June_AMP_Digital

64 / 66

64
Vital Statistics:
A new collaborative effort among materials researchers and computer scientists
shows how test data can be captured and shared in an open repository, an impor-
tant first step toward achieving the goals of the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI).
Doubling the speed at which new materials are developed and deployed—MGI’s
central objective—requires two things, neither of which exist today. One is a data
infrastructure linking multiple repositories; the other is an incentive to fill it with
data. However, the value that resides in data—along with the incentive for sharing
it—cannot be realized without a fully functioning data infrastructure. This im-
passe hasn’t deterred everyone from pursuing the goals of MGI, as evidenced by
several ad hoc projects paving the way toward a new era of materials development.
One such effort, the Materials Research Data Management (MRDM) Pilot Proj-
ect, addresses the issue of how to capture, organize, and share existing test data.
“There’s a huge amount of data in labs that no one, outside the lab, has access to,” says Eric Taleff, a mechanical engineer-
ing professor at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin. These “data islands,” as Taleff calls them, are a largely untapped
resource, and he and others are working diligently to change that.Success Factors:
One of Taleff’s collaborators on the MRDM project is Tom Searles, a materials data-
base specialist with Materials Data Management Inc., Carmel, Ind. “Our goal was to de-
velop a sample database to assess the level of effort required to fill it and get a better
sense of the value potential of the data itself,” says Searles.
The data that Searles and others used to populate the database was derived from test
results acquired by Taleff and one of his graduate students. “Our original objec-
tive was to improve our understanding of plasticity in wrought Mg alloy AZ31
sheet at high temperatures,” says Taleff. The work was supported by General Mo-
tors, which, along with UT, agreed
to allow the data to be used in the
Pilot Project.
According to Searles, the data in-
cludes specimen details, testing in-
formation, and tensile results.
Related crystallographic and micro-
graph data has also been uploaded
along with data citations that pro-
vide a record of project credits and
ancillary information.
About the Innovators:
Eric Taleff is a professor with the
Department of Mechanical Engi-
neering at the University of Texas at
Austin. Tom Searles is a materials engineer and database specialist with Materials Data Management Inc., Carmel, Ind.
Other members of the MRDM Pilot Project team include Stuart Dyer from Granta Design, and Scott Henry and Larry
Berardinis from ASM International’s Computational Materials Data Network.
What’s Next:
The Pilot Project database is nearly complete and is expected to be open to the public sometime this month. Access is
free, requiring only basic registration. The database will be accessible at cmdnetwork.org. The consensus among the
MRDM project team is to keep expanding the database and begin linking it to other such repositories.Contact Details:
Eric M. Taleff
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin204 E. Dean
Austin,
512.471.5378,
Micrographs and pole figures help capture
microstructural details relevant to the
Mg alloy test samples used to collect
tensile data.
A sample of wrought Mg alloy AZ31 sheet,
before (top) and after high-temperature
tensile testing, shows the effect of heat
as well as strain. Results are being used
to help build open data repositories where
researchers can easily distribute and
share data.
SucceSS AnAlySiS
ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES • JUNE 2014
The MRDM Pilot Project database uses
Granta MI software to accommodate
tensile test data, microstructural
information, pedigree and citation
records, test setup details, and
computational results.
Materials Research Data Management Pilot Project
Specimen
Name: