Automotive Engineering Graduate Program

About

The Swinburne’s Automotive Engineering Graduate Program (AEGP) aims to develop the next generation of industry-ready researchers and leaders in the automotive industry.

Greater and progressive capabilities are required to address future challenges for safe, sustainable and affordable zero-emission mobility, while there is a global race to keep up with the shift to electric vehicles, digitalisation, autonomous driving, connected vehicles, and new mobility services.

The AEGP integrates a comprehensive range of industry-engaged research and development (R&D) projects focused on the safety, lightweighting, durability, reliability and recycling of vehicle components of tomorrow. Depending on the industry partners, projects will be performed on-site, at the University campus or both. This application engages industry partners across the value chain in the automotive industry.
This research is funded by the Australian Government through Department of Industry, Innovation, and Science (DIIS).

 

Master and PhD Training Program

The program is designed to develop future leaders in the automotive engineering industry focusing on knowledge areas:

• Electrified vehicle on reliability
• Electric energy storage on cell and pack performance and cost, and improved battery management systems
• Electric energy storage on battery pack recycling
• Surface coatings and durability
• Polymer composites for automotive applications
• EV battery safety
• Light commercial vehicle safety
• Occupant and pedestrian protection

This project will develop a hybrid battery model and a multiple-fault model-based approach to diagnose battery faults for electric vehicles. One student required.

Investigator: Associate Professor Weixiang Shen 

This project will design a lightweight structure for a modular battery pack with strength, integrity, and durability, and develop its energy management with the joint estimation method for battery states in electric vehicles. One student required.

Investigator: Associate Professor Weixiang Shen 

This project will develop a process route for the recycling and recovery of valuable metals from battery packs. Detailed thermodynamic, techno-economic, and life cycle assessments of the process route will be developed which can inform a suitable business case for the automotive industry. Two students required.

Investigator: Professor M Akbar Rhamdhani

Multifunctional coatings for advanced high strength steel fasteners. This project investigates new mechanical plated coatings to provide guidelines to industry partners for the optimisation of coated fasteners with enhanced corrosion resistance and lubricity for automotive application. One student required.

Investigator: Dr Yvonne Durandet

Impact resistance structural adhesive (IRSA) are high performance adhesives which are designed to absorb energy during a high speed crash, and distribute the crash forces over a greater area and not isolated to a mechanical fixturing. IRSA are now used by the majority of car manufactures i.e. GM, Ford, BMW and Hyundai.

Currently, in the repair industry a safety critical repair can be made with an adhesive which has no impact resistance.  This will impact the over crash performance of the repaired vehicle.

In this project, it is proposed to conduct a series of simulations to study the effects on the overall safety performance of a vehicle which has been repaired with an adhesive which has no impact resistance.

One student required.

Investigator: Dr Yvonne Durandet 

This project includes the set-up of a unit cell model for carbon fibre reinforced polymer, characterisation of composite materials for sound and vibration transmission, and optimisation of composite materials and structures. Two students required.

Investigator: Professor Xiaodong Huang

This project will investigate battery safety and performance under static loading; battery safety under impact loading; and battery package design for impact resistance. Two students required.

Investigator: Professor Guoxing Lu

This project will oversee fabricating structural components by additive manufacturing; and experimental, numerical and theoretical evaluation of the mechanical performance of the structural components. Two students required.

Investigator: Professor Dong Ruan

This project will generate new injury criteria, and evaluate the effectiveness of various novel designs of safety measures in protecting the vehicle occupants as well as pedestrians in automobile accidents. Two students required.

Investigator: Dr Kwong Ming Tse

Please submit an expression of interest for these Master/PhD scholarship positions to respective individual project investigators using email subject “EOI-Swinburne Automotive Engineering Graduate Program Scholarship”. Please include a copy of your CV, academic degrees, academic transcripts, English test results (IELTS or TOEFL or equivalent) and copies of journal publications (if applicable).

After the initial discussion, supervisors will advise on the application instructions. Find out more about the application process.

Applicants must have completed at least four years (or equivalent) of tertiary education studies in a relevant discipline at a high level of achievement and must have been approved for the award of the degree(s) for which they studied.

A high level of achievement is defined as the equivalent of a four year Swinburne Honours degree that includes a significant research component in the fourth year, leading to an Honours degree class 1 (average grade between 80-100) or class 2A (average grade between 70-79) level.

Four years of tertiary studies can be demonstrated by the completion of any of the combinations of qualifications below, at the required standard of achievement:

• a bachelor degree (three or four years) and a Masters by Research; or
• a bachelor degree (three or four years) and an Honours year; or
• a bachelor degree (three or four years) and a Masters by Coursework; or
• a bachelor degree (three or four years) and a postgraduate diploma in Psychology; or
• a bachelor degree (four years) in an approved discipline.

International applicants must provide evidence of one of the following:

• minimum IELTS overall band of 6.5 (Academic Module) with no individual band below 6.0 or a TOEFL iBT (internet-based) minimum score of 79 (with a reading band no less than 18 and writing band no less than 20); or Pearson (PTE) 58 (no communicative skills less than 50) no longer than 24 months before submitting your application
• satisfactory completion of Swinburne’s English for Academic Purposes (EAP 5 Advanced level) with an overall 70%, all skills 65%
• successful completion of a total of 24 months (full-time equivalent) of formal study where the language of instruction and assessment was English at AQF level 7 or above (or equivalent) at an approved university no longer than 60 months before submitting your application.