The CSIR design, analysis and testing team contributes to the CSIR’s capabilities in advanced materials and engineering for the manufacturing sector. The group provides a diverse range of engineering capabilities that enable the full development of functional prototypes, manufacturing processes and materials testing.

The group’s capabilities include concept development, design and analysis within a product lifecycle management paradigm, as well as the development of associated manufacturing technologies, prototype manufacture and qualification. These capabilities have been applied extensively to aluminium, magnesium and titanium alloys, including carbon fibre-based composites, and are applicable to a broad range of metallic, non-metallic, composite, and polymer-based products.

Computer-aided design, coupled with finite element modelling, allows for the full-scale development – from individual parts and components through to the design – of process equipment embodying multiple systems. This capability has been exploited in the design, prototyping and manufacture of ventilators and intensive care unit (ICU) beds in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The locally manufactured, commercially viable ventilator has saved lives by entering the market. Work on the ICU beds project is ongoing and is undertaken in collaboration with a local manufacturer (with access to both local and export markets) towards the development of an enhanced ICU bed design.

Coupled with multi-physics modelling, the team’s design capabilities are expandable to more complex engineering structures and systems, including material modelling, such as superplastic forming of metals, a current area of focus of the group. The group also hosts workshop facilities with numerically controlled machining, water-jet and laser cutting with access to a range of facilities for materials processing, manufacturing, tool and die development, and rapid prototyping. In-house workshop capabilities include machining of custom devices and sub-size test specimens under the supervision of test experts.

The CSIR hosts mechanical test facilities comprising a variety of load frames, data acquisition systems and servo-hydraulic equipment. This well-established facility continues to provide extensive materials properties, fracture, fatigue, and creep testing for a multitude of government and commercial clients on a quick-turnaround basis. Contractual test work covers both small-scale testing and larger material qualification test programmes. The development of non-standard test configurations is also a specialised capability. The testing facility has unique high and cryogenic-temperatures capability certified to the ISO 9001:2015 (Quality) and 14001:2015 (Environmental) standards.