Putting Atoms Where they are Needed: Segregation for Property Control in Structural Alloys

从汽车到集成电路，工程师们找到不同的材料，以最好地利用它们的独特性能。结构合金的生产很少采用同样的优化策略，这似乎有些奇怪。尽管许多材料的性质与化学有很强的依赖性，但合金通常是通过将性质与平均化学相关联来设计的。认识到这是一个机会，我们的团队处于一个运动的前沿，其目标是在先进的表征和模拟工具的帮助下开发新兴的加工技术，在工程合金中“把原子放在需要的地方”。这为新产品开发提供了突破，例如，利用强化原子迁移到材料“薄弱”点的自然趋势。除了在性能设计方面具有新的自由潜力之外，这种化学特定地点策略在资源可用性日益重要的情况下，可以更有效地利用昂贵和/或难以获得的合金元素。

From cars to integrated circuits, engineers locate different materials to best exploit their unique properties. It may seem odd then, that the production of structural alloys rarely employs this same optimized strategy. Despite the strong chemistry dependence of many material properties, alloys are typically designed by correlating properties to average chemistry. Recognizing this as an opportunity, our group is at the leading edge of a movement whose aim is to develop emerging processing techniques aided by advanced characterization and simulation tools to ‘put atoms where they are needed’ in engineering alloys. This is providing breakthroughs in new product development by, for example, using the natural tendency of strengthening atoms to migrate to ‘weak’ points in a material. Beyond the potential for new freedom in property design, such a chemically site-specific strategy offers a more efficient use of expensive and/or difficult to source alloying elements at a time where resource availability is an increasingly important consideration.