April_AMP_Digital

6 A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | A P R I L 2 0 2 0 CENTER FOR MATERIALS PROCESSING DATA LAUNCHES PILOT PROJECT The Center for Materials Process- ing Data (CMPD) has entered a new phase, having identified and launched a pilot project. With ASM International serving as the business administrator, the Center is housed at the University of Connecticut (UConn) in their Innova- tion Partnership Building. A consortium of key academic and industry organiza- tions, CMPD is dedicated to the stew- ardship of materials data for modeling of material and process design via com- putational materials engineering. In addition to UConn, other Uni- versity Members include Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of the Universi- ty at Buffalo. CMPD’s inaugural direc- tor is Lesley Frame, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at UConn. Frame also serves as vice presi- dent of ASM’s Heat Treating Society. She says that CMPD is using advanced ma- terials characterization methods com- bined with machine learning methods for retrieving published materials data so that models can be refined for im- proved accuracy on predicting mate- rials behavior during processing. This data can then help to determine which materials are best for specific engineer- ing projects. “My research is focused on manufacturing, so I look at processing property relationships mostly in met- als. I focus on thermal processing, ma- chining, and mechanical processing,” says Frame. CMPDwill begin by looking at trans- ient materials properties—aspects of materials behavior that are continu- ously changing, and therefore very dif- ficult to observe and accurately mea- sure. The Center’s pilot project will build on the flow stress data available in the Atlas of Formability by generating rich sets of complementary transient materials data for several common in- dustry alloys. The data can be used to establish mathematical relationships that describe the material’s behavior as a function of processing parameters. Industry Members of CMPD include Pratt & Whitney, MTS Systems Corp., and Weber Metals. The pilot project fo- cuses on material flow behavior as a function of temper- ature, strain rate, composition, and prior microstruc- ture processing. By utilizing ASM International’s es- tablished practices of effectively cul- tivating and disseminating data to re- searchers and consumers, CMPD’s Membership Organizations have access to more high-quality, pre-competitive data than individuals can generate alone, through the Center’s shared ex- pertise, collaborative quality assurance, and development and use of best prac- tices for verifying and managing mate- rials data needed for process modeling. For more information on the CMPD, visit wp.wpi.edu/cmpd. LIGHT BEAMS INTERACT THROUGH SOLIDS A collaboration between research- ers at McMaster and Harvard univer- sities has generated a new platform in which light beams communicate with one another through solid matter, es- Lesley Frame, director of UConn’s Center for Materials Processing Data. RESEARCH TRACKS tablishing the foundation to explore a novel form of computing. Kalaichelvi Saravanamuttu, associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Mc- Master, says the technology brings to- gether a form of hyrdrogel developed by the Harvard team with light manip- ulation and measurement techniques performed in her lab, which specializ- es in the chemistry of materials that re- spond to light. The translucent mate- rial, which looks like raspberry Jell-O, incorporates molecules whose struc- ture changes in the presence of light, giving the gel special properties both to contain light beams and transmit infor- mation between them. Typically, beams of light broad- en as they travel, but the gel is able to contain filaments of laser light along their pathway through the material. When multiple laser beams are shone through the same material, they affect one another’s intensity even without their optical fields overlapping, a fact that proves the gel is “intelligent,” say researchers. The interaction between those filaments of light can be stopped, started, managed, and read, produc- ing a predictable, high-speed output: a form of information that could be de- veloped into a circuit-free form of com- puting, according to Saravanamuttu. “Though they are separated, the beams still see each other and change as a re- sult,” she says. www.mcmaster.ca . Researchers have generated a new platform in which light beams communicate with one another through solid matter. Courtesy of McMaster.