User:Jgebelin/Roger Reed

Roger Reed (born 23rd November 1965) is a British academic, scholar, scientist and engineer. His field is physical metallurgy, particularly the so-called high temperature alloys used in jet engines and gas turbines. Currently, he is a professor at the University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, United Kingdom.

Life

He was educated at Dulwich College in south-east London and Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. He has held academic positions at Imperial College London, University of Cambridge, the University of British Columbia (UBC) and now the University of Birmingham. Reed lives in a small village near Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, with his wife Joanna. During the period 1994 to 2001 whilst at the University of Cambridge, Reed helped to establish – in his role as Assistant Director of Research – the Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre in the Dept of Materials Science and Metallurgy. During the period 2002 to 2005, he lived in Vancouver on the west coast of Canada where he held a Canada Research Chair at UBC. Since 2010, Reed has been the Director of Research of the Dept of Metallurgy and Materials at the University of Birmingham. In 2011, Reed became one of the Academic Theme Leaders at the Manufacturing Technology Centre which is being built at Ansty, Warwickshire.

Scientific Work

Reed’s scientific work relates to the metallic alloys which are used at temperatures beyond 500 deg C, particularly those to resist creep, fatigue and oxidation. He and his research group have worked on applications for high temperature steels, nickel-based superalloys and titanium alloys. His interests relate particularly to the processing, performance and properties of these materials, and the inter-relationship between these topics.

He has published widely in this field, particularly in journals such as Acta materialia. In 2006, his book ‘The Superalloys: Fundamentals and Applications’ was published by Cambridge University Press. He is acting as Chair of the International Symposium for Superalloys, to take place in 2012 in Champion, Pennsylvania, USA.

Applications

Reed is well known for working closely with a number of industrial companies such as Siemens, Alstom and Rolls-Royce plc. The metallic alloys on which he works are used in the very hottest parts of the turbomachinery produced by these companies. In recent years, Reed has worked particularly on computer-based modelling methods for the simulation of various phenomena related to these materials: particularly their design, use in component fabrication and performance in engine applications.

In 2007 he established the Partnership for the Simulation of Manufacturing and Materials, a consortium of organisations with common interests in this technology. Techniques for the modelling of processing operations such as heat treatment, welding, forging, forming and net-shape manufacturing are being developed. This so-called process simulation is important for right-first-time manufacturing in the aerospace and energy sectors, amongst others.