Keywords

• ceramics, coatings, aerospace materials, nanomaterials, energy materials

Prof. Ping Xiao currently holds the Rolls-Royce/Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Advanced Coating Technology. He joined University of Manchester, Materials Science Centre as a Lecturer in 2001, then became Senior Lecturer in 2003, Reader in 2005, and Professor in 2008. Ping Xiao did his undergraduate and postgraduate study of Chemistry in Jilin University, P. R. China. He went to Oxford University to study Materials Science for DPhil since 1989, and  became a postdoctoral research fellow in Oxford since 1993. Then he joined Brunel University as a Lecturer since 1996, and became a Senior Lecturer in 2000.

Ping Xiao's research area covers three topics: 1) thermal barrier and environmental barrier coatings for aeroengine applications; 2) ceramics and ceramic coatings for nuclear industry applications; 3) ceramics and coatings for electrochemical applications. The research covers developing novel techniques to produce ceramics and ceramic coatings,  understanding degradation mechanisms of ceramics and coatings, which involves characterisation of microstructure, mechanical property, and residual stresses in ceramic coatings. Ping Xiao's research has generated  300+ publications in peer-reviewed journals and he is among the top 2% list of the most cited researchers in the world identified in a study in 2020 by Stanford University (https://static.asminternational.org/amp/202105/54/).

In 2019, Ping Xiao was appointed as the UK representative on ceramics for the Generation IV nuclear reactor international Forum (GIF) by BEIS. Since the 1st of May 2020, Ping Xiao has been appointed Chair of Surface Engineering Board, Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, UK. In 2023, he became the Field Chief Editor for a new ceramic journal "Frontiers in Ceramics". https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ceramics 

The group is currently looking for PhD students starting in Sept 2023 including a studentship shown below

https://fusion-cdt.ac.uk/project/developing-sic-for-fusion-application-materials-strand-project/  

Ceramic coating research group consists of 3 PDRAs, 15 PhD students, and one academic visitor. The research group is financially supported by EPSRC, Royal Academy of Engineering and Rolls-Royce. The research has active collaboration with both academia and industry. Research themes cover ceramic coating fabrication, chracterisation and performance study. The group has developed both chemical vapour deposition and electrophoretic deposition to produce ceramic coatings for applications in aeroengines and nuclear reactors. Properties of the ceramic coating, eg. thermal conductivity, residual stresses and mechanical property are being studied in relation to performance of these coatings in various industrial environments. The ceramic materials which have been studied covers Lanthium Zirconate, Yttria Stablized Zirconia and metallic coatings as thermal barrier coatings, SiC and carbon coatings for containment of nuclear fuels, and graphene for electrochemical and mechanical applications.

Research Group(s)

• Ceramics and Inorganics
• Materials Performance Centre

Research Institutes

• Dalton Nuclear Institute
• UMARI
• The Henry Royce Institute of Advanced Materials