Peter Hodgson

Prof Peter Hodgson

Director of Research, ITRI, Deakin University, Australia

• PhD, University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia (1994)
• B.Eng (Hon), Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, (1979)
• DHC, Valenciennes (2005)

2009 -2014: ARC Laureatte Fellow
2008-present: Director, Institute for Technology Research and Innovation, Deakin Univ.
2006-2008: Director, Centre for Material and Fibre Innovation, Deakin Univ.
2005-present: ARC Federation Fellow
1995- 2004: Professor of Engineering, Deakin Univ.
2001- present: Associate Dean, Research, Deakin Univ.
1999- 2001: Head of School, Engineering and Technology Deakin Univ.
1985 -1995: BHP Research

Professor Hodgson worked in industry at the then BHP Research Laboratories in Melbourne for 16 years. He gained his PhD in 1994 and in 1996 moved to Deakin University as the Chair in Engineering. He has grown the research activities from a very low base to now having almost 200 students and research funded staff. In 2009 he was appointed as the Director of the Institute for Technology Research and Innovation, a multidisciplinary research centre at Deakin with 230 researchers and research students.

Professor Hodgson's research includes steel processing and the development of new alloys, and downstream ferrous and non-ferrous manufacturing processes associated with the automotive industry. He currently holds several ARC Discovery and Linkage grants, all related to metal processing. In 2004 he was made an Alfred Deakin Professor of the University for outstanding contributions to research and awarded an ARC Federation Fellow by the Australian Research Council in 2004. The University of Valenciennes award made him an Honoris Doctoris Causa in 2005 for contributions to metal forming research, while in 2006 AGH in Poland awarded him an Honorary Medal for contributions to materials science. In 2009 he was awarded an ARC Laureatte Fellowship to pursue research related to the next generation of cleaner manufacturing processes and products.

He has over 500 publications and over 30 invited and keynote lectures at international conferences. In the past his work on modelling of thermo-mechanical processing and ultrafine grain steels has received great interest. At present his work is focussing on advanced high strength steels and their characterisation by advanced methods, nano-bainites, precipitation hardening, nano-structured metals and surface engineering.

Study of Precipitation in Next Generation HSLA Steels

S Mukherjee, I B Timokhina and P D Hodgson

Deakin University

ABSTRACT

The development of Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) for the Automotive industry is an area of great research activity at present as we attempt to reduce the weight of vehicles while improving performance, comfort and safety.  Most AHSS developments have focussed on the introduction of other phases to improve both the ductility and strength.  Recently, though, some steel companies have reviewed the potential to improve strength through more control of the precipitation hardening.  In this work we have studied the effect of thermomechanical processing and composition on the precipitation hardening of Ti microalloyed steels.  A novel aspect of this work has been the use of atom probe tomography to gain a quantitative understanding of the size spacing and composition of these precipitates.  This combined with TEM and conventional mechanical testing has allowed us to understand at a more detailed level the potential for precipitation hardening in this alloy system.