Phase II I/UCRC Iowa State U Site: Center for Advanced Non-Ferrous Structural Alloys (CANFSA)

Iowa State University, Ames IA

Investigators

Abstract

The Center for Advanced Non-Ferrous Structural Alloys (CANFSA) at Iowa State University (ISU) consists of students, post-docs and faculty who work with their CANFSA counterparts at the Colorado School of Mines (Mines) to engage scientists and engineers from both industry and government laboratories to discover fundamental understandings of the physical and mechanical metallurgy of non-ferrous alloys (i.e., alloying and processing effects on microstructure, properties and performance). The motivation for CANFSA is to address the national decline in the training of students in this area that is critical to U.S. dominance in high performance materials, structures and advanced manufacturing. Today, there are only a few universities remaining who train students in these core science and engineering areas that are so critical to our industries, especially as National investments are made in new advanced materials and manufacturing strategies. In fact, these declines have greatly reduced
 the synergies that existed previously between faculty, students, and the relevant industries, and this, in turn, has significantly weakened the technical dominance of US industries that rely heavily
 on these materials. CANFSA was organized to counter this trend by conducting fundamental scientific studies on these advanced materials and their manufacturing, thereby filling this workforce development gap and simultaneously contributing to U.S. global industrial competitiveness. The objective of CANFSA is to conduct basic and applied physical metallurgy 
research of direct relevance to the industries that develop, manufacture and use advanced 
non-ferrous structural alloys, and to train students in these important subjects. This is accomplished by engaging students in topics of importance to industry and government labs, and to have both faculty members and external mentors guide the students' fundamental research. The specific details of the projects that are conducted within the Center vary as topics are selected that have the most direct relevance for the partners from industry and the national laboratories. To date, the Center has conducted leading research in the areas of: thermal and mechanical processing of non-ferrous alloys (e.g., 3rd Generation Al-Li alloys, texture anisotropy of Ti-6Al-4V); ultrafine grained alloys and their mechanical behavior (e.g., Ti and Mg); aging of high-strength beta-Ti alloys; processing of microeutectic Al alloys; microstructural evolution (e.g., Ni-Ti-Hf intermetallics, Ni-based superalloys, high entropy alloys); multi-layer coatings; lube-free die casting; and the role of trace elements and small microstructural variations on mechanical properties. To conduct these varied research projects and accomplish the goals of the Center, faculty members with complementary 
expertise in the areas of theory, modeling, processing and characterization are working together with members from industry and government laboratories. Iowa State University has a variety of processing, characterization, and computational tools available on which to conduct the Center?s research. This includes state-of-the-art electron microscopy and atom probe capabilities in a newly established Sensitive Instrumentation Facility and elsewhere across ISU's campus. In addition, researchers have access to a variety of advanced processing equipment and computational tools that span across a wide range of methods, including: atomistic simulation techniques; discrete dislocation dynamics; phase field simulation; cellular automata; finite element methods and FFT-based simulation approaches. Computations can be made ranging from fundamental physical processes to macroscale fluid and heat transfer. This expertise at ISU is complementary to that at CSM, and collectively, CANFSA is able to offer a suite of unique capabilities to its membership.