Seminars

Many future engineering systems will rely on advanced high performance alloys that substantially overcome the limitations of materials commonly used today. The more promising candidates typically are microstructurally complex, bearing multiple phases, multiple boundary types, and/or multiple shapes. Modeling microstructure-macroscopic property relationships via multiscale computational techniques can aid in the manufacturing and microstructural design for these advanced structural materials. In this talk, recent advancements in multiscale, microstructure-sensitive modeling toward this goal are presented. These extensions include improved ways of accounting for grain boundaries and interfaces on the chief microscopic mechanisms of deformation:  dislocation slip and deformation twinning.  Problems addressed will include the effects of 1) grain boundaries on stochastic twin formation, 2) grain boundaries and nearest neighborhoods on deformation twin expansion and transmission, 3) biphase interfaces in nanolayered composite strength, and 4) nanocrystalline and nanotwin size scales on dislocation emssion and propagation. In all cases, the studies reveal a new and strong role of microstructure on deformation response and these features will be highlighted.