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CMatP Profile: Ivan Cole
Where do you work? Describe your job.
I’ve always been passionate about transforming society through technological innovation, and my current role provides a perfect opportunity to do this. I’m both Enabling Capability Platform Director for Advanced Manufacturing & Fabrication and a Professor at RMIT University in Melbourne. As ECP Director, I’m fortunate enough to work with leading researchers across the university to focus our research on critical issues for Australian society, and to build capability to translate their work into real advances. As a professor, I can lead my team to develop some of those technologies and work with companies to advance them to market.
What inspired you to choose a career in materials science and engineering and who or what has influenced you most, professionally?
My inspiration to take up a career, firstly in science and then in materials engineering, came from a book and a person. The book was ‘Science for the Citizen’ by Lancelot Hogben, first published in 1938. Its focus on science to better mankind is superbly evident in its introductory quote by Francis Bacon: “Such philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume of subtle, sublime or delectable speculation but shall be operative to the endowment and betterment of man’s life”
It sat on my parents’ book case and my reading of it blended with the heady days of technological advancement through the sixties & seventies, filling my mind with the promise of a better future through technology. The man was Prof. Doug Borland (my first supervisor) whose calm, patience and commitment taught me how a teacher and scientist should move in this world.
Which has been the most challenging job or project you have worked on to date and why?
My team is focussed on developing and applying methods for the rapid discovery of new materials. Rapid discovery has two advantages. Firstly, it takes significantly longer to discover a material than to design and build the engineered object (e.g. aircraft) that the material will constitute. This means we must develop materials two generations prior to the construction of the object, by which time the materials requirements may have changed, hence the pressing need for rapid materials discovery. Secondly, we can now design our materials (or at least part of them) at the molecular level. This leads to literally 100,000s (or more) possible materials design choices, and the corresponding need for fast methods to sort them. Our most exciting current project is with BASF (Germany) to combine rapid (i.e. robotic) experimentation and modelling to design the next generation of corrosion inhibitors, inhibitors, for example, for automobiles.
What does being a CMatP mean to you?
Being a CMatP and an active part of the Victoria and Tasmania branch of Materials Australia gives me a broader view of materials development and applications, assists in showcasing our community’s work – particularly that of PhDs and early career researchers, and helps us to get together with old and new friends.
What gives you the most satisfaction at work?
I have three prime, interrelated drivers at work. The first is simple and surely part of any researcher’s life – the joy of a new discovery and the application of that discovery to a real-world problem. We never work alone but in teams with our partners, students and early career researchers. Thus, my second and third drivers are helping and watching the development of my PhDs and ECRs as independent researchers, and building the relationships with my partners that turns our collective ideas into real change.
What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
Unlike the movies, I was never sat down by an elder scientist and given that classic advice that turned a wayward junior scientist into a Nobel prize winner. Rather my ‘advice’ came from watching my seniors. The lesson I’ve drawn from those who hold my respect is to ensure your research is aimed at solving scientific problems for our society, and to persist until it does.
What are you optimistic about?
Throughout my career there have been significant advances in the fields I have worked across, for example materials modelling, sensor systems, surface science, information science and nanoscience. In the last decade, we are becoming much more effective at linking them. If we do it right, we can make considerable scientific and engineering advances. But we must be wary of buzzwords and the shallow application of technology. For example, I’m a great believer in machine learning, but only if it is done in a rigorous and multidisciplinary manner. Machine learning can absolutely help us discover new materials, but only if the characterisation of materials in question is deeply and profoundly related to their performance at the relevant time and length scales. If we do this right, we can expect a host of new materials based on machine learningdriven molecular designs, that enhance traditional properties (corrosion resistance, strength, wear, etc.) but also deliver new functionalities (biocompatibility, responsiveness, etc.).
What have been your greatest professional and personal achievements?
In the Newcastle earthquake of 1989, lives were lost and buildings were damaged as brick ties (that join the outer brick cladding of a building to its framing) failed due to corrosion. No one knew if this was an isolated problem or could occur throughout Australia. In fact, no one knew precisely how building components degraded across our continent. Over the next decade, our team at CSIRO integrated field measurements with mathematical modelling and geographical information systems (GIS) to develop tools that could predict the life of building components (metal and timber) not only in Australia but throughout South East Asia. Furthermore, this applied research was built on multiscale models that analysed degradation in a fundamental way, making a very significant contribution to both atmospheric corrosion and timber research. This work has been fed into both national and international standards, making both our people and buildings safer.
This multiscale corrosion model and its GIS framework was extremely useful for materials selection and life prediction of infrastructure, but it could not be used to design materials. Throughout the 2000s we drove these models down from the micron scale to the molecular scale. This allowed us to design materials on the molecular scale and then estimate their lifetime within an engineered structure, for example a building or aircraft. This tool required intermeshing of rapid experimental data with multiscale modelling in a unique way.
Between mid-2000 and mid-2010, I had the privilege of leading a major division of CSIRO (as deputy or acting chief) through a period of profound change. I am proud that we rode the wave of change while making major contributions to national challenges in advanced manufacturing, climate change, new energy sources and advanced materials.
On a personal note – like any father – my greatest joy has been watching my children as they take up their separate lives.
What are the top three things on your ‘bucket list’?
Bucket List 1: Cheap and Pervasive Water Sensing
Our team is working on measuring water quality using fluorescent nanoparticles and molecules. This is not an academic exercise – we aim to deliver a water tester for less than 20 USD that can perform insitu tests for less than 50 cents per test, and can be operated by both adults and older children. And we are close – the device is made, we just need to perfect the fluorescent materials that will be used like ‘intelligent litmus paper’ in the device. When we succeed, we can provide cheap and pervasive water quality testing across the third world and to environmentally sensitive areas in Australia.
Bucket List 2: Autonomous Discovery – or Machine Learning with Senses
Now when we talk about Machine Learning, one thinks of massive quantities of data going into ‘black box’ algorithms and then equates that to standard working practice. But that is not how we work at all – we understand the world by close integration of our sensory and cognitive abilities. We’re aiming to develop robots that perform the same measurement, then use machine learning to interpret the measurements (added by multiscale models), and finally, on the basis of that analysis, perform another set of measurements in an iterative cycle. This will not be an academic development – it will also drive on demand, machinedriven discovery of new materials in industry.
Bucket List 3: Minimising Climate Change and Maximising Adaptation
After the summer of 2019-2020, no one can doubt that climate change is the major threat of this century, and arguably an extinction-level crisis. This is particularly relevant to our coastal areas, where most of our population reside, and also throughout the developing world. This is not a scientific challenge – by and large we know what must be done and how. The scientific community must convince the public, and thus the government to act decisively.
GLOBAL STEEL HEAT TREATMENT
FLAME & INDUCTION HARDENING
• Induction hardening to 400 Dia x 4000 Long (External), 200 Dia x 200 Long (Internal). • High & low frequency induction generators to suit required hardening depth. • Flame hardening to 650 Dia. • Tooth by tooth flame or induction hardening of gears & sprockets to 3500 OD using standard or specially designed inductors or burners.
