Professor Russell Goodall

MEng PhD FIMMM CEng

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Professor of Metallurgy

Director, EPSRC and SFI Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Advanced Metallic Systems

Professor Russell Goodall
Profile picture of Professor Russell Goodall
r.goodall@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 5977

Full contact details

Professor Russell Goodall
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Sir Robert Hadfield Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
Profile

Russell Goodall is a metallurgist with extensive experience in the science of porous metals, and the development of novel alloys of many types. He has worked for over 15 years on the processing and thermal and mechanical characterisation of a range of new materials.

He joined the Department in 2008 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland. He obtained his MEng degree from Oxford University and his PhD from the University of Cambridge, before carrying out postdoctoral research at EPFL. After this he returned to the UK as a lecturer at Sheffield, where he is now Professor of Metallurgy.

In 2019, Russell received the Sir Colin Humphreys Education Award by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IoM3). This award recognises Russell's contribution to enhancing students' scientific/technological literacy through the teaching or support of materials, minerals or mining topics within 11-19 learning, either in the secondary or further education sectors.

Research interests

Russell’s main research interests are in the development of new alloys, in particular High Entropy Alloys and alloys with silver, brazing filler metals, the processing, properties and applications of open-celled porous metals, and in mechanical properties of materials in general.

Alloy development

The ability of metallic elements to combine and interact in alloys offers huge potential for materials to be designed and optimised for particular purposes. Within the group we have developed a number of approaches (both theoretical and experimental) which we use to search the vast potential range of compositions to identify alloy formulations with suitable properties. In this regard we explore a wide range of alloys, including those involving refractory elements, transition elements, platinum group elements and low melting point metals. These have potential applications in fields as diverse as metal joining through brazing, to structures that can survive the environment of a nuclear fusion reactor.

Of particular interest in this respect is the behaviour of alloys made of large numbers of elements (typically five or more) combined in similar quantity; for some compositions these can produce single phase alloys with a perhaps unexpectedly simple structure, which are known as High Entropy Alloys (HEA). Within the research group there is effort on both understanding the fundamental formation and properties of this novel alloy class, and in developing HEA and HEA-like compositions for practical applications.

Russell is working on the development of new alloys as part of his RAEng/The Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship, Novel Strategies for Designing Alloyed Metals; University of Sheffield (NoStraDAMUS).

Porous metals

This work includes the use of the "replication" process to produce samples of open celled aluminium foam or sponge. In this process a preform of pressed or sintered NaCl grains or agglomerates is infiltrated with liquid aluminium, which occupies the spaces between the grains. After solidification, the salt can be dissolved in water to leave just the aluminium, which "replicates" the spaces in the original perform. This gives an open-celled foam structure with well-defined pore size and density. The relatively high thermal conductivity of pure aluminium, combined with its low density and low cost make such materials interesting for applications requiring heat transfer from or to a fluid medium.

Open-cell foams made from other metals such as titanium can have applications as biomedical implants and electrodes, amongst many others. As well as foams (with pores or cells in random locations), the group also works on porous structures with varying degrees of order, such as 3D lattice structures, which are increasingly easy to produce, even at large sizes and with complex designs, using advanced manufacturing techniques.

Current challenges are the assessment of the suitability of processes for practical fabrication of foam parts, the development of methods to allow production of novel foam architectures, the characterisation of both the mechanical and thermal performance of the material and the further optimisation of the properties for certain applications.


Research group

  • Mr Mosalagae Mosalagae is working on the processing and properties of porous copper in thin sheet form for heat transfer applications.
  • Mr Haydar Al-Shabbani is working on a collaborative project with Dr Matthew Marshall of the Department of Mechanical Engineering exploring diamond-aluminium composites for abrasion and cutting resistance.
  • Ms Stavrina Dimsothenous works on the discovery and understanding of new High Entropy Alloys, involving the platinum group metals, in a project supported by Johnson Matthey.
  • Ms Piyanut Muangtong is exploring the creation of porous materials from High Entropy Alloys.
  • Mr Matthew Way is developing new alloys for brazing, focussed on the requirements of joining thermoelectric materials, in a project supported by Johnson Matthey.
  • Mr Shaiful Ismail is using the Metal Injection Moulding (MIM) process to create porous copper for heat transfer.
  • Mr Liam Hardwick is exploring brazing alloys for high temperature joining of materials such as nickel alloys, in a project supported by VBC.
  • Ms Tuba Kizilirmak isexploring lattices processed by Additive Manufacturing methods for spinal fusion devices.
  • Mr Hazzaa Alqurashi is looking at the mechanical behaviour of metallic lattices, by combining experimental processing and testing with Finite Element analysis, in a project co-supervised by Dr Julian Dean
  • Mr Paul Stavroulakis is investigating High Entropy Alloys for applications in automotive, in a project supported by VW.
Publications

Journal articles

Chapters

  • Goodall R & Mortensen A (2014) Porous Metals, Physical Metallurgy: Fifth Edition (pp. 2399-2595). RIS download Bibtex download
  • Goodall R & Mortensen A (2014) Porous Metals, Physical Metallurgy (pp. 2399-2595). Elsevier RIS download Bibtex download
  • Bhadeshia HKDH, Chen L-Q, Goodall R, Gu Y, Kirchheim R, Mortensen A, Nie J-F, Pundt A, Raabe D, Rae CMF , Reed RC et al (2014) List of Contributors to Volume III, Physical Metallurgy (pp. vii-vii). Elsevier RIS download Bibtex download
  • Chang I, Zhao Y, Dunkley J, Chen GZ, Suryanarayana C, Ivanov E, Chang I, Simchi A, Nojoomi A, Todd I , Sidambe AT et al (2013) Contributor contact details, Advances in Powder Metallurgy (pp. xi-xiv). Elsevier RIS download Bibtex download
  • Goodall R (2013) Porous metals: foams and sponges, Advances in Powder Metallurgy (pp. 273-307). Elsevier RIS download Bibtex download

Conference proceedings papers

  • Davis-Fowell E, Morley N, Allwood D & Goodall R (2023) Optimisation of Ga-doped τ-MnAl for use as a permanent magnetic material. 2023 IEEE International Magnetic Conference - Short Papers (INTERMAG Short Papers), 15 May 2023 - 19 May 2023. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Cornide J, Calvo-Dahlborg M, Chambreland S, Asensio Dominguez L, Leong Z, Dahlborg U, Cunliffe A, Goodall R & Todd I (2015) Combined Atom Probe Tomography and TEM Investigations of CoCrFeNi, CoCrFeNi-Pdx(x=0.5, 1.0, 1.5) and CoCrFeNi-Sn. Acta Physica Polonica A, Vol. 128(4) (pp 557-561) RIS download Bibtex download
  • Dahlborg U, Cornide J, Calvo-Dahlborg M, Hansen TC, Leong Z, Asensio Dominguez L, Chambreland S, Cunliffe A, Goodall R & Todd I (2015) Crystalline Structures of Some High Entropy Alloys Obtained by Neutron and X-Ray Diffraction. Acta Physica Polonica A, Vol. 128(4) (pp 552-557) RIS download Bibtex download
  • Shbeh MM & Goodall R (2015) Design and optimisation of powder processed metallic foams for different applications. Proceedings Euro PM 2015: International Power Metallurgy Congress and Exhibition RIS download Bibtex download
  • Fraternali F, Amendola A, Hernández-Nava E, Goodall R, Skelton RE & Nesterenko VF (2015) PRESTRESS TUNING OF THE NONLINEAR DYNAMICS OF TENSEGRITY METAMATERIALS. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computational Methods in Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering (COMPDYN 2015), 25 May 2015 - 27 May 2015. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Cornide J, Dahlborg U, Leong Z, Dominguez LA, Juraszek J, Jouen S, Hansen T, Wunderlich R, Chambreland S, Todd I , Goodall R et al (2015) Structure and Properties of Some CoCrFeNi-Based High Entropy Alloys (pp 1147-1155) RIS download Bibtex download
  • van Grunsven W, Goodall R & Reilly GC (2012) HIGHLY POROUS TITANIUM ALLOY: FABRICATION AND MECHANICAL PROPERTIES. Journal of Biomechanics, Vol. 45 (pp S339-S339) RIS download Bibtex download
  • Barari F, Bangert K, Luna EE, Marshall R, Goodall R & Woolley R (2012) Aluminium Foams as Novel Regenerators for Stirling Engine. POROUS METALS AND METALLIC FOAMS, METFOAM 2011 (pp 589-594) RIS download Bibtex download
  • Zaragoza G & Goodall R (2012) Metal Foams with Graded Pore Size for Heat Transfer Applications. POROUS METALS AND METALLIC FOAMS, METFOAM 2011 (pp 367-373) RIS download Bibtex download
  • Abdulla T, Yerokhin A & Goodall R (2012) Elastic Response of Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation Coated Open Cell Aluminium Foams. POROUS METALS AND METALLIC FOAMS, METFOAM 2011 (pp 563-568) RIS download Bibtex download
  • van Grunsven W, Goodall R & Reilly GC (2011) Porous metal implants for enhanced bone ingrowth and stability. European Cells and Materials, Vol. 22(SUPPL.3) (pp 1) RIS download Bibtex download

Preprints

Professional activities and memberships
  • Member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining Structure and Properties of Materials Committee
  • Editorial Board Member, PLOS ONE
  • Editorial Board Member, Metals

Invited talks

  • “Alloy Design” – invited speaker, Imperial College Seminar, London, UK, 13th June 2018
  • “Shear banding of metallic glasses observed by dynamic electrical measurements” – invited speaker, CAMTEC IV, Cambridge, UK, 9th-10th April 2018
  • “Microlattice Materials” – invited speaker, Blast Effects Acting on Materials and Structures Seminar (BEAMSEM), Sheffield, UK, 12th-13th May 2016
  • “3D Networking: Building Lattices in Additive Manufacturing” – invited speaker, Additive Manufactured Metallic Materials Properties & Structures (AM3PS), MTC Coventry, UK, 14th May 2015
  • “Good Porosity: Casting routes to metal foams and sponges” – invited speaker, UK solidification workshop, LiME, Brunel University, UK, 9th and 10th April 2014

Public engagement

Russell has a long standing interest in public engagement and has been a STEM ambassador since 2010. As well as being Chair of the IoM3 Education Committee from 2015-2018, and supporting the activities of the Schools Affiliate Scheme, he has developed and published several papers on practical demonstrations of materials issues using chocolate:

Russell also teaches a module on Public Engagement and Outreach to Doctoral Training Scheme students, supporting them to develop their own outreach ideas. Some of the notable outcomes of this module are the development of a “Materials Monopoly” board, shown at the Cheltenham Science festival and since produced at a larger scale by the Advanced Metallic Systems CDT for distribution throughout the UK, and stop motion animations directed at younger children.