This project involves both research and educational elements in the area of advanced materials processing, with the specific goal of creating a new class of materials: functionally graded nanocrystalline metals (FGNMs). In terms of intellectual merits, the program addresses new processing science issues that arise in combining two previously separate subfieldsnanocrystalline metals and functionally graded materials. Nanocrystalline alloys are prepared using aqueous electrodeposition, and graded structures induced through in-situ changes to the applied current waveform. The fundamental processing science centers around the mismatch of composition, structure, and properties between the adjacent layers in a graded nanocrystalline structure, and the way in which processing variables can be tailored to control these mismatches; residual stresses and interface structure are specifically studied as a function of such mismatches. The research is structured in such a way that processing questions are addressed in order of complexity, first for individual deposited layers, then bi-layers, and finally complex multi-layer gradient structures.
In addition to training of graduate and undergraduate students in new areas of materials processing science, the broader impacts of the project center on the integration of research and teaching. These activities take advantage of the PI's teaching involvement with a course on Advanced Materials Processing" each spring. Undergraduates enrolled in the course participate in a unique project that engages them in the research activity, and culminates with a written report that ties the research to the mission of the course. This mechanism also facilitates the introduction of new lectures on nanocrystalline metals processing into the course.
