STRUCTURAL MATERIAL TECHNOLOGY

Structural material technology

We develop structural materials for excellent and reliable mechanical properties by microstructure design using experiments and artificial intelligence. In addition to steel, Al, Mg, Ti, and novel high entropy alloys, manufacturing using 3D printing process is investigated for automotive, aviation/space, defense, biomaterials, electronics, energy industries.

High Entropy Alloy
Metal Additive
Manufacturing
Digital Twin by Artificial Intelligence
and computer Simulation for Alloy and Processing Development
Electrochemical corrosion
and anti-corrosion

High Entropy Alloy

Since the early bronze age, humans have been tuning the properties of materials by adding alloying elements. With few exceptions, the basic alloying strategy of adding relatively small amounts of secondary elements to a primary element has remained unchanged over millennia. This means that composition adjustment of metallic alloys has long been used to lend desirable properties to materials. For the past decade and a half, however, a new alloying strategy that involves the combination of multiple principal elements in high concentrations to create new materials called high-entropy alloys has been emerging. High-entropy alloys have greatly expanded the compositional space for alloy design. The multidimensional compositional space that can be tackled with this approach is practically limitless, and only very small compositional regions have been investigated so far. Nevertheless, a few high-entropy alloys have already been shown to possess good mechanical, magnetic and invar properties, exceeding in part those of some conventional alloys, and more such high-entropy alloys are likely to be discovered in the future.

Metal Additive Manufacturing(3D Printing)

Additive Manufacturing (AM), or Metal 3D Printing, is a revolutionary metallurgical production method capable of producing highly complex parts directly from a computer file and raw material. Its high potential lies in its ability to manufacture customized products with individualization, complexity and weight reduction for free. The advantage of the additive manufacturing method, which allows almost unlimited object geometries to be produced, means that complex internal structures, which is why corresponding processes are used today in toolmaking and medical technology.
Highly individualized mass goods therefore require manufacturing processes that are cost-effective and close to the final contour, i.e. without expensive post-processing steps. Additive manufacturing fulfils such criteria and enables individual or small series production with almost unlimited creative freedom.

Digital Twin by Artificial Intelligence
and computer Simulation for Alloy and Processing Development

Digital Twin and Computer simulation combines existing and emerging methods from diverse scientific disciplines to bridge the wide range of time and length scales that are inherent in a number of essential phenomena and processes in materials science and engineering. Multi-Scale and multiphysics models can be used along very different research and engineering directions. The most prominent field of multiscale materials modeling lies in predicting relations between structure, processing and properties of complex materials beyond the regimes that have been probed experimentally. Another important field of high interest in that context lies in the use of models for predicting so far unknown materials structures, properties or performance. The third essential field lies in developing adequate multiscale models that can be used for process simulation, in the best case even for online structure – property predictions of materials during manufacturing.

Electrochemical corrosion and anti-corrosion

In modern times, with the development of stainless steel, the corrosion resistance of steel has improved dramatically. Corrosion in extreme environments such as cryogenic, high temperatures, abrasion and seawater environments still causes great economic and environmental damage industrially and acts as a cause of safety problems. Since it is extremely difficult or impossible to replace and repair parts in such a harsh environment, the need for structural materials with strong corrosion resistance is increasing day by day. Among them, high entropy alloys are in the spotlight as structural materials that can serve in harsh environments due to their characteristics that differ from the general predictions applied to conventional metal materials. In particular, the CoCrMnFeNi alloy represented by cantor alloy has been reported several times that it has superior corrosion resistance properties than the typical stainless steel Type 304L. In our department, studies are being actively conducted to analyze the corrosion behavior of various types of high-strength structural materials and to protect them.