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

通过这个国际研究经验的学生奖，哈维穆德学院（HMC）的本科生将参加与材料科学与工程学院和电子显微镜单位在澳大利亚悉尼的新南威尔士大学（UNSW）的研究人员正在进行的合作。 首席研究员洛里Bassman和新南威尔士大学的主要合作者Kevin Laws博士和Michael Ferry教授将通过参与学生（每年四名）制定全年研究的项目方向，学生和PI每年对新南威尔士大学进行为期10周的访问。 在新南威尔士大学，学生将有广泛的机会获得物理冶金实验室，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学生将开发新型金属高熵合金（HEAs），其机械性能大大超过传统的工程金属。 与传统的合金有一个主要的组成元素，HEA有五个或更多的元素，大致等原子比例。 HEA在广泛的应用中具有优异的潜力，从制造重量更轻、高强度的结构到在高温应用中使用，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，要开发的可能合金的范围就像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具有巨大的前景。 形成这些复合合金和实现改进的性能的机制还没有很好地理解。该项目的中心目标是开发一种基本方法，用于预测形成稳定金属固溶体的成分。 这种方法将用于生成具有特定应用特性的新类别合金。 由HMC本科生执行的具体项目将侧重于合金开发，制造，机械表征和微观结构表征，以及合金结构的计算建模。实验验证，基于第一性原理计算的系统模型将使进一步HEA systems.This项目将有助于本科生的成熟成为自信，热情的研究人员谁是准备在国际研究环境中的科学和工程事业的高效开发。

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.