IRES: US-Australia Collaboration on a Fundamental Approach to Generating New Classes of Lightweight, High Performance,High Entropy Alloys

通过这项面向学生的国际研究体验奖，哈维·马德学院(HMC)的本科生将参与与澳大利亚悉尼新南威尔士大学材料科学与工程学院和电子显微镜单元的研究人员进行的持续合作。首席研究员Lori Bassman和新南威尔士大学的主要合作者Kevin Laws博士和Michael Ferry教授将为参与研究的学生制定全年研究的项目方向(每年四次)，学生和PI每年访问新南威尔士大学10周。在新南威尔士大学，学生将有广泛的机会接触到物理冶金实验室、显微镜设施、培训和HMC无法提供的特定学科的专业知识。通过合作，HMC的学生将开发出机械性能远远超过传统工程金属的新型金属高熵合金(HEAs)。与只有一个主要组成元素的传统合金不同，HEAs有五个或更多元素的大致等原子比例。HEAS具有广泛的应用潜力，从制造更轻、高强度的结构到用于高温应用，再到形成用于高磨损或腐蚀性环境的涂层。考虑到它们的复杂性，待开发的可能合金的范围与元素周期表本身一样广泛，在为许多不同的应用定制材料性能方面有着巨大的前景。这些复杂合金形成和性能改善的机制还不是很清楚。这个项目的中心目标是开发一种基本的方法来预测形成稳定的金属固溶体的成分。这种方法将被用来产生具有特定应用特性的新的合金类别。HMC本科生的具体项目将集中在合金的开发、制造、机械表征和微结构表征，以及合金结构的计算建模。一个经过实验验证的基于第一性原理计算的系统模型将有助于进一步的HEA系统的有效开发。这个项目将有助于本科生成长为自信、热情的研究人员，他们为在国际研究环境中的科学和工程职业做好准备。

Through this International Research Experiences for Students award, Harvey Mudd College (HMC) undergraduate students will participate in an ongoing collaboration with researchers in the School of Materials Science and Engineering and the Electron Microscope Unit at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia. Principal investigator Lori Bassman and lead UNSW collaborators Dr. Kevin Laws and Professor Michael Ferry will develop project directions for year-round research by participating students (four per year), with 10 week visits by the students and PI to UNSW each year. At UNSW the students will have extensive access to physical metallurgy laboratories, microscope facilities, training, and discipline-specific expertise unavailable at HMC. Through the collaboration, HMC students will develop novel metallic high entropy alloys (HEAs) with mechanical properties greatly exceeding those of conventional engineering metals. Unlike traditional alloys that have one primary constituent element, HEAs have five or more elements in roughly equiatomic proportions. HEAs have excellent potential in a vast range of applications, from making lighter-weight, high-strength structures to usage in high temperature applications to forming coatings for high wear or corrosive environments. Given their complexity, the range of possible alloys to be developed is as extensive as the periodic table itself, with tremendous promise for tailoring material properties for a great many different applications. The mechanisms by which these complex alloys are formed and improved properties are achieved are not well understood. The central goal of this project is to develop a fundamental approach for predicting compositions that form stable metallic solid solutions. This approach will be used to generate new classes of alloys with application-specific properties. The specific projects to be performed by HMC undergraduates will focus on alloy development, fabrication, mechanical characterization and microstructural characterization, as well as computational modeling of alloy structures. An experimentally validated, systematic model based on first-principles calculations will enable efficient development of further HEA systems.This project will contribute to the maturation of undergraduate students into confident, enthusiastic researchers who are prepared for science and engineering careers in international research environments.