Research Associate - IGNITE

School/Department:
Faculty of Engineering

Work Arrangement:
Full Time (On site)

Contract Type:
Fixed-term

Closing Date: 23/09/2026

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Steelmaking has been prominent in the UK for generations. The IGNITE Future Manufacturing Research Hub is a £35M project funded by £11M of EPSRC funds as well as by Universities, Trade Bodies, RTOs and Businesses over 7 years and aims to support the industry as we develop new, more environmentally friendly options to ensure the future of manufacturing of steel in the UK, to deliver environmental and economic resilience for key areas of the UK manufacturing economy including defence, transport, construction and energy.

The IGNITE project aims to deliver cutting edge science and the engineering research required to create carbon neutral, resource-efficient UK steel supply chains.

Spanning the School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering, and the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering at the University, the Research Associate will be the main contributor to the research task “The effect of residuals on the performance of railway rail and high strength wire steels” (New Processes for New Products) of the IGNITE research portfolio. The well-publicised change from blast furnace to electric arc furnace for the manufacture of steel means an inevitable increase in residual elements (particularly Cu and Sn) in the steel product.

This project will focus on residual elements in high carbon steels used for the manufacture of, e.g. railway rail steels and high strength wire. You will be responsible for manufacturing steels from melting through to thermomechanical processing. You will undertake extensive characterisation of the steel microstructure and mechanical properties and correlate these with the process route. You will conduct modelling investigation and validation of the performance (wear, resistance to fatigue cracking) under working conditions, such as rolling-sliding contact loading.

This will lead to recommendations to improve the steel products. You will work closely with the industrial sponsors of this work. You will also need to write research papers, for publication in high impact research journals.

Carry out research tasks focused on project delivery, under the supervision of the academic lead of Professor Mark Rainforth and Professor David Fletcher:

Inform and perform fundamental research on microstructure/process/property relationships in advanced steel alloys.

Carry out quantitative characterisation of the resulting materials.

Carry out modelling of the steel performance under application conditions (plastic damage, wear, fatigue), validating this with laboratory testing.

Plan work effectively, including availability of resources (equipment usage), liaison with technical staff, deadlines, project milestones and overall research aims, and report to line manager(s) on a regular basis.

Liaise, coordinate and collaborate with other members of the IGNITE team and industrial sponsors who are involved in the experimental investigations.

Generate regular project update reports and presentations and deliver them to the project sponsors at technical review meetings.

Write journal and conference articles to disseminate research findings in high quality Journals and at national/international conferences.

Prioritise activities in order to achieve objectives agreed with the supervisors and project sponsors.

Maintain up to date knowledge of relevant literature.

Carry out other duties, commensurate with the grade and remit of the post.