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Zhao, Yue Associate Professor

Associate Professor

  • Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences
  • School of Mechanical, Materials, Mechatronic and Biomedical Engineering

Overview

I'm currently the Discipline advisor of Materials Engieering of UOW. I look after student enquiries, industry connections and marketing in schools. My research interest is surface engineering and I have collaborations with BlueScope, bradken, and Sutton Tools.

Research Overview

  • As the group leader, I have built up a research surface engineering research group at UOW with a comprehensive set of research capabilities in physical vapour deposition (filtered arc deposition and ultra-high-vacuum magnetron sputtering), plasma treatment on surfaces including nitriding and oxidation, organic/hybrid coating synthesis via UV curing and sol-gel methods, and surface tribological and corrosion characterization instruments. The group currently has three academic members, one PostDoc research fellow, two PhD students, and accommodates a number of master and honours projects and visiting research fellows/project students each year.
    In the research field of surface engineering, I have made contributions mainly in three areas in the last ten years: PVD coating of tantalum and its compounds on titanium alloys for biomedical implant applications, PVD coating of hard-casing materials for metal cutting tools with prolonged life span, and corrosion behaviour evaluation and control by organic coatings on Al-Zn-Mg alloy and Mg-based surfaces.
    In the research area of PVD coating of tantalum and its compounds on titanium alloys for biomedical implant applications, together with my former PhD student Hee and CSIRO collaborators Drs Martin and Bendavid I developed a high-current cathodic arc deposition procedure for stable deposition of the high melting point tantalum material and obtained film surfaces with controllable oxide and nitri- oxide status and determined that these the surface valence and topography status are key factors for improved corrosion resistance in simulated body fluid and cell adhesion by tantalum and tantalum nitride films. This research pilot research has been continuously supported by UOW Small Grant and PhD scholarship since 2012 and produced 6 journal publications.
    In the research area of corrosion protection of Al-Zn-Mg surface for steel sheet products, I am a project leader of Project C3 “Surface engineering of metal coated steel products” in the ARC ITRP Steel Hub 2015-2019. Together with my research fellow Jamali, PhD student Jurak and BlueScope research partners we developed a new methodology on fast evaluation of anaerobic wet-stacking behaviour of metal surfaces, highly stable surface passivation by a rare earth compound treatment, and surface mono-molecule-layer modification through a sol-gel method for improved resin coating adhesion.
    In the research area of surface coating for long-life metal-cutting tools, I was the project leader for the UOW node in project “Surface Engineering for Next Generation Tooling” 2010-2014. With my former PhD student Sinkovits, and collaborators from Sutton Tools and IMRT, I developed a modulated deposition method in the cathodic arc deposition procedure which doubled the service life of the TiN coated high speed steel drill bits manufactured at Sutton Tools. Through this DMTC research I deepened my knowledge and expertise in filtered cathodic arc deposition method through collaboration with Prof D Doyle of RMIT, Dr Steve Dowey of Sutton tools, and Prof P Martin and Dr Bendavid of CSIRO, with visit deposition experiments using the cutting-edge cathodic arc deposition facilities in Sutton Tools and DMTC.
     
    As symposium chair, I organized a series international conference: CAMS2018-Surface Engineering Symposium, AMPT2012-Surface Engineering Symposium, PACRIM 2011- New Materials for Increasing Demand of Energy Symposium, and as the chair I organized 3 UOW-Beihang University and 2 UOW-University of Science Technology Beijing (USTB) bilateral materials workshops since 2014. Since PhD graduation, I have obtained research funding of a total AU$ 2 million from ARC DP, ARC ITRP, DMTC, ANSIE Award, and UOW Small Grant schemes. I have 89 journal publications with the majority in high impact factor journals, such as JACS (IF 9.042), Appl. Phys. Lett (IF 3.8), Acta Electrochemica (IF 5.116), Surface Coating Technology (2.906), Bioelectrochemistry (IF 3,789, Thin Solid Films (2.038), and International Journal for Hydrogen Energy (IF 4.052), and a citation number >2000 (H index 19 in Scopus). I am also a regular reviewer for several reputable journals, including International Acta Materilia, Thin Solid films, Surface Coating Technology, Journal of Alloys and Compounds, Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Journal of Power Source, Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Journal of Materials Chemistry, Journal of Solid State Chemistry, Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, etc. I was a Guest Editor for Thin Solid Films and International Journal of Ionics.

Available as Research Supervisor

Available for Collaborative Projects

Selected Publications

Investigator On

Keywords

  • Wear, Corrosion, Biomedical materials,

    surface-engineering, nano-energy-materials, hydrogen-storage

Web Of Science Researcher Id

  • C-1739-2014

Research Overview

  • As the group leader, I have built up a research surface engineering research group at UOW with a comprehensive set of research capabilities in physical vapour deposition (filtered arc deposition and ultra-high-vacuum magnetron sputtering), plasma treatment on surfaces including nitriding and oxidation, organic/hybrid coating synthesis via UV curing and sol-gel methods, and surface tribological and corrosion characterization instruments. The group currently has three academic members, one PostDoc research fellow, two PhD students, and accommodates a number of master and honours projects and visiting research fellows/project students each year.
    In the research field of surface engineering, I have made contributions mainly in three areas in the last ten years: PVD coating of tantalum and its compounds on titanium alloys for biomedical implant applications, PVD coating of hard-casing materials for metal cutting tools with prolonged life span, and corrosion behaviour evaluation and control by organic coatings on Al-Zn-Mg alloy and Mg-based surfaces.
    In the research area of PVD coating of tantalum and its compounds on titanium alloys for biomedical implant applications, together with my former PhD student Hee and CSIRO collaborators Drs Martin and Bendavid I developed a high-current cathodic arc deposition procedure for stable deposition of the high melting point tantalum material and obtained film surfaces with controllable oxide and nitri- oxide status and determined that these the surface valence and topography status are key factors for improved corrosion resistance in simulated body fluid and cell adhesion by tantalum and tantalum nitride films. This research pilot research has been continuously supported by UOW Small Grant and PhD scholarship since 2012 and produced 6 journal publications.
    In the research area of corrosion protection of Al-Zn-Mg surface for steel sheet products, I am a project leader of Project C3 “Surface engineering of metal coated steel products” in the ARC ITRP Steel Hub 2015-2019. Together with my research fellow Jamali, PhD student Jurak and BlueScope research partners we developed a new methodology on fast evaluation of anaerobic wet-stacking behaviour of metal surfaces, highly stable surface passivation by a rare earth compound treatment, and surface mono-molecule-layer modification through a sol-gel method for improved resin coating adhesion.
    In the research area of surface coating for long-life metal-cutting tools, I was the project leader for the UOW node in project “Surface Engineering for Next Generation Tooling” 2010-2014. With my former PhD student Sinkovits, and collaborators from Sutton Tools and IMRT, I developed a modulated deposition method in the cathodic arc deposition procedure which doubled the service life of the TiN coated high speed steel drill bits manufactured at Sutton Tools. Through this DMTC research I deepened my knowledge and expertise in filtered cathodic arc deposition method through collaboration with Prof D Doyle of RMIT, Dr Steve Dowey of Sutton tools, and Prof P Martin and Dr Bendavid of CSIRO, with visit deposition experiments using the cutting-edge cathodic arc deposition facilities in Sutton Tools and DMTC.
     
    As symposium chair, I organized a series international conference: CAMS2018-Surface Engineering Symposium, AMPT2012-Surface Engineering Symposium, PACRIM 2011- New Materials for Increasing Demand of Energy Symposium, and as the chair I organized 3 UOW-Beihang University and 2 UOW-University of Science Technology Beijing (USTB) bilateral materials workshops since 2014. Since PhD graduation, I have obtained research funding of a total AU$ 2 million from ARC DP, ARC ITRP, DMTC, ANSIE Award, and UOW Small Grant schemes. I have 89 journal publications with the majority in high impact factor journals, such as JACS (IF 9.042), Appl. Phys. Lett (IF 3.8), Acta Electrochemica (IF 5.116), Surface Coating Technology (2.906), Bioelectrochemistry (IF 3,789, Thin Solid Films (2.038), and International Journal for Hydrogen Energy (IF 4.052), and a citation number >2000 (H index 19 in Scopus). I am also a regular reviewer for several reputable journals, including International Acta Materilia, Thin Solid films, Surface Coating Technology, Journal of Alloys and Compounds, Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Journal of Power Source, Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Journal of Materials Chemistry, Journal of Solid State Chemistry, Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, etc. I was a Guest Editor for Thin Solid Films and International Journal of Ionics.

Selected Publications

Investigator On

Keywords

  • Wear, Corrosion, Biomedical materials,

    surface-engineering, nano-energy-materials, hydrogen-storage

Web Of Science Researcher Id

  • C-1739-2014
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