The Anderson Group aims to understand how the structure of various materials controls their mechanical properties.
This theme plays across various length scales. For example, structural features range from the type of atomic bonding at the sub-nanometer scale to the size and distribution of cracks at the millimeter to meter scale.
Structural features vary among classes of materials. For crystalline materials, this includes the geometry of atomic packing in crystals, missing or extra atoms and other defects that disrupt the perfect packing of atoms, and the size, orientation, and aspect ratio of aggregates of crystals. For scaffolds for biological materials, structural features might involve the composition, density, radius, length, tortuosity, cross-linking, and orientation distribution of polymer fibers. For shape memory alloys, structural features may include the size, distribution, and orientation of nanoscale precipitates and complex distributions of austenite and martensite phases.
Mechanical properties include the directionally-dependent elastic moduli (stiffness) of materials, the critical stress (load) at which the material begins to permanently deform, fracture, or undergo a phase change. These properties can be measured in small (sub-micron) or large (cm-scale) samples and they can be probed across a variety of length scales extending down to the dimensions of individual cells or nm-scale phases.
Examples of materials development in the group include:
- Wear-resistant stainless steel alloys for use at elevated temperature (300 C and higher), by alloying with nitrogen.
Sponsor: Electric Power Research Institute
Collaborators: University of Tennessee, Carpenter Specialty Products, OSU MSE (Richard Blocher)
Please see Ryan Smith, Richard Blocher
Related article: - High temperature (200 C) shape memory alloys, by alloying the archetypal nickel-titanium material with hafnium, gold, and other elements.
Sponsor: Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences
Collaborators: NASA Glenn Research Center (Ronald Noebe), colleagues at OSU MSE (Michael Mills, Yunzhi Wang)
Please see Xiang Chen and Kathryn Esham
Related article:
Examples of experimental technique development in the group include:
- Nano indentation and heated x-ray diffraction to measure the deformation strength of individual phases within nano laminated composites.
Collaborators: Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Please see Michael Gram
Related article: - Nano indentation at both room and elevated temperature to determine the deformation strength of individual phases and deformation mechanisms in stainless steel alloys.
Sponsor: Electric Power Research Institute
Collaborators: OSU MSE (Ryan Smith)
Please see Marc Doran - Multi-point laser tweezers to apply a forcing function to a polymer microsphere in agarose or collagen gels. This is coupled with optics to measure the displacement of the driven and other microspheres in the neighborhood.
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Collaborators: Physics (Gregory Lafyatis), Biomedical Engineering (Gunjan Agarwal, David Yeung), MSE (Heather Powell)
Please see David Gutschick - In-situ straining of polymer fiber scaffolds in a confocal microscope to determine underlying fiber reorientation, interaction, and deformation.
Collaborators: OSU MSE (Heather Powell)
Please see Danielle Dunham - Digital image correlation to determine deformation in gels with cardiomyocytes.
OSU Collaborators: OSU MSE (Jianjun Guan)
Please see Yanyi Xu
Examples of computational materials science in the group include:
- Computation of thermodynamic forces on dislocations in aluminum and high entropy alloys. Multi-scale simulations coupled with high resolution transmission electron microscope images.
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Collaborators: OSU MSE (Michael Mills, Maryam Ghazisaeidi) - Coupled plasticity and phase transformation during thermal-mechanical loading of shape memory alloys. Phase field simulations incorporated into an explicit finite element solver with crystal plasticity.
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Collaborators: Colorado School of Mines (Paranjape), OSU MSE (Michael Mills, Yunzhi Wang)
Please see Harshad Paranjape
Related article: - The mechanical and chemical effects of nanoscale precipitates on the response of high temperature shape memory alloys. Finite element simulations with a user-material subroutine for phase transformations and plasticity.
Sponsor: Department of Energy
Collaborators: NASA Glenn Research Center (Ronald Noebe), OSU MSE (Michael Mills, Yunzhi Wang), Sivom Manchiraju
Please see Xiang Chen - The thermo-mechanical response of aluminum matrix-shape memory fiber composites manufactured by ultrasonic additive manufacturing. Finite element simulations.
Sponsor: Department of Energy
Collaborators: OSU Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (Marcelo Dapino, Adam Hehr)
Please see Xiang Chen
Related article: - Determining the force foot print of cardiomyocytes during differentiation and growth in gels. Finite element simulations using experimentally-calibrated rheological properties for gels.
Collaborators: OSU MSE (Jianjun Guan)
Please see Yanyi Xu - Micron-scale deformation in fibrous polymer scaffolds for engineered skin. Finite element simulations of discrete polymer fibers, incorporating contact.
Collaborators: OSU MSE (Powell)
Please see Danielle Dunham - The mechanical response of nano crystalline metals manufactured by electrodeposition. Quantized crystal plasticity simulations to determine the underlying distribution of critical strengths to initiate crystal slip in nanocrystals.
Collaborators: University of Alabama (Lin Li), Paul Scherrer Institute (Helena Van Swygenhoven, Steven Van Petegem)
Please see Paul Christodoulou