Queensland\'s Department of State Development, Trade and Investment (DSDTI) is promoting CQU Professor Richard Clegg\'s work with industry on its website.

Professor Clegg, based at the Process Engineering and Light Metals (PELM) Centre on Gladstone Campus, has gained funding from DSDTI over the past 3 years.

The DSDTI website provides case studies of his high-standard of work with regional companies.

The PELM Centre has worked with Queensland Alumina Limited to test strategies to minimise corrosive damage to mild steel heater tubes. This work and other QAL-related projects have been carried out with the help of CQU lecturer Jason Connor.

Industrial and Technical Services has been able to call on the staff and advanced facilities of the PELM Centre to help its clients manage maintenance issues. In particular, the entities have worked closely to address issues associated with conveyer belt shafts at a Queensland mine.

The PELM Centre has been able to improve the competitiveness of Queensland manufacturing firm PAC Foundry. For example, PELM helped with a metallurgical assessment of failed dragline pins which had been returned by an overseas customer.

\"The advanced materials evaluation facilities at PELM are a great resource for companies such as PAC, which cannot afford facilities of their own but need periodic access to metallurgical expertise,\" Professor Clegg said.

PELM is also working with a small Gladstone-based technology company Transcritical Technologies to study the effects of supercritical carbon dioxide (which has great potential for use in processing industries) on the corrosion behaviour of structural materials.

\"Of particular interest is the interaction between contaminants in the carbon dioxide such as water, hydrocarbons and oxygen and structural materials such as high-strength steels,\" according to Dr Rod Stephenson from Transcritical Technologies.

Central Queensland Ports Authority commissioned PELM to test the \'flowability\' of various coals to assist in the design of new bins and hoppers for an expansion of coal handling facilities.

Professor Clegg\'s group is also using a powerful scanning electron microscope which is able to produce images of complicated 3-dimensional structures.

The microscope has been used to investigate component failures and to gauge how products of local industries are performing. It has been used for projects as diverse as identifying the cause of corrosion in oil refinery heat exchangers, studying fly ash particle shapes from power stations, and examining the shape of grains of instant coffee for coffee manufacturers.

The PELM Centre was also commissioned by Queensland Energy Resources Ltd to undertake metallurgical analysis on components of its shale oil demonstration plant near Gladstone, in an effort to identify the causes of corrosion in a heat exchanger tube.

More details on the PELM Centre are available at www.gladstone.cqu.edu.au/pelm .

The PELM section of the DSDTI website (www.sdi.qld.gov.au) is accessible via the link to Queensland industries, the link to advanced manufacturing and then the link to light metals industry.