There’s Plenty of Room in the Middle: State Spaces for Characterization of Material Structure

Abstract:  

One of the enduring challenges of materials science is that material properties depend on structural information on length scales of many orders of magnitude. From the standpoint of theory and computation, electronic structure calculations and molecular dynamics are well-established at the atomic scale, and homogenization and mean-field approaches have been successful at the component scale. By comparison, the microstructure that occurs above the atomic length scale and below the component length scale continues to be difficult to control, predict, or even to characterize. This ongoing difficulty imperils the grand vision of rational materials design where desired material properties are specified, a set of candidate microstructures are identified, and corresponding materials are fabricated for experimental validation. This talk will discuss the speaker’s ongoing efforts to develop mathematical descriptions and computational models for the microstructures at intermediate length scales and the evolution of these structures during material processing.

Bio: Jeremy Mason’s research interests focus on the use of theoretical and computational techniques to study the evolution of materials. This encompasses phenomena as diverse as the formation of solidification nuclei in a liquid, the appearance of low energy dislocation structures during the deformation of metals, and grain boundary motion during annealing and recrystallization. The study of these phenomena often requires that new simulation methods be developed to improve accuracy or reduce runtime, or that new mathematical methods be developed to analyze simulations results and make rigorous comparison with experiments. He pursues this with the intention of further developing the theoretical and computational side of “rational materials design”.