October 3, 2006 Source: :
http://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/story.cfm?id=4264 Scientists, automakers join forces
to revolutionize car
industry by Jane Christmas
October 03, 2006 Senior executives and researchers from the major automakers and associated
industries will meet at McMaster University on Thursday, Oct. 5 to work
toward making parts more durable, and cars more fuel-efficient and kinder to
the environment. The symposium will be held in conjunction with the opening of the Light
Metal Casting Research Centre at McMaster University. The ribbon-cutting
will begin at 11 a.m. in the John Hodgins Engineering Building, Room 101;
the symposium itself will take place at the Michael DeGroote Centre for
Learning and Discovery, Room 1309. Details of speakers and seminars are
available here. "This Centre is critical to Canada's leadership in automotive
manufacturing," said David Braley, president, Orlick Industries, a leading
automotive parts manufacturer in Ontario. "Companies like ours, which make
parts that are used around the world, need the absolute newest research and
expertise, and this is where we'll get it. The Centre will quite literally
revolutionize new materials, design capabilities and manufacturing
processes, and in doing so it will ramp up competitiveness, and make cars
cleaner and greener." The Light Metal Casting Research Centre is already working with industry and
government to advance automotive casting research for engines and body
panels, and to develop a skilled workforce for the automotive casting
sector. Among the project partners are Orlick Industries, General Motors,
Burlington Technologies, Alcan International, and Magna Powertrain. "For the last 80 years, the car industry has been using the same recipe to
make cars; it's time to find better ingredients," said Sumanth Shankar, who
holds the Braley-Orlick Chair in Advanced Manufacturing at McMaster
University, and is also associate professor of mechanical engineering and
founding director of the Centre. Shankar has tested 20 different recipes in his "kitchen," the centre's
ultra-modern foundry at McMaster University. "It takes a long time, and a
lot of development, but we're closing in on an amazing new material," he
said. The Centre will be part of the McMaster Manufacturing Research Institute
(MMRI), one of the largest university manufacturing research institutes in
Canada. MMRI was established in May 2000 to pursue research in polymer
processing and design, machining systems, metal forming,
micro-manufacturing, robotics and manufacturing automation, and thermal
processing. Thursday's symposium will feature internationally renowned scientists who
will discuss current research in technology and training. In addition to
Shankar, speakers include Diran Apelian, Metal Processing Institute,
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (United States); Weidong Huang, Northwestern
Polytechnic University (Xi'an, China); Lars Arnberg, Norwegian University of
Science & Technology (Trondsheim, Norway); Mark Gallerneault, Novelis Global
Technology Centre (formerly Alcan Research & Development Centre, Kingston,
Ont.) ; and Daryoush Emadi, CANMET Materials Technology Laboratory (Ottawa). McMaster University, a world-renowned, research-intensive university,
fosters a culture of innovation, and a commitment to discovery and learning
in teaching, research and scholarship. Based in Hamilton, the University,
one of only four Canadian universities to be listed on the Top 100
universities in the world, has a student population of more than 23,000, and
an alumni population of more than 120,000 in 128 countries.
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