Dr Richard Sheridan PhD, BEng

Dr Richard Sheridan

School of Metallurgy and Materials
Lecturer in Magnetic Materials
Senior Tutor

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 5215
Email
r.s.sheridan.1@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
School of Metallurgy and Materials
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Richard Sheridan is a Lecturer in Magnetic Materials in the School of Metallurgy and Materials.

Richard has a background in processing, recovery and recycling, degradation, and characterisation of rare earth permanent magnets based on neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) and samarium-cobalt (SmCo). He also runs the pilot scale rare earth alloy strip casting facility in the Netshape Manufacturing building for production of alloys in the 3-5 kg charge range.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Materials Science and Engineering (2014)
  • BEng (Hons) in Materials Science and Engineering (2009)

Biography

Richard Sheridan qualified with a BEng (Hons) degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Birmingham in 2009. He went on to study a PhD in the recovery and recycling of sintered Nd-Fe-B magnets using hydrogen as a processing tool under the supervision of Dr. Andrew Williams, Professor Allan Walton and Professor Rex Harris.

Richard has since worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Magnetic Materials Group at the University of Birmingham on EU funded projects MAG-DRIVE (Agreement Number 605348) and NEOHIRE (Agreement Number 720838), both of which utilise a high temperature hydrogen reaction to change the microstructure and magnetic properties of primary and secondary Nd-Fe-B alloys.

Richard has also worked in other projects aimed at utilising the pilot scale strip caster to produce thin flakes of Nd-Fe-B alloys with unique microstructures. These materials are more suitable for subsequent processing and manufacture of magnets for specific applications.

Richard was appointed Lecturer in Magnetic Materials in June 2018 and lectures on functional materials and their use in applications such as sustainable energy technologies and biomedical applications.

Teaching

  • Functional and ceramic materials
  • Materials for sustainable and environmental technologies
  • Materials engineering design
  • Advanced electronic materials
  • Renewable energy materials
  • Forefront of materials science

Postgraduate supervision

For a full list of available Doctoral Research opportunities, please visit our Doctoral Research programme listings.   

Contact: metmat-phdmscadmin@contacts.bham.ac.uk

Research

  • Degradation of samarium cobalt magnets in ambient, humid and high temperature environments
  • Non-equilibrium strip casting of rare earth – transition metal alloys for primary and secondary magnet production
  • Alloy development for production of rare earth magnets resistant to degradation and corrosion
  • Magnetic characterisation of minerals for separation and contamination investigation
  • Recovery and recycling of samarium cobalt magnets
  • Recovery and recycling of Nd-Fe-B magnets

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Griffiths, JT, Brooks, OP, Kozak, V, Lambourne, A, Campbell, A & Sheridan, RS 2025, 'The Effects of Knife Milling and Ball Milling on Hydrogen Decrepitated Sm2TM17 Sintered Magnet Powder for Short-Loop Recycling', Metals, vol. 15, no. 11, 1258. https://doi.org/10.3390/met15111258

Griffiths, J, Brooks, OP, Obulan Subramanian, G, Kozak, V, Brown, D, Campell, A, Lambourne, A & Sheridan, RS 2025, 'The Effects of Temperature and Pressure on the Hydrogen Decrepitation and Hydrogen Desorption of Sm2TM17 Sintered Magnets', Intermetallics, vol. 184, 108831. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intermet.2025.108831

Sarriegui, G, Degri, M, Ipatov, M, Pickering, L, Checa, BL, Burgos, N, Awais, M, Sheridan, R, Walton, A, Martín, JM & González, J 2024, 'Development of anisotropic Nd-Fe-B powder from isotropic gas atomized powder', Powder Technology, vol. 431, 119067. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.powtec.2023.119067

Brooks, O, Spapens, R, Griffiths, J, Taylor, G, Kozak, V, Obulan Subramanian, G, Gao, Z, Chiu, Y-L, Lambourne, A & Sheridan, R 2024, 'High temperature electrical resistivity measurements of sintered samarium cobalt magnets', Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, vol. 610, 172526. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmmm.2024.172526

Chen, Y, Alder, J, Song, T, Chen, L, Sheridan, R, Davenport, A & Kendrick, E 2024, 'Influence of magnetic field upon electrode kinetics and ionic transport', Journal of Power Sources, vol. 602, 234323. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2024.234323

Sheridan, R, Farthing, JG, Appleby, A & Brown, M 2024, 'Strip Casting of Sm2TM17-Type Alloys for Production of the Metastable SmTM7 Phase', Metals, vol. 14, no. 5, 517. https://doi.org/10.3390/met14050517

Sun, K, Mohamed, AE-MA, Jeong, M, Head, J, Lewis, ER, Ibrahim, P, Brooks, OP, Sheridan, RS & Attallah, MM 2023, 'On the origin of cracking in laser powder bed fusion processed LaCe(Fe,Mn,Si)13, and the impact of post-processing', Journal of Alloys and Compounds, vol. 968, 172017. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2023.172017

Sun, K, Li, S, Mohamed, AE-MA, Ma, K, Duan, R, Brooks, OP, Jeong, M, Head, J, Sheridan, RS & Attallah, MM 2023, 'The effect of thermal post-processing treatment on laser powder bed fusion processed NiMnSn-based alloy for magnetic refrigeration', Journal of Alloys and Compounds, vol. 961, 171063. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2023.171063

Hussein, A, Sheridan, R, Attallah, M & Jeong, M 2022, 'Enabling high efficiency magnetic refrigeration using laser powder bed fusion of porous LaCe(Fe,Mn,Si)13 structures', Additive Manufacturing, vol. 51, 102620. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2022.102620

Campbell, A, Zhang, Y & Sheridan, R 2022, 'The effect of grain size on the internal oxidation of Sm2Co17-type permanent magnets', Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, vol. 552, 169219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmmm.2022.169219

Hussein, A, Attallah, M, Sheridan, R & Bongs, K 2021, 'Microstructure-magnetic shielding development in additively manufactured Ni-Fe-Mo soft magnet alloy in the as fabricated and post-processed conditions', Journal of Alloys and Compounds, vol. 884, 161112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2021.161112

Paper

Sheridan, R, Farthing, JG, Appleby, A & Brown, M 2023, 'Strip Casting of Sm2TM17-type Alloys for Production of the Metastable SmTM7 Phase', Paper presented at 27th International Workshop on Rare Earth and Future Permanent Magnets and their Applications, Birmingham, United Kingdom, 3/09/23 - 7/09/23.

Poster

Griffiths, J, Brooks, O, Obulan Subramanian, G, Kozak, V, Lambourne, A, Campbell, A & Sheridan, R 2025, 'Effects of a Thermal Damage and Thermal Demagnetisation on the Hydrogen Decrepitation Behaviour of Sm2TM17 Sintered Magnets', 28th International Workshop on Rare Earth and Future Permanent Magnets and their Applications, Tsukuba, Japan, 27/07/25 - 31/07/25. <https://www.nims.go.jp/mmu/repm2025/>

Brooks, O, Uyumaz, C, Farthing, J, Mahendran, A, Arnold, R, Awais, M, Mann, V, Sheridan, R & Walton, A 2025, 'Remanufacture of sintered NdFeB magnets via recasting high dysprosium content end-of-life magnets', The 28th International Workshop on Rare Earth and Future Permanent Magnets and Their Applications, Tsukuba, Japan, 27/07/25 - 31/08/25.

Brooks, O, Spapens, R, Griffiths, J, Taylor, G, Kozak, V, Obulan Subramanian, G, Gao, Z, Chiu, Y-L, Lambourne, A & Sheridan, R 2023, 'High Temperature Electrical Resistivity Measurements of Sintered Samarium Cobalt Magnets', 27th International Workshop on Rare Earth and Future Permanent Magnets and their Applications, Birmingham, United Kingdom, 3/09/23 - 7/09/23.

View all publications in research portal