Deep within the labyrinth of Monash University's Clayton campus
in Melbourne is a metallurgy laboratory so significant in what
it is doing that it has attracted some of the biggest companies
in the global aerospace industry from the other side of the
world. They are keeping close to the technology that could make
this laboratory the genesis of the next generation of aerospace
manufacturing. They are also keeping close to a scientist in
whose hands their futures may well sit. When Professor Xinhua
Wu, recognised internationally as a leader in advanced light
metals research, agreed to head the Australian Research
Council's (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Design in Light Metals,
her research moved with her from the UK to Melbourne. Such is
the importance placed on her work that the giants of European
aerospace – Bombardier, Airbus, European Space Agency and
SAFRAN-Microturbo – followed. At stake for these European
aircraft manufacturers is finding the technological means to
ward off increasingly aggressive compet