The MRU offers education and research activities oriented at four main topics:

1. Virtual Prototyping uses virtual prototypes to study the mechanical behaviour and chemical-physical properties of materials.
   
   
2. Advanced Materials covers material science and technology, including: Design of advanced materials with tailored properties, Preparation of ceramics, polymeric materials and composites by mean of the most advanced techniques, Characterization of materials (e.g. nano/micro structure, chemical and physical properties, mechanical behavior).
   
   
3. Design of Products and Process focuses on product and process design, product quality, facility planning and manufacturing processes.
   
   
4. Automation Systems focuses on methods and tools for design and rapid prototyping control and processing applications, and on integrating image processing technologies and robotics elements.
   
   

This MRU provides the students with a well balanced theoretical and practical knowledge, allowing to work in a professional environment.

The research topics concern the use of Virtual Prototyping to study the mechanical behaviour and chemical-physical properties of materials. Core competencies in simulation comprise:

• Static and dynamic structural analysis (both in the field for the calculation in linear and non-linear behaviours);
• Impact analysis. Study of behaviour in terms of crash structures;
• Analysis and numerical modelling of complex phenomena related to thermo-fluid dynamic analysis;
• Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations; for internal and external flows;
• Heat exchange;
• Microstructural and molecular modelling as an aid for material and process design;
• Parallelization of simulation algorithms for speed-up of the analysis time;
• Complex 3D simulation of product and machine behaviour.

With the application of virtual prototyping techniques, students will acquire or improve skills to develop new products and production systems compliant with a sustainable philosophy or approach.

Included in this area of research are some of the cutting-edge topics in material science. Core competencies in Advanced Materials comprise:

• Polymeric materials, polymeric micro and nanocomposites
• Degradation and stabilization of polymeric materials
• Advanced Ceramics and Composites

Students will gain a thorough theoretical and practical knowledge of material science and technology, including:

• Design of advanced materials with tailored properties;
• Preparation of ceramics, polymeric materials and composites by mean of the most common as well as advanced preparation techniques;
• Characterization of materials (e.g. nano/micro structure, chemical and physical properties, mechanical behaviour);
• The integration of production processes and materials characteristics to obtain high added value sustainable products.

This R&D domains includes:

• Product and process design
• Product quality
• Facility planning
• Manufacturing processes

Student’s Research activities will feature:

• Development and design of automatic assembly machines
• Functional design of mechanical and mechatronic systems
• Development and design of components and structures
• Kinematics and dynamics of machines, mechanical systems and robots
• Evaluation of material/product manufacturing cycles in terms of functionality and sustainability;
• Identification, analysis and solution of a composite and complex manufacturing problem, using the methodologies for sustainable development;
• Analysis of the issues related with the introduction of the mass customization paradigm in several industrial contexts.

This area of research focuses its activity on the following main topics:

• Methods, models and tools for design control and processing applications
• Model-driven, component-based and automatic code generation techniques for rapid prototyping of distributed or parallelized applications
• Integration of image acquisition and processing technologies, and robotics elements.

Student’s Research activities will feature:

• Analysis and application of new architectures, standards and modelling approaches for designing distributed adaptive manufacturing and automation systems
• Development of rapid prototyping tools for various platforms and domains applying model-driven, component-based, pattern-based and automatic code generation techniques
• Parallelising the processing of streams and signals on multi-cores and GPUs
• Development of new automation processes integrating image processing and laser triangulation techniques for e.g. automatic defect detection tasks
• Development of new automation solutions integrating electromechanical and robotics components