The Advanced Casting Research Center (ACRC) located at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) announced its first affiliated branch at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. This affiliation will provide members and industry with expanded research capabilities, facilities and resources, and geographic impact in metalcasting and digital manufacturing.

Diran Apelian, distinguished professor at UCI’s Department of Materials Sciences and Engineering, founded ACRC in 1984. Under his direction, it has grown to be the largest industry-university consortia in North America dedicated to collaborative research in metal processing and manufacturing. The organization brings fundamental understanding to existing processes, develops new methods and alloys, and addresses management-technology interface issues with clear industrial applications. Carl Söderhjelm, associate director of ACRC since 2019, oversees several key projects and spearheads the building of a modern metalcasting facility at UCI.

Some of ACRC’s current research projects include work in data management, thermal management, and machine learning. 

Apelian will continue to serve as director of ACRC at the headquarters on the UCI campus, along with Söderhjelm. Alan Luo will serve as site director of ACRC at Ohio State. Luo is professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Integrated Systems Engineering at Ohio State. He is also the director of Ohio State’s Lightweight Materials and Manufacturing Research Laboratory. Professor Luo brings substantial expertise to research in lightweight materials, advanced and sustainable manufacturing processes including multi-material manufacturing, and integrated computational materials engineering.
With the oversight of the ACRC Board of Directors, the ACRC consortium has grown to about 40 corporate members. This latest affiliation with Ohio State will not only provide the alliance with a Midwestern footprint, it also will allow the consortium to bring in enterprises from the manufacturing basin of the nation. This expansion will cement ACRC’s mission of being the premiere metal processing industry-university alliance serving corporate members and educating future industry leaders.

“This affiliation with ACRC-UCI allows us to be a one-of-its-kind center in the global foundry industry for fostering industry-academic collaboration with top-notch researchers,” Luo said.