IREE: CAREER: Processing and Development of a New Ultra-Light High-Strength Material
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| Abstract | ABSTRACT: Composite metal foam (CMF) is a new, ultralight high strength material invented by Dr. Afsaneh Rabiei under the current NSF award and can be produced by casting and powder metallurgy techniques. Cast samples consist of an aluminum matrix surrounding hollow stainless steel or low carbon steel spheres, and powder metallurgy samples are either stainless steel or low carbon steel matrix and spheres. Using the IREE supplement, an undergraduate student, Judy Brown, traveled to The University of Tokyo to study the properties of CMF in 4 point bending tests with in-situ acoustic emission (AE) monitoring. Results showed high peak stress up to 82.1MPa—a significant improvement over the performance of existing metal foams. Foam performance and the type of AE observed are largely related to its microstructure. Fracture of intermetallic compounds present in cast samples resulted in a large number of AE events with high amplitude levels, while powder metallurgy samples exhibited much less AE events. Powder metallurgy samples don’t have intermetallic compounds, and the primary AE source in these samples was debonding of spheres from the matrix. In addition to technical progress, the IREE award provided invaluable international research experience to an undergraduate student and opened opportunities for future collaboration with the host laboratory. Judy’s success story in Japan was posted on NSF web site in Aug. 2008 (http://www.nsftokyo.org/ssr08-02.pdf). |
| Contributor | PLG_RESOURCES_ABOUT_ANONYMOUS |
| Bio | Judith A. Brown is a senior at North Carolina State University and will graduate in May, 2009 with a B.S. degree in aerospace engineering. She joined Dr. Rabiei’s Advanced Materials Research Lab in January, 2008. Afsaneh Rabiei received her Ph.D. in advanced materials at Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Japan, in 1997 within the area of mechanics and non-destructive evaluation of metal matrix composites. Prior to that she gained over 8 years of industrial experiences in materials science & processing including casting, welding and non-destructive testing. She received her B.S. from the Department of Metallurgy & Material Science at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran in 1986. She worked at Harvard University as a post-doctoral researcher from 1997 until 2000. She is fluent in English, Japanese and Persian. Dr. Rabiei is the translator of the "Engineering Physical Metallurgy" book from English to Persian and she is the author of three other technical books, several international papers and booklets. |
| Cite this work | Researchers should cite this work as follows: Judith Brown and Afsaneh Rabiei, "IREE: CAREER: Processing and Development of a New Ultra-Light High-Strength Material", Trip report presented at the NSF IREE 2008 Grantees Conference, May 2008, Washington, D.C. |
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