About
Dr Dikai Guan is an Associate Professor in Lightweight Materials and leads the research areas in developing new high performance light alloys, tailoring microstructure and designing pertinent experiments for microstructure characterisation He pioneered the design of in-situ casting to produce pore-free nanostructured Mg alloys during his PhD study. His work has been published in high impact journals including Nature, Acta Mater., Scripta Mater. He is a current holder of a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship to develop new light Mg alloys for lightweight applications. After that, he was awarded two Royal Society award and grant. He organised a highly reputed national EBSD annual meeting with Royal Microscopical Society in 2021. Dikai is currently working closely with industrial partners, aiming to convert light alloy machining chips into bespoke products, and he is committed to deliver impact focusing on sustainable materials development and circular economy
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Design low-cost high performance alloys
- Develop novel manufacturing and thermomechanical processing
- 3D printing, Additive Manufacturing of light alloys
- Design simple section methods for 3D microstructure analysis
Research projects
Active projects
Completed projects
Publications
Teaching
Dikai Guan obtained the Fellow of Higher Education Academy in May 2021. Dikai has taught on a wide range of subjects including
- Materials for Transport Applications
- Mechanics, Structures and Materials
- The Metallurgy of Light Alloys
- Aerospace Metals
Biography
Dr Dikai Guan is an Associate Professor of Lightweight Metallic Materials and leads the research areas in developing new high performance light alloys.
Dikai graduated with BEng and MEng in Materials Science and Engineering from Central South University, China in 2008 and 2011. He obtained his Ph.D. on nanocrystalline Mg alloys at the University of Sheffield in 2015. In September 2020, he started his UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and built his independent research group. He formally started to work at the University of Southampton in November 2022.
Invited Talks:
- Keynote speaker: 8th International Symposium on Advanced Structural Materials, Chongqing, November 2024
- Invited Seminar Talk in IMDEA Materials Institute, Madrid, August 2024
- 20th International Conference on Textures of Materials, Metz, June 2024
- Hercules Facility Launch Event, Leicester University, April 2024
- MTEX Workshop 2024, Germany, Mar 2024
- Keynote speaker: 7th International Symposium on Advanced Structural Materials, Chongqing, November 2023
- 8th International Conference on Recrystallization and Grain Growth, Chongqing, May 2023
- Invited seminar talk of IEL Webinar series, University of Oxford, 2021.
Membership:
- Member of EPSRC Review College, Future Leaders Fellowships Peer Review
- UKRI FLF sift panel as an observer
- CRCRM Round 2 Outline Stage panel meeting as an observer
Editorship or Editorial Board Appointment
- Editorial Board Member of Carbon Neutrality Frontiers.
- Youth Editorial Board Member of Journal of Materials Science & Technology,
- Youth Editorial Board Member of Microstructures.
- Guest editor of Rising Stars collection, Frontiers in Materials
Setting-up a new conference or conference series
- Scientific Organiser of Royal Microscopical Society (RMS) EBSD 2021
- Organising Committee Member of Materials Science Conference 2020 and 2022 in Italy and France
External examiner:
- PhD thesis viva: 5 times in total: Imperial College London, University of Manchester, Brunel University London, National University of Sciences and Tech, Pakistan and Coventry University
- Independent referee of three academic position promotion for Huazhong University of Science and Technology, a “985 Project” university in China
Prizes
- International Magnesium Award for Excellent Paper of the Year (Annual Award) (2024)
- Fellow of IOM3 (FIMMM) (2024)
- Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) (2021)
- UKRI Future Leaders Fellow (2020)
- Member of IOM3 (MIMMM) (2021)
- Chartered Engineering (CEng) (2021)
- International Magnesium Award for Excellent Paper of the Year (Annual Award) (2024)
- Fellow of IOM3 (FIMMM) (2024)
- Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) (2021)
- Member of IOM3 (MIMMM) (2021)
- Chartered Engineering (CEng) (2021)