Room 50-C312B, Hawken Engineering Building
School of Engineering
Phone +61-7-3365 4500
Fax +61-7-3365 4599
Email g.schaffer@uq.edu.au

Education
BSc The University of Cape Town 1980
MSc (Appl. Sci.) The University of Cape Town 1983
PhD The University of Birmingham, 1988
Grad. Cert. Ed. (Higher Ed.) Queensland, 1996

Current Employment
The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld, Australia.
2007 - Head, School of Engineering
2003- Professor of Materials
2003 - 2004, Research Director of the School of Engineering
2002- Head, Division of Materials
1999 - 2002, Reader, Dept of Mining, Minerals & Materials Eng.
1994 - 1998, Senior Lecturer, Dept of Mining & Metallurgical Eng.
1991- 1993, Lecturer, Dept of Mining & Metallurgical Eng.

Previous Employment
The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia
1990 - Lecturer, Department of Mechanical Engineering
1988 – 1990, University Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Pretoria, South Africa
1983 – 1985, Research Scientist

Research Field
Alloy development and the effect of processing on structure and properties, particularly powder metallurgy, sintering and rapid manufacturing. Research Details (http://www.materials.uq.edu.au/powdermetallurgy/)

Publications
Over 100 refereed papers, including five patents and more than 60 refereed journal articles. Keynote or invited papers have been presented at conferences in South Africa, India, Korea, Portugal and the USA.

Postgraduate Students
Eleven PhD students and one MPhil student have graduated since 1996.

Research Achievements
I have made three significant contributions to the field of powder metallurgy. The first concerns the sintering of pressed-and-sintered aluminium alloys for automotive applications. Two patents have been lodged, one has been awarded internationally. The University has sold the commercialisation rights to a lead containing alloy and industrial trials are in progress in the USA, Korea and Germany. Commercial production of a tin containing alloy for automobile applications in the USA has commenced and is in service in the GM Northstar engine used in the 2003 Cadillac Seville and deVille. The second contribution concerns the development of an aluminium infiltration system that facilitates the production of functional prototypes by selective laser sintering. The simplicity and rapidity of the process compared to conventional production routes, combined with the ability to fabricate complicated parts of almost any geometry and with high dimensional precision, provides an additional means to manufacture aluminum components. This work has recently been published in Science. One patent has been awarded in the USA and two further patent applications have been lodged, a license agreement has been signed and commercialisation is scheduled for 2005. At the University of Western Australia from 1988-1990, I worked on mechanical alloying with Professor Paul McCormick. We demonstrated for the first time that the ball mill could be used as an active chemical reactor. This work resulted in an international patent and is in the process of being commercialised.
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Other Activities
Editor, Materials Forum, 1994-1999
Editorial Board, P/M Science and Technology Briefs
International Liaison Committee, International Journal of Powder Metallurgy
Advisory Board, Materials Technology
Guest Editor, Journal of Light Metals, 2002
Member of the Technical Program Committee, International Conferences on Powder Metallurgy and Particulate Materials, New York 2000, New Orleans 2001, Las Vegas 2003, Chicago 2004, Montreal 2005
Member of the Technical Program Committee, World Congress on Powder Metallurgy and Particulate Materials, Orlando, FL, 2002, Vienna Austria 2004.
Far East Organising Chairman of the 2002 Conference on "Powder Deposition for Rapid Manufacturing", San Antonio, TX

Selected Publications
T.B.Sercombe and G.B.Schaffer: “On the role of magnesium and nitrogen in the infiltration of aluminium by aluminium for rapid prototyping applications” Acta Materialia, 52 (2004) pp3019-3025

T.B.Sercombe and G.B.Schaffer: “Rapid Manufacturing of Aluminum Components” Science, 301 (2003) pp1225-1227

G.B.Schaffer and B.J.Hall: “The Influence of the Atmosphere on the Sintering of Aluminium” Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 33A (2002) pp3279-3284

R.A.Sutton and G.B.Schaffer: “Monte Carlo Simulation of Solid State Sintering” Materials Science and Engineering A, 335 (2002) pp 253-259

G.B.Schaffer, S.H.Huo, J.Drennan and G.Auchterlonie: "The Effect of Trace Elements on the Sintering of an Al-Zn-Mg-Cu Alloy" Acta Materialia, 49 (2001) pp 2671-2678

C.W.Souvignier, T.B.Sercombe, S.H.Huo, P.Calvert and G.B.Schaffer : “Freeform Fabrication of Aluminium Metal Matrix Composites” Journal of Materials Research, 16 (2001) pp 2613-2618

T.B.Sercombe, G.B.Schaffer and P.Calvert: “Freeform fabrication of functional prototypes using powder metallurgy” Journal of Materials Science, 34 (1999) 4245-4251

T.B.Sercombe and G.B.Schaffer: "The effect of trace elements on the sintering of Al-Cu alloys" Acta Materialia, 47 (1999) 689-697

R.N.Lumley, T.B.Sercombe and G.B.Schaffer: "Surface oxide and the role of magnesium during the sintering of aluminium" Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 30A (1999) 457-463

J.A.Taylor, G.B.Schaffer and D.H.StJohn : "The role of iron in the formation of porosity in Al-Si-Cu based casting alloys: Part 1. Initial experimental observations" Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 30A (1999) 1643-1650

J.A.Taylor, G.B.Schaffer and D.H.StJohn : "The role of iron in the formation of porosity in Al-Si-Cu based casting alloys: Part 2. A phase diagram approach" Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 30A (1999) 1651-1655

J.A.Taylor, G.B.Schaffer and D.H.StJohn : "The role of iron in the formation of porosity in Al-Si-Cu based casting alloys: Part 3. A microstructural model" Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 30A (1999) 1657-1662

N.J.Calos, J.S.Forrester and G.B.Schaffer: "A crystallographic contribution to the mechanism of a mechanically induced solid state reaction” Journal of Solid State Chemistry 122 (1996) 273-280

J.S.Forrester and G.B.Schaffer: "The chemical kinetics of mechanical alloying" Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A: 26A (1995) 725-730

G.B.Schaffer and P.G.McCormick: "On the kinetics of mechanical alloying" Metallurgical Transactions A: 23A (1992) 1285-1290

G.B.Schaffer and P.G.McCormick: "Anomalous combustion effects during mechanical alloying" Metallurgical Transactions A: 22A (1991) 3019-3024

G.B.Schaffer and P.G.McCormick: "Displacement reactions during mechanical alloying" Metallurgical Transactions A: 21A (1990) 2789-2794

G.B.Schaffer, M.H.Loretto, R.E.Smallman and J.W.Brooks: “The stability of the oxide dispersion in Inconel Alloy MA6000” Acta Metallurgica: 37 (1989) 2551-2558