Cars; cricket; carbon emissions; Comilla. Three of these are familiar terms, but the fourth? It’s a small farming district in South East Bangladesh. An odd mix? Not for Rez Haque.
Rez was always a little different. He says that 80 per cent of the people in his hometown of Comilla are farmers and nearly all of them fancy football. But Rez had a love of cars which inspired him to leave Comilla to study mechanical engineering, and he would much rather pick up a cricket bat than kick a football – in fact he is a Level Two accredited Cricket Australia umpire.
And now he uses all his skills and interests to potentially help reduce carbon emissions.
Rez is a PhD candidate at Swinburne University and when asked why we should care about his research he responded:
“The automobile industry is always looking for innovative ways to reduce car emissions. One way for cars to burn less fuel is for them to be lighter, but joining lightweight high strength alloys is difficult and sometimes impossible. Henrob develop special rivets that can join these materials,” Rez said.
When this internship was advertised Rez knew he would be able to contribute to, and profit from, the project; his PhD in Mechanical Engineering looked specifically at these special “self piercing” rivets.
Stuart Blacket, Managing Director of Henrob, was keen to capitalise on the knowledge and innovation developed by Rez in his PhD at Swinburne. He said, “The project resulted in a greater understanding of the Henrob self piercing system, including its limitations and how additional research in specific areas will yield the big opportunity being sought.”
Dr Yvonne Durandet is the Academic Director (Industry Engaged Leaning) for the Faculty of Science, Engineering & Technology at Swinburne University. Yvonne was instrumental in setting up the collaboration with Henrob and her expertise in this type of research was essential to the internships success.
Intern: Rezwanul Haque, Swinburne University
Industry Partner: Stuart Blacket, Managing Director, Henrob
Academic Mentor: Dr Yvonne Durandet, Swinburne University
About APR.Intern
APR.Intern is a not-for-profit organisation funded by Australian Universities, government agencies and mathematical societies. The program delivers some of Australia’s young and brilliant minds to industries from a range of disciplines. It also provides a platform for industry to engage and attract talent into their organisation. Ultimately, this increases Australia’s global competitiveness by providing innovative solutions to industry. aprintern.org.au
