Introduction

After attending a state grammar school and 6th form college in Manchester, I studied metallurgy, economics and management at St Anne’s College, Oxford. I stayed on at St Anne’s to do a DPhil in materials. I then spent several years in the Materials Department in Oxford working first as a postdoctoral researcher, then as a departmental lecturer, including having teaching responsibilities at Pembroke College and a Junior Research Fellowship at Linacre College. In 2000, I was appointed to a lectureship in Oxford and a Fellowship at Queen’s.

Teaching

I tutor the first and second year material scientists at Queen’s, Corpus Christi and Mansfield colleges in aspects of phase transformations, microstructures and processing of materials. I also teach part of a third year options course in advanced manufacturing of metals and alloys. I supervise Part II (fourth year) materials undergraduates during their final year projects and graduate (DPhil) students.

Research

In my research I study solidification processing of advanced materials from laboratory scale through to pilot-scale processing plant. I have particular interests in controlling the grain structure of the metal, controlling the phases which form in the materials and in maintaining quality whilst re-cycling metals. My main focus is on working with aluminium alloys and intermetallics.

For more details and a list of current projects see my department webpage.

Publications

  • Sundaram Kumar, Sam Agarwal and Keyna O’Reilly, In-sity Al3Nb formation in liquid Al by Nb particle addition, Materials Science Forum 812, 10.4028 (2015)
  • F. Yan, S. Kumar, B.J. McKay and K.A.Q. O’Reilly, Effect of Mn on Fe containing phase formation in high purity aluminium, Int. J. of Cast Metals Research 27, 10.1179 (2014)
  • Jayesh B. Patel, Hu-Tian Li, Xia Mingxu, Simon Jones, Sundaram Kumar, Keyna O’Reilly and Zhongyun Fan, Melt conditioned direct chill casting (MD-DC) process for production of high quality aluminium alloy billets, Mat. Sci. Forum 794-796, 10,4028 (2014)
  • Tahsina Smith, Keyna O’Reilly, Sundaram Kumar and Ian Stone, Influence of grain-refiner addition on the morphology of Fe-bearing intermetallics in a semi-solid processed Al-Mg-Si alloy, Met. and Mat. Transactions A 44A, 10.1007 (2013)