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Posted on: 11/8/2012 12:00:00 AM... In support of the U.S. Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) the National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced its first awards for the Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) program.

The NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) and Engineering (ENG) Directorates invested a total of just over $12 million for 22 grants in support of 14 distinct DMREF projects that target the MGI’s primary goal of cutting in half the current time and cost of transitioning breakthroughs from the laboratory to the marketplace. The DMREF’s approach to accomplishing this involves the development of new physically based and verified computational tools to accelerate the discovery, development and property optimization of new materials and systems.

TMS congratulates the following members whose projects have received one of these prestigious grants:

Multi-Scale Fundamental Investigation of Sintering Anisotropy
Principal Investigators: Eugene Olevsky, San Diego State University; Rajendra Bordia, University of Washington
The development of a new, integrated, multi-scale approach incorporating modeling and experimentation on sintering-induced deformation processes, taking into account anisotropy phenomena, is the focus of this project. The work will encompass the study of the complex interplay between processing conditions and anisotropic microstructure-constitutive properties, providing fundamental, basic knowledge and a novel, practical approach to optimizing the manufacture of advanced ceramic and metal systems with programmable macroscopic characteristics and microstructure, including multilayered solid oxide fuel cells.

Discovery, Development, and Deployment of High Temperature Coating/Substrate Systems
Principal Investigator: Tresa Pollock, University of California, Santa Barbara
This project engages an engineering and computer science team to develop a fundamental framework for the design of new multilayered materials systems for energy-efficient power generation and aircraft propulsion. Novel complementary computational and experimental tools will be developed and integrated with existing tools to accelerate development of a newly discovered cobalt-base substrate material, along with compatible environmental protection layers. Taking a systems approach, the program will develop tools and models that permit simultaneous design of the layered system, going beyond the linear, experiment-driven approach historically employed for independent development of these critical system elements.

Multi-Scale Modeling and Characterization of Twinning-Induced Plasticity and Fracture in Magnesium Alloys
Principal Investigators: Haitham El Kadiri, Mississippi State University; Sean Agnew, University of Virginia; Co-Principal Investigator: Laurent Capolungo, Georgia Tech Research Corporation
The goal of this collaborative effort is to identify fundamentally validated mean-field and full-field models capable of predicting failure in magnesium alloys. These models will greatly aid efforts to render lightweight magnesium alloys "formable" and "crushable," so that society can exploit their performance and efficiency benefits in safety critical applications. These multiscale modeling concepts can also be modified for application to numerous other materials, which deform by similar mechanisms of twinning or martensitic transformation.

Nitride Discovery—Creating the Knowledge Base for Hard Coating Design
Principal Investigator: Daniel Gall, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
The primary objective of this research program is to develop a method for determining the intrinsic physical properties of transition metal nitrides. By providing a systematic understanding of the fundamental properties of all transition metal nitrides, based on their electronic structure, this knowledge base has the potential to help transform the evolutionary trial-and-error development of protective coatings into a “coatings-by-design” approach. This, in turn, could lead to more rapid deployment of new coating materials for emerging applications including fuel-efficient jet engines and gas turbines, environmentally-friendly lubricant-free cutting tools, high-temperature concentrating solar power plants, and wind turbines.

First-Principles Based Design of Spintronic Materials and Devices
Co-Principal Investigator: Subhadra Gupta, University of Alabama
In today's electronic devices, electrons are manipulated through their electrical charge. However, electrons have another property called "spin". According to quantum mechanics, the spin axis of an electron can point in only one of two directions—either "up" or "down". In most materials, there are equal numbers of up and down electrons and usually both types respond to an electric field in the same way. In magnetic materials, however, the number of up and down spin electrons may be different and the two types of electrons may respond to electric fields in different ways. The most extreme example of this phenomenon is a "half-metal", meaning that one set of electrons is a metal and the other set is an insulator. A specific technology goal is the design, fabrication, and demonstration of a half-metal with carefully controlled magnetic properties tailored to meet the requirements of non-volatile magnetic memories, which are intended to eventually replace traditional RAM. The focus of this project is to provide an improved understanding of half-metals and magnetic materials, in general. Of particular emphasis is how to relate 'first-principles' calculations to experimentally accessible and technologically relevant materials and device parameters.

A Fundamental Approach to Study the Effect of Structural and Chemical Composition in Functionalized Graphene Materials
Co-Principal Investigator: Jiaxing Huang, Northwestern University
The central goal of this project is to establish a paradigm shift in material design by combining theory, modeling, and experimentation in a multiscale and synergistic manner to maximize the strength and toughness of nanocomposite materials that emulate the performance of hierarchically assembled structures inspired by nature, using graphene oxide. It is expected that the development of criteria for predicting and tailoring the mechanical properties of graphene oxide-based nanocomposite materials will be transferable to a wide range of nanocomposites. These next-generation synthetic materials are essential for advances in the aerospace, satellite, automotive, military, and healthcare industries.

"The driving force behind MGI and DMREF is a materials innovation infrastructure in which a new understanding of physical and chemical processes, properties and materials performance drives the development and validation of next-generation algorithms and software," says Ian Robertson, director of NSF's Division of Materials Research. "Experimental and computational approaches are key to DMREF, which along with the emerging field of materials informatics, work in a synergistic partnership, each challenging and pushing the other in new directions. Success for DMREF and MGI hinges on the success of that partnership."

To read the full descriptions of these projects, as well as the other DRMEF-funded projects, go to this link

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