The UConn MSE Material Advantage Student Chapter (Amanda Agui, Victoria Reichelderfer, and Joe Tracey) and MSE assistant professor, Dr. Seok-Woo Lee, attended the STEAM Night at East Farms Elementary School at Farmington CT on October 12, 2018. The STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) Night is the annual event at Farmington CT that invites more than 200 elementary school students and let them experience the STEAM field. UConn Health center and Farmington high school robotics team participated. Also, the elementary school teachers prepared for plenty of interesting science demonstrations. Our Material Advantage Student Chapter showed their famous liquid-nitrogen frozen marshmallow. They also demonstrated how metals can be liquid by using gallium (its melting point is only around 30^oC). Their 3D printed figurines also attracted kids. Dr. Seok-Woo Lee ran a project to make a 2D crystal. Kids built a special 2D crystal on the floor with marshmallows and wood sticks. It started from graphene but ended with unknown complex 2D crystal.

 

 

The detailed news is also available in the UConn MSE department website.

https://www.mse.engr.uconn.edu/uconn-material-advantage-student-chapter-shows-off-at-farmington-steam-night.php

Shuyang Xiao joined our group as a new PhD student. Welcome to UConn!!!

Shuyang will work on in-situ mechanical characterization of superplastic intermetallic compounds.

Keith successfully finished his PhD. Defense on August 3, 2018! Many Congratulations!

His Defense (Dissertation) title was “In-situ Nanomechanical Characterization of Materials with High Mechanical Potential Energy Absorption Capacity.”

 

Jacob successfully finished his NSF-REU poster presentation on August 2, 2018.

His poster title is “A Nanoindentation study on Shock-Compressed Magnesium Single Crystals.”

Shocked Mg crystals were provided by US Army Research Laboratory.

Gyuho attended the 13th World Congress of Computational Mechanics (WCCM) 2018 at New York City (Manhattan), NY!

He have an oral presentation entitled, “Molecular Dynamics Study on Surface-Controlled Dislocation Multiplication in Body-Centered-Cubic Metal Nanopillars.”

 

John received the best poster award at ICSMA 18 for his poster entitled “Cryogenic Temperature Effects on Superelasticity of the Novel Intermetallic Compound CaFe₂As₂ At Small Length Scales”.

Many Congratulations!

 

 

Our whole group attended the ICSMA 18 at the Ohio State University on July 15~19, 2018.

We gave five oral presentations and one poster presentation.

• John Sypek (Oral): “A New Type of Superelastic and Shape Memory Materials: ThCr₂Si₂-Structured Intermetallic Compound at Small Length Scales”
• Keith Dusoe (Oral): “Developing High-Strength, Compliant Polymer Nanocomposites by Infiltration of Inorganic Reinforcing Nanoclusters”
• Gyuho Song (Oral): “Superelastic Superconductor, CaKFe₄As₄“
• Tyler Flanagan (Oral): “Microstructure and Mechanical Behavior in Gas Atomized Al 6061 Powders and Splats“
• Jessica Maita(Oral): “Uni-Axial Compression Tests of Amorphous Boron at the Micrometer Scale”
• John Sypek (Poster): “Cryogenic Temperature Effects on Superelasticity of the Novel Intermetallic Compound CaFe₂As₂ At Small Length Scales” – Best Poster Awarded!!!

 

Seok-Woo attended the ACMME 2018 at South Korea, and gave a presentation entitled “A new type of superelastic and shape memory materials – ThCr2Si2-structured intermetallic compounds”.

Seok-Woo (PI) receives the funding from the Department of Energy – Basic Energy Science (DOE-BES)!

$367,566, 08/01/2018~07/31/2019

The title of project is “Mechanical properties of metal at the micrometer scale in different environment.” This project will focus on the ductile-to-brittle transition of body-centered-cubic materials at the micrometer scale. We believe that the size effect strongly influences the ductile-to-brittle transition. We will use in-situ cryogenic micromechanical testing, advanced transmission electron microscopy, and dislocation dynamics simulation to elucidate the fundamental dislocation processes at low temperatures (30~300K). The research outcome will be useful to develop a mechanically reliable structure at small length scales, which operates in cryogenic environments such as the deep space.

 

Seok-Woo (PI) receives the UConn Research Excellence Award ($50,000, 05/01/2018~04/30/2019) with his collaborator, Prof. Ying Li (co-PI) of UConn Mechanical Engineering. The title of research is “Metal-like strong, but foam-like compliant nanocomposites.” Seok-Woo’ group is primarily working on the composite synthesis and nanomechanics characterization. Prof. Li’s group will work on molecular dynamics simulation to understand the deformation mechanisms.