Congratulations to Gyuho for passing his qualifying exam! Yeah!

Keith’s work on Cu-base metal-intermetallic nanocomposites is published in Nature Scientific Reports [web, pdf]!

This work includes collaboration efforts with Dr. Aindow and Dr. Dongare’s groups. More importantly, three UConn undergraduate students (Leopolod Valencia Jr., Jack Morley, and Thomas Bissell) made a great contribution to this work!

Abstract: Bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) and nanocrystalline metals (NMs) have been extensively investigated due to their superior strengths and elastic limits. Despite these excellent mechanical properties, low ductility at room temperature and poor microstructural stability at elevated temperatures often limit their practical applications. Thus, there is a need for a metallic material system that can overcome these performance limits of BMGs and NMs. Here, we present novel Cu-based metal-intermetallic nanostructured composites (MINCs), which exhibit high ultimate compressive strengths (over 2 GPa), high compressive failure strain (over 20%), and superior microstructural stability even at temperatures above the glass transition temperature of Cu-based BMGs. Rapid solidification produces a unique ultra-fine microstructure that contains a large volume fraction of Cu₅Zr superlattice intermetallic compound; this contributes to the high strength and superior thermal stability. Mechanical and microstructural characterizations reveal that substantial accumulation of phase boundary sliding at metal/intermetallic interfaces accounts for the extensive ductility observed.

(a) Engineering stress-strain curves of Cu-based MINCs in this study. The inset is the scanning electron microscope image of fractured Cu₈₅Zr₁₀Ti₅ specimen. (b) Plot of plastic strain vs. fracture strength of Cu-based bulk metallic glasses, Cu-based bulk metallic glass composites, and Cu-based MINCs in this study. Note that we obtained data from Cu alloys that contains Cu as the major composition component.

John and Keith’s work on ThCr2Si2-type intermetallic compounds is featured at the top headline of UConn Today. on Jan. 9, 2017. The title of article is “New Material Promises Benefits to Deep Space Travel.”

New Material Promises Benefits to Deep Space Travel

Keith and John’s work is highlighted in “Scientific Highlight” of MRS Fall meeting! – Click Here.

Keith and John are working on Superelasticity and Cryogenic Shape Memory Intermetallic Compounds.

Lee’s group attend 2016 MRS Fall Meeting at Boston!

Enjoy photos in our Gallery!

Oral Presentation

• Strong, Ductile, Thermally Stable Cu-Based Metal-Intermetallic Nanostructure Composites
  Keith Dusoe, Sriram Vijayan, Thomas Bissell, Jie Chen, Avinash Dongare, Mark Aindow, Seok-Woo Lee
• A New Class of Superelastic Material – ThCr2Si2-type Novel Intermetallic Compounds At Small Length Scales
  Keith Dusoe, Ian Bakst, John Sypek, Christopher Weinberger, Paul Canfield, Seok-Woo Lee
• Superelasticity, Micaceous Plasticity and Size Effects of Novel Intermetallic Compound CaFe ₂As ₂ at Small Length Scales
  John Sypek, Christopher Weinberger, Paul Canfield, Sergey Bud’ko, Seok-Woo Lee
• Synthesis of Bulk Single-Crystalline Quasicrystal Approximant YCd6 and Its SmallScale Mechanical Properties
  Gyuho Song, Tai Kong, Paul Canfield, Seok-Woo Lee
• Modelling The Superelastic Behavior In Small Scale ThCr2Si2-Type Crystal
  Christopher Weinberger, Ian Bakst, John Sypek, Keith Dusoe, Hang Yu, Paul Canfield, Seok-Woo Lee
• Particle Impact Phenomena in Cold Spray of Gas Atomized Aluminum Alloy Powders
  Mark Aindow, Benjamin Bedard, Harold Body, Victor Champagne, Avinash Dongare, Tyler Flanagan, Seok-Woo Lee, Sumit Suresh, Xuemei Wang

Poster

Amanda Giroux, Hetal Patel, and Leopoldo Valencia Jr. attended 2016 MS&T meeting at Utah. Amanda gave a poster presentation about her summer research on Superplasticity of ThCr2Si2-structured intermetallic compounds (This work was supported by NSF-REU program). Hetal participated in Mug Cup Drop contest. Leo participated in Geodome contest.

Leo is currently working on the development of Cu-based nanostructured alloys with enhanced strength and ductility with Jack Morley. Hetal is currently working on the measurement of temperature-dependent theoretical strength of metal using spherical nanoindentation. Amanda studied “Superplasticity of ThCr2Si2-structured intermetallic compounds” during the last summer.

Amanda met Chef Gordon Ramsay!!! Awesome!!!

Also, read the department news!

John Sypek won the first place in the poster competition of the SES (Society of Engineering Science) 2016 – 53^rd Annual Technical Meeting at University of Maryland, College Park, MD. The SES meeting is one of the biggest ‘Mechanics’ conferences in USA.

John Sypek gave a poster presentation entitled “Superelasticity and one-dimensional cryogenic shape memory effects of novel intermetallic compound CaFe₂As₂ at small length scales,” on October 4^th. Many Congratulations!

Keith, John, and Seok-Woo attended the SES 2016 (Society of Engineering Science) – 53rd annual technical meeting at University of Maryland, College Park, MD.

Keith Dusoe presented a talk entitled “Ultra-high elastic strain energy storage in AlO_x-infiltrated SU-8 photoresist nanopillars,” on October 3^rd, and a talk and poster presentation entitled “In-situ compression of solution-grown crystalline superelastic materials: ThCr₂Si₂-structured novel intermetallic compounds,” on October 4^th.

John Sypek presented a talk and poster presentation entitled “Superelasticity and one-dimensional cryogenic shape memory effects of novel intermetallic compound CaFe₂As₂ at small length scales,” on October 3^rd and 4^th, respectively.

Seok-Woo receives 2016 NASA Early Career Faculty Award!

The official announcement is available at the NASA website, and the brief project description is available here.

This news is featured at ExecutiveBiz, and UConn MSE homepage.