Centre for Material and Fibre Innovation
ITRI
Tim Corbett is one of those people you can't help but admire, a fellow who has managed to turn his hobby into his life's work, and vice versa.
Tim, 26, is a PhD student working in the Centre for Material and Fibre Innovation at Deakin's Waurn Ponds campus.
As a youngster growing up in on a farm outside Walpeup (population less than 100) in the Victorian bush, he toyed with model aeroplanes while his mates kicked the footy or played cricket.
Now his work on the real thing will help improve the way aeroplanes - 747s and the mighty levitating leviathans of Airbus - are built in the future.
And this cutting edge research is flowing through into his latest hobby - building the fastest HPV - human powered vehicle - the world has ever seen.
"Yeah, it's an interesting sort of life I suppose," says Tim, whose enthusiasm for the world he has created around him is all but tangible.
"My research work here at Deakin is with advanced carbon fibre composites using 'pre-preg' materials. This is a basic way of saying that the resin that bonds it all together is already impregnated into the carbon fibre.
"We have developed here at Deakin a new process for joining the material together. In the past you would cure one part and you would have multiple separate parts that you would then bond together in later operations.
"Rivets are another way of holding the parts in place. A Boeing 747 for instances has over three million rivets in its air-fame.
"What we're looking to do with this process we call melding is to provide an alternative that is much simpler and takes much less time and requires fewer rivets.
"As well as making aeroplanes light and more fuel efficient, it also works to make them safer. The fewer the number of joints and rivets you have, the fewer points for fractures there are."
Tim says that while the process is only in the development stage, there is already a lot of interest from around the world - from Airbus in France, Boeing in Seattle and Eurocopter in Germany.
"It's a pretty exciting thing for a boy from Walpeup to be working on something that people in those places are taking an interest in," he says.
"I can understand why they would be interested though. The potential savings and the improvements in performance and safety could be enormous."
Like all young researchers who know these days they have to be able to describe to the outside world what they're doing as well as their colleagues, Tim has a simple explanation of what has become known as the Quickstep process.
"By using our process rather than an autoclave to cure out parts, we're utilising hot fluid rather than hot air," he says. "Imagine you're cooking your potato. You can boil it for 20 minutes at 100 degrees in hot water or you can cook it for two hours in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius.
"That's the comparison. We can do things very quickly with the Quickstep process."
Another reason for the huge interest from overseas is that no one else in the world has developed a similar process, though Manchester University is keen to follow the Deakin lead.
Right from his early days, there was little doubt about where Tim's life would lead him.
"I was always tinkering with the tractor on the farm," he said. "Ever since I was little I was out in the shed with the hammers and belting things up and generally making things."
Deakin was an obvious choice for his under-graduate days.
"Being a country boy, I didn't want to go to Melbourne if I could help it and as it turned out, Deakin had the best course in engineering," he said.
When the chance came to stay on to do a PhD, he leapt at it.
"I was working with a group of people I really enjoyed working with, I felt I really fitted in well, so when the offer came, I guess I couldn't say yes fast enough," he said.
Something he hasn't been able to do as fast as he would like - yet - is to propel his HPV to success in the national championships - the Australian National Pedal Prix.
"Using the expertise I have gained from working here, I have managed to build what I believe is the strongest, lightest and fastest recumbent bike in Australia," he said.
"We came second last year, but I would like to improve on that this year."
The next Australian championships are being held in Murray Bridge in South Australia in September.
Once his PhD is finished, Tim hopes to step into the field of proto-typing, where he has already had some success with carbon fibre rims for cars.
"There are enormous benefits involved in converting traditionally steel and aluminium parts in cars to lighter materials, especially in fuel savings," he said.
But no matter what happens in the market place, his passion for his latest hobby will remain strong.
"HPV's are my real baby, I love working with them. I've turned the garage where I live at St Albans Park into an HPV development and testing area," he laughs. "I spend a lot of time there."
And there, as well as at the CMFI, the great cross-pollination between hobby and serious world changing research will continue for the benefit of those who want to pedal a bit faster; or fly more safely - or maybe even both if Tim gets to compete overseas in his HPV.
