ProfessorMatthias Weiss

Prof Matthias Weiss is leading the research team for sheet metal forming and advanced manufacturing in the Deakin Institute for Frontier Materials. His qualifications include a Master of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering (Completed with high distinction and best of the year 2002) from the Aachen University of Technology (RWTH Aachen), and a PhD in Material Science (Deakin) in 2007. 

Over the last 16 years Matthias has established one of the world's largest roll forming research groups that includes Australia`s most advanced roll forming research facility. His group combines analysis of material behaviour at the micro-level with the development of advanced material models, new forming concepts and routines for process monitoring and control. Matthias has built an international reputation in conventional and flexible roll forming and, at the Deakin Institute for Frontier Materials, has established a world`s first flexible forming facility for the prototyping and low volume manufacture of automotive components. His group has hosted two international roll forming research conferences in 2010 and 2018. In 2024 Matthias co-organised and co-chaired the IDDRG 2024 Conference on sheet metal forming in Melbourne, Australia which has attracted more than 150 participants from Australia and overseas. 

In 2016 Matthias co-founded Australian start-up FormFlow based on the development of a world`s first technology for bending corrugated sheet and, as the R&D director of FormFlow, has directed activities towards technology scale up and commercialisation which resulted in BlueScope Steel signing an exclusive licence agreement with FormFlow. Since 2019 Matthias has worked heavily with Deakin Architecture and Civil Engineering groups on the development of new building technologies and manufacturing processes to address Australia`s need for affordable and resilient housing. This has led to several multimillion-dollar research grant successes in 2023 and 2024 that are in collaboration with leading Victorian industry and aimed at developing premanufactured and modular building solutions and the establishment of a living community laboratory in the Colac Shire of Victoria.

More recently Matthiashas directed his research towards green hydrogen with major focus on developing new micro-forming technologies for the rapid prototyping and high-volume production of fuel cell and electrolyser metal components. Matthias works closely with the research teams at Deakin Hycel and at TU Chemnitz, Germany on the assembly and implementation of prototyped cell stacks into Hycel`s fuel cell test facility and on the development of new, renewable energy solutions for the Australian housing, transport, and defence sector.