Principal Investigator
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Ongoing project
Development and Optimisation of Aluminium Composites Reinforced with Locally Available Ugandan Agro-Waste for Sustainable Engineering Applications
Summary
Uganda generates substantial agricultural waste, including rice husk, banana stem, coffee husk, maize residues, and eucalyptus biomass, which is largely underutilized. At the same time, lightweight engineering materials and components are increasingly imported. Converting agro-waste into reinforcement for aluminium matrix composites offers an opportunity for sustainable materials development, waste valorization, and local industrialization.
To develop, optimize, and characterize aluminium–agro-waste composites using locally available Ugandan materials for automotive, agricultural, and industrial applications.
Selected agro-wastes will be processed into ash or particulate reinforcement and characterized using XRF, XRD, SEM/EDS, FTIR, TGA/DSC, particle-size analysis, and density measurements. Composite formulations will be designed using Design of Experiments (DOE) and manufactured primarily through stir casting. Mechanical, physical, thermal, tribological, fatigue, and microstructural properties will be evaluated and compared with conventional aluminium alloys. FEM will be used for thermal and structural analysis, while ANN and other machine-learning models will predict material performance. Multi-objective optimization will identify formulations that maximize strength, hardness, and wear resistance while minimizing density, wear, porosity, cost, and environmental impact.
The study is expected to produce optimized aluminium–agro-waste formulations, validated processing parameters, material-property databases, predictive AI/FEM models, and laboratory-scale prototypes.
The project integrates Ugandan agro-waste valorization, aluminium composite manufacturing, advanced characterization, FEM, AI, and multi-objective optimization to develop locally sourced engineering materials.
The research will support waste reduction, circular manufacturing, import substitution, local value addition, employment creation, and development of sustainable materials for Uganda's automotive, agricultural, and industrial sectors. |
To develop, optimize, and characterize aluminium–agro-waste composites using locally available Ugandan materials for automotive, agricultural, and industrial applications.
Selected agro-wastes will be processed into ash or particulate reinforcement and characterized using XRF, XRD, SEM/EDS, FTIR, TGA/DSC, particle-size analysis, and density measurements. Composite formulations will be designed using Design of Experiments (DOE) and manufactured primarily through stir casting. Mechanical, physical, thermal, tribological, fatigue, and microstructural properties will be evaluated and compared with conventional aluminium alloys. FEM will be used for thermal and structural analysis, while ANN and other machine-learning models will predict material performance. Multi-objective optimization will identify formulations that maximize strength, hardness, and wear resistance while minimizing density, wear, porosity, cost, and environmental impact.
The study is expected to produce optimized aluminium–agro-waste formulations, validated processing parameters, material-property databases, predictive AI/FEM models, and laboratory-scale prototypes.
The project integrates Ugandan agro-waste valorization, aluminium composite manufacturing, advanced characterization, FEM, AI, and multi-objective optimization to develop locally sourced engineering materials.
The research will support waste reduction, circular manufacturing, import substitution, local value addition, employment creation, and development of sustainable materials for Uganda's automotive, agricultural, and industrial sectors. |