Multimodal Correlative Tomography for Advanced Materials Development

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The structure of materials is inherently 3D in nature with many important events occurring well beneath the surface. Emerging 3D multi-scale, multi-faceted, and time-lapsed imaging techniques are now beginning to be brought together as "multimodal correlative tomography" to acquire unique 3D knowledge of microstructure and the way it evolves when mechanically deformed or heated to high temperatures. This approach provides significantly deeper insight to structure-property-processing relationships than what is gained when imaging uncorrelated regions of a sample or when imaging using 2D methods. The long-term goal of this NSERC Discovery Grant is to develop multimodal correlative tomography as a key method for revealing novel insight into the performance and failure mechanisms of advanced engineering materials. In the short-term the objective is to improve multimodal correlative tomography workflows i.e. to address technical challenges relating to imaging-workflows, materials testing stages, and alignment of images between scans that limit this technique's widespread use in materials R&D. The short-term objective will be realized through four sub-objectives that apply this approach to advanced material systems. Specifically we will investigate how the structure of Li-ion battery and hydrogen fuel cell materials change during operation, how new additively manufactured beta-Ti alloys deform, and how ternary analogues to AA 7XXX alloys solidify. These material systems were selected due to their great potential to help reduce in-transportation greenhouse gas emissions and thus to support action on Climate Change. The multi-scale nature of the research will be realized by combining X-ray Computed Tomography with Focused Ion Beam electron Tomography. The use of both X-ray and electron imaging modalities provide us with access to unique 3D multi-faceted materials data from different probes: structure, chemical composition, and grain crystallography. By developing bespoke test stages, we will conduct time-lapsed 3D imaging experiments that follow microstructure evolution under controlled environmental conditions. We will develop new analysis methods to correlate the multiple data sets together, and concisely interpret the 3D images. The proposed research will have significant benefits on Canadian society and industry as well as greatly advance 3D imaging as a key materials engineering characterization method. The high quality 3D multi-scale, multi-faceted, and time-lapsed materials-data that we acquire will create new fundamental materials knowledge of battery, fuel cell, and metallic alloys that is critical for rapidly bringing new material designs to the market. The developed multimodal correlative tomography workflows will help position Canada as a world leader in this field, supporting advanced materials development with applications ranging from additive manufacturing to biomaterials to renewable resources.