Vision
To be the leading group of physical metallurgists that develop fundamental understanding of processing-structure property relationships and create improved alloys for energy applications.
Mission
The ABAD group pursues transformational design of metallic structural materials for energy, sustainable transportation, and other applications of national importance.
R&D Scope
The Alloy Behavior and Design Group seeks to find solutions to pressing problems in sustainable energy generation and utilization through development of new alloys. Our approach to alloy design and development involves application of physical metallurgy principles. Alloy processing, microstructure characterization and mechanical property testing are all performed to understand their interrelationships and often supplemented with computational approaches. Current materials systems of interest include steels and aluminum alloys. Strong collaborations exist with other groups in the Materials Science and Technology division and throughout the laboratory. The group strategically performs work with local user facilities including SNS, HFIR, MDF and leadership computing facilities.
Core Competencies
- Alloy design for harsh environments
- Alloy design for microstructural stability and load bearing capacity at high homogologous temperature (T/TMP)
- Microstructure design through far-from-equilibrium processing including additive manufacturing
- Control for phase stability under irradiation conditions
- Processing and microstructural evolution in high external fields
- Alloy design for co-optimization of properties like mechanical properties and corrosion resistance
- Fundamental studies on alloy design
- Specialized metal processing including powder atomization, laser powder bed fusion and single crystal growth
- Materials processing in strong magnetic fields
