Collaborative Research: DMREF: Simulation-Informed Models for Amorphous Metal Additive Manufacturing

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Additive manufacturing of amorphous metals is a potentially transformative technology for printing three-dimensional parts with superior strength and toughness. Since amorphous metals solidify without adopting a crystal structure, they do not form crystalline defects that can limit part performance. While the high cooling rates associated with using a laser to deposit metal on a surface are favorable for avoiding crystallization, the scanning of the laser can lead to subsequent crystallization and variations in properties from one location to another. These issues currently limit the technique to small scale and specialty parts. To overcome this limitation, machine learning approaches will derive meaningful measures of material structure from electron nanodiffraction and simulation data. Upon this foundation, the research team will build simulation-informed models, tools that will predict how processing gives rise to the strength and toughness of the resulting materials. These models will be tested by direct comparison to experiment, laying the scientific groundwork for computational design tools for additive manufacturing of amorphous metals. Concurrently, the three universities engaged in this Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) research will form a learning community to support graduate student professional development in online communication. This community will distill and disseminate the investigators' experiences developing online content for courses, engaging in public communication, and building outreach programs for underserved communities. The modules developed will teach tomorrow’s researchers how to effectively engage diverse audiences of various ages. Taken together, this work supports national priorities in advanced manufacturing technology and workforce development, particularly at the intersection with mathematical methods and data science.This DMREF project will develop the underlying materials science and computational tools to enable design of additively manufactured amorphous metals with desired mechanical properties, including strength and toughness. Amorphous metals, also termed metallic glasses, have potential as a transformative material for additive manufacturing applications. Unlike crystalline materials that solidify through the growth of anisotropic grains, typically resulting in grain boundaries and complex textures, rapid cooling causes metallic glasses to solidify without crystal structure. Amorphous metal additive manufacturing is promising both for superior structural homogeneity compared to crystals and for overcoming cooling-rate limitations for casting larger structures. However, reheating associated with layer-by-layer processing results in material with a complex thermal history and spatially varying mechanical properties. The simulation-informed modeling undertaken by the research team is the first step toward a simultaneous design approach for achieving target materials properties and performance. This approach will couple processing by direct laser deposition with high-fidelity physical models. Machine learning will be used to quantify key order parameters suitable for predicting mechanical properties from nanometer-resolution electron nanodiffraction and atomistic simulation data. Solving this data fusion and inference problem will relate experimental and simulation data on differing scales to structural order parameters in robust ways. From these, the researchers will build simulation-informed models, continuum numerical tools that will capture how processing gives rise to the strength and toughness of the resulting materials. Validation will be achieved by direct comparison to ex situ and in situ mechanical testing. Uncertainty quantification will be included in these models a priori.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.