Prof. Julian Allwood Lecture on UK Steel Industry

The London Materials Society welcomes Prof. Julian Allwood, Professor of Engineering and Environment at University of Cambridge who will be giving us an update on the future of the Steel industry in the UK, including the  situation at Tata Steel, Port Talbot. It is an interesting topic involving current affairs, given the possibility of potential bidders posing to ‘pull-out’ after UK sterling fell in value after the EU referendum.

Biography

Through his EPSRC Leadership Fellowship 2009-13, granted for work on Material Efficiency, Prof. Allwood and his team of over twenty post-doctoral researchers have published a great deal of exciting work on Material Efficiency.  His group also works in collaboration with many Industrial Partners to look into the reduction of greenhouse gases of intensive industries by reducing the manufacture of new materials.

There is also a tendency of new steel to lose out on higher margins, limiting its the potential through inferior business models. A more integrated business model network will be discussed for improving the UK Steel Industry.

To add to his extensive body of work, Prof. Allwood is also involved in two spin-out companies; Reduse Ltd commercializes laser un-printing and Foreseer Ltd provide an innovative tool for analysing resource futures. Furthermore, Prof. Allwood has published two books under the series title ‘Sustainable Materials’.

Research Interests

With an Industrial background and his academic post, Professor Allwood counsels the Steel Industry, amongst other sectors, on efficient processing of the commodity. Prof. Allwood’s research interests include visualization of energy, material and natural resource systems through the perspective of the interactions between relevant Industrial sectors. Further, the reduction of material demand is observed through case-study evidence, providing material efficiencies and exploration of future business and policy paradigms. Novel processing of materials are also developed to produce efficient components of supply chains in low volumes, minimizing the prospects for scrap and enabling re-use before the eventuality of destructive re-cycling.