Conference: 2023 Physical Metallurgy Gordon Research Conference and Seminar

Gordon Research Conferences, East Greenwich RI

Investigators

Abstract

Non-Technical Summary The purpose of the conference support request is to enable the participation of early career attendees and key invited speakers to the 2023 Physical Metallurgy Gordon Research Conference (GRC), which has a long history of catalyzing new directions and sparking critical discussions of fundamental concepts in the science and engineering of metals in complex, heterogeneous applications. As a result, the Physical Metallurgy GRC is become a key network- and community-building event for metallurgists and materials scientists, from graduate students, post-docs, and other early career scientists to senior scientists and engineers. The unique format of Gordon Research Conferences with in-depth presentations at the forefront of science with equal discussion time, integrated poster sessions where all attendees are encouraged present their work, and informal discussion sessions and workshops provides a forum to probe our scientific understanding and share expertise among the community members. This Physical Metallurgy GRC is subtitled “Metallurgy Matters for Creating a Sustainable World”, reflecting the community’s commitment to the principles of the National Science Foundation’s efforts to support fundamental science that will lead to a more sustainable future for generations to come. The GRC will be preceded by an associated Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) where early career researchers present and discuss their work and participate in mentoring and career-building activities. The GRS will be held on July 8-9, 2023 and the GRC will be on July 9-14, 2023, at Stonehill College in Easton, MA. Technical Summary One of the most pressing challenges and opportunities for the physical metallurgy community lies in our ability to harness the latest scientific advances to have a positive impact on the environment, economy, and society. The community must learn to design, produce, and implement metals and alloys in a rapid and sustainable manner. Germane to these goals is the necessity to examine the field of physical metallurgy for intersections between fundamental science and the sustainability of proposed technologies. The research objective of this meeting is to enable the community to explore the complex relationships between processing, structure, property, and performance that are needed to overcome acute barriers to discovery and implementation of sustainable metals. Advances in physical metallurgy are needed to enable forward-looking sustainability concepts in light weighting, recycling, extreme environment, magnetic/energy and others, and technical approach for this meeting will be to focus on the fundamental scientific underpinnings (material defects, thermodynamics and kinetic interactions, microstructure) necessary to achieve these goals. Further, new discoveries in these domains are being enabled through 3D/4D high-resolution microstructure probes, emerging theories, computational models and data science-driven simulations, novel processing pathways, and the measurements and tools to provide connectivity between them. The oral and poster sessions at the GRC and GRS will provide a robust venue for discussion of the fundamental science, methods and tools, and new discoveries, with the anticipated outcome of providing a vision for using physical metallurgical sciences to enable a more sustainable future. The potential impact of the meeting will be represented through the engagement of the diverse structural metals research community to harness the dialogs of the meeting toward accelerating the design and development of advanced materials. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.