Since the early beginnings of REGAL, an initiative of the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi to support their research activities on aluminum in 2003, McGill University and more particularly the Department of Mines and Materials Engineering is one of the founding members of REGAL. From the first day, Dr. Florence Paray represented the members of her institution by building bridges between French-speaking universities and her English-speaking university, enabling collaboration between researchers from all affiliations. The research activities of the REGAL-McGill join the Axis 2 – Transformation and Applications of the scientific program of REGAL.

The expertise of the members is varied. Aluminum research projects include the additive manufacture of aluminum alloys, the development and engineering of manufacturing processes, assembly and powdered nanomaterials for structural applications; the development and characterization of surface modification techniques mainly for coatings, to improve wear resistance and friction control; the quantitative characterization of the microstructures with the photons and electrons and the modeling of their trajectories with Monte-Carlo and Casino methods, the thermodynamic modeling and the development of databases simulating the design and precipitation for a new aluminum alloy.

The McGill Center for Materials Characterization (MMC), led by two REGAL-McGill members, Professor Raynald Gauvin and Dr. Florence Paray, represents one of the main research infrastructures used by REGAL researchers and members. With its scientific and technical expertise, the dynamic MMC team contributes to teaching and research; in addition, materials characterization services are also available externally. MMC offers state-of-the-art equipment such as four scanning electron microscopes (SEM), three X-ray diffractometers (XRD), X-ray tomography (MicroCT0, XPS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.