Engineering Surfaces for Performance, Reliability, and Intelligence: From Fundamental Mechanics to Industrial Impact
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Engineering Surfaces for Performance, Reliability, and Intelligence: From Fundamental Mechanics to Industrial Impact
Wed, 11/02/2026 - 14:00 to 15:00
Location:
Speaker:
Nadimul Haque Faisal
Affiliation:
Robert Gordon University
Synopsis:
Engineering surfaces play a decisive role in the performance, reliability, and sustainability of modern engineering systems. From energy infrastructure to advanced manufacturing and digital inspection, surface integrity governs degradation, failure, and service lifetime. This lecture will begin by highlighting aspects of the speaker’s doctoral research at Heriot-Watt University, demonstrating how fundamental studies of surface contact mechanics, coatings, wave propagation in multilayered structures, and material behaviour have informed his subsequent work and enabled the translation of fundamental science into practical energy and engineering solutions. The focus of the lecture will be on recent advances from the EPSRC-funded METASIS research programme (EP/W033178/1, UKRI3156), which addresses the urgent need for clean, efficient, and scalable low-carbon hydrogen production technologies to support the global transition to net zero. METASIS explores metasurface-engineered catalyst coatings for high-temperature solid oxide steam electrolysis (SOSE), targeting enhanced durability, catalytic activity, and heat transfer efficiency at operating temperatures of 600-900 °C. Key challenges and opportunities in multi-layer electrode manufacturing, materials durability, and system integration will be presented, with emphasis on their implications for large-scale hydrogen deployment.
Biography:
Nadimul Haque Faisal (FHEA, CEng, MIMechE, MIMMM) is a Professor of Surface Engineering & Micromechanics at the School of Computing, Engineering and Technology (SoCET), Robert Gordon University (RGU), Aberdeen. An experimental researcher, his work lies at the intersection of surface engineering and multi-scale mechanics, focusing on advanced materials and processes to enhance performance, reliability, and sustainability of engineering systems. He is Project Lead of EPSRC-funded projects (METASIS - EP/W033178/1, METASIS 2.0 - UKRI3156, total £1.1m) on the development of tubular solid oxide steam electrolysers for high-temperature waste heat utilisation at nuclear plants. His broader research interests include metasurface manufacturing, acoustic emission testing, residual strain measurement using neutron diffraction, corrosion monitoring, nano- and micromechanics, and emerging applications in geothermal energy. He is leading Composite Materials Manufacturing (CMM) research group which includes 11 academics, 2 post-docs, 2 visiting researchers, and 18 PGR students. He has successfully supervised/co-supervised 16 PGR students. He completed his PhD at Heriot-Watt University in 2010 and has previously held academic and research positions at the Al-faisal University (Riyadh), University of Strathclyde (Glasgow), Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh), and International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI) (Hyderabad). He is Associate Editor of journal Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation (Taylor & Francis). In addition to his academic career, he is the Founder of Sequetrics Limited, a technology start-up developing automated and intelligent surface inspection solutions for safety-critical infrastructure.