PhD Studentship
Behaviour of corrosion-protection coatings on light alloys: prediction of in-service performance
Department of Materials
Aircraft manufacturers would like to predict the in-service performance of painted aluminium aircraft structures as a function of surface treatment, choice of corrosion-inhibiting primer and topcoat, and exposure conditions, using a computer model.

The starting point would be a defective protection scheme (e.g. scratch through to bare metal), but will need to progress to intact coatings.

The exposure conditions will be wet/dry cycling and temperature cycling, with different levels of salt.

The work will examine the electrochemical impedance of the system, wet adhesion, and map local electrochemical activity using a scanning Kelvin probe. Under-coating damage and blistering will be imaged by Scanning Acoustic Microscopy and will be supervised by Dr John Sykes and Dr David Dixon (Airbus).

The aim is to provide mechanistic understanding and parameter values for input to a computer model.

For more information contact Dr John Sykes (john.sykes@materials.ox.ac.uk).

This project is supported by an EPSRC Industrial CASE award and is sponsored by Airbus UK Limited.

For details on how to apply and other relevant information, please take a look at the Department of Materials' website under "How to apply" at: http://www.materials.ox.ac.uk/postgraduate/index.htm.