During my brief appointment as a Research Fellow at Deakin University, I contributed to a US Air Force-funded project focused on advancing Additive Friction Stir Deposition (AFSD) technology for aerospace and space applications. The primary objective of the project was to miniaturise AFSD-based additive manufacturing systems for deployment in compact, high-performance environments such as aircraft and spacecraft.

My main responsibility was to develop high-fidelity numerical models of the AFSD process using both finite element (FE) and finite volume (FVM) methods. These models captured the complex thermomechanical behaviour, material flow dynamics, and heat generation during deposition. The simulations provided valuable insights into process optimisation, material deformation, and interfacial bonding mechanisms, supporting the scale-down and design of solid-state additive manufacturing systems.

In this work, I collaborated with Dr Alban de Vaucorbeil at the Institute for Frontier Materials, Deakin University. The ongoing research led by Dr Vaucorbeil is now focused on the development of GPU-accelerated, exascale computing frameworks based on the material point method (MPM) to simulate AFSD processes at unprecedented resolution and speed. This work underscores the importance of computational modelling in driving innovation and scalability in next-generation manufacturing technologies.