s nuts and bolts. According to one Ryerson University researcher and newly elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), that’s where the key to greener vehicles is found: in magnesium alloys.
C. Ravi Ravindran, Professor in Ryerson’s Department of Mechanical Engineering is one of only 11 Canadians recently awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow. Dr. Ravindran was honoured by the AAAS for his distinguished contributions in the science and engineering of light alloys and for leadership in the Canadian engineering community. The AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of Science, which has the largest circulation of any peer-reviewed journal in the world.
“Dr. Ravindran is a leader in research and innovation at Ryerson,” said Vice-President, Research and Innovation Anastasios (Tas) Venetsanopoulos. “We are extremely proud of his accomplishments, especially his recent honour of being elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Ravindran is a prolific researcher and a tremendous ambassador for the exciting research into solutions to real world problems that is being conducted at Ryerson."
Since 1991 Ravindran and his team of research associates at Ryerson’s Centre for Near-net-shape Processing of Materials (CNPM) have been working on applied research to revolutionize the auto and aerospace industries. CNPM, a state-of-the-art lab founded by Ravindran, refines magnesium alloys to create lighter and more fuel-efficient vehicles.
“We develop casting processes for aluminum and magnesium alloy components for the transportation sector with focus on energy, emissions, recyclability and environment,” says Ravindran. “Stronger, lighter and ‘greener’ materials result in the more efficient design, production and operation of vehicles and aircraft.”
Magnesium alloys are approximately 35% lighter than aluminum alloys and nearly 80% lighter than steel. As a result, the use of magnesium alloy castings in new vehicles can play a critical role in reducing the weight of the vehicle, which in turn increases fuel efficiency and enhances performance. Magnesium alloys are structurally, economically and environmentally attractive.
The unique CNPM facility at Ryerson houses the prototyping, manufacturing, analysis and optimization of castings all under one roof. And it’s the only university-based lab that is creating castings using the relatively new lost-foam casting (LFC) process. LFC uses foam-casting patterns, through which molten metal is poured. The foam melts away almost immediately, leaving an exact replica of the pattern — and at a fraction of the cost and environmental impact as traditional methods. The lab has recently earned recognition for Ryerson from the Magnesium Division of the American Foundry Society, which presented the University with the Outstanding Organization Award.
Ryerson University is Canada's leader in innovative career-focused education, offering close to 100 PhD, master's, and undergraduate programs in the Faculty of Arts; the Faculty of Communication & Design; the Faculty of Community Services; the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Science; and the Ted Rogers School of Management. Ryerson University has graduate and undergraduate enrolment of 25,000 students. With more than 68,000 registrations annually, The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education is Canada's leading provider of university-based adult education.
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