Page 12 - Materials Australia - April 2019

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CMatP Profile: Dr Christiane Schulz – CMatP
Dr Christiane Schulz studied mechanical engineering at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, focusing on material science and tribology related researches. She combined both researches in her diploma thesis (equivalent to a Masters) at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago where she investigated the fretting behaviour of certain materials used in artificial hip and knee implants.
After graduating in 2007, she took a gap year and travelled to Australia on a work and travel visa, for 17 months, where she fell in love with the Australian life style.
Back in Germany in 2009, she started working for the RWTH Aachen University at the Surface Engineering Institute,
as a Project Engineer in the Thermal
Spray group. During this time, Christiane completed her doctorate, in which she developed a material for arc spraying
of offshore wind turbines, that is more corrosion resistant than standard materials used today.
Subsequently, Christiane took up a position as a Product Manager for the coatings department of Castolin Eutectic—a global company that specialises in welding, brazing and thermal spraying. After a year and a half, she moved into the research and development department of the same company. In this role, Christiane developed and tested novel coating solutions for various industries, including oil and gas, agriculture, food, automotive, energy,
marine, pulp and paper, and steel.
In 2017, Christiane joined the University of South Australia’s Future Industries Institute as a Research Fellow, focused on wear and corrosion resistant materials in the Coatings Group. She is currently working on an $8 million project, with industry partners LaserBond and Boart Longyear, to develop wear resistant coatings for drilling equipment.
Where do you work and describe your job.
I currently work at the University of South Australia in the Future Industries Institute (FII). The FII was established in 2015 as a merger of the Ian Wark Research Institute (IWRI), Mawson Institute (MI) and the Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation (CERAR).
The new multi-million dollar FII focuses on building knowledge and capacity
in core future industries and develops
the University of South Australia’s internationally competitive research capacity across four key strands: Minerals and Resources Engineering; Energy and Advanced Manufacturing; Environmental Science and Engineering; and Biomaterials Engineering and Nanomedicine.
I am a Research Fellow, working in the area of Wear and Corrosion Resistant Materials, which fall under the FII’s Energy and Advanced Manufacturing strand.
My research focus is wear and corrosion resistant coatings applied via laser cladding and thermal spraying.
I joined FII 18 months ago when I was offered a sponsorship from the university to fill a vacant position in a project that deals with the development of wear resistant laser clad coatings in mining. Since then, I have had the opportunity
to establish a state-of-the art wear
and corrosion testing lab, as well as access the supporting facilities such as materialography and microscopy.
I am working towards establishing an Additive Manufacturing Centre for Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) here at the University of South Australia. LMD is basically a laser cladding process—but with an almost indefinite number of layers—so that large and complex parts can be built.
In contrast to the powder-bed based process Selective Laser Melting, the size
of LMD printed parts is only limited by
the range of the robot used for material deposition. This is a topic I am really passionate about and I am glad to have won funding, for the next five years, to develop additive manufactured parts
via LMD in an ITTC-ARC project Surface Engineering for Advanced Materials-SEAM.
What inspired you to choose a career in materials science and engineering?
I completed a degree in mechanical engineering. My material science professor, Prof. Alfons Fischer, is the reason why I specialised in materials science. He always pointed out that if a component
or construction fails, it is the material that breaks. Therefore, if you understand what is going on in the material, you can avoid failure, thereby saving money and even lives.
Who or what has influenced you most professionally?
The financial crisis in 2008-2009 influenced my career the most. I completed my degree in mechanical engineering in
2007. After finishing university, I travelled to Australia as a backpacker and toured around the country, taking on fruit picking and hospitality jobs in remote areas.
When I returned to Germany in early
2009, I could not find a job in industry. So, I ended up applying for Research Fellow positions at universities. Without the financial crisis and the lack of industry jobs available, I would never have completed my PhD. Without my PhD, I would not be where I am today.
Which has been the most challenging job or project you have worked on to date and why?
Unfortunately, I am not allowed to talk about the projects that were really challenging due to non-disclosure agreements and intellectual property issues. However, challenging projects usually have a common reason for
why they are challenging—that reason usually is not a technical issue. Lack of communication and different expectations on the project goals are the main reasons for a project to become difficult or even for a project to fail.
If people utilise an open, honest and pro-
12 | APRIL 2019
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