Innovative technology earns Queen's University student top honour in national
automotive competition

TORONTO, Nov. 24 /CNW/ - New technology to predict shear fractures in advanced high strength steels has helped a Queen's University student win a national automotive research competition. Andrew Sloan, a Master of Applied Science student, won the AUTO21 TestDRIVE competition, receiving a $10,000 scholarship for his work on void damage rates in dual-phase steel grades.

The automotive sector's shift towards light-weight vehicles demands a material change from conventional high strength steel towards thinner and higher strength sheet steels. However, the high strengths of advanced steel grades typically comes at a price of reduced ductility, which may result in costly premature component failure during particular forming operations. Through testing, researchers may be able to develop models to understand the failure mechanisms in high strength steels and mediate errors under common stress states.

The AUTO21 TestDRIVE competition showcased leading edge technologies and automotive knowledge developed in part by Canadian university graduate students. As Canada's automotive research program, AUTO21 provides funding to 39 applied R&D projects at 45 universities across the country. About 500 students contribute to these projects, along with 200 academic researchers. Since its establishment in 2001, AUTO21 has supported more than 1400 graduate student researchers with federal and private-sector funding. A recent economic impact study estimates that AUTO21 research has generated more than $1.1 billion in economic and social savings to Canada.

"Our HQP have a wide range of perspectives and initiatives that are helping advance Canada's automotive sector," said Dr. Peter Frise, Scientific Director and CEO of AUTO21. "Competitions like TestDRIVE help drive innovation and push students to achieve their full potential, while bringing the next great idea closer to the market."

TestDRIVE was held in conjunction with Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters' 2010 Sustainable Manufacturing Summit in Toronto, Ontario.

"The future of manufacturing will be driven by innovative ideas of our young generation," said Ian Howcroft, vice president, CME Ontario. "TestDRIVE is the epitome of transforming today's great ideas into tomorrow's innovation."

In addition to the $10,000 scholarship, a $5,000 scholarship was awarded to Rajaprakash Ramachandramoorthy of McGill University for his research on laser transmission welding.

AUTO21 supports research projects in six key areas: health, safety and injury prevention; societal issues; materials and manufacturing; design processes; powertrains, fuels and emissions; and intelligent systems and sensors. AUTO21 is supported by the Government of Canada through a Networks of Centres of Excellence program, and its administrative centre is hosted by the University of Windsor.

For further information:

Stephanie Campeau
Communications Manager
AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence
Tel: [phone] ext. 4129
Cell: 519.890.6830