This is a two.year collaborative project between Richard J. Arsenault, Director of the Metallurgical Materials Laboratory at the University of Maryland, and San Patu of the Shenyang Institute of Metal Research, Shenyang, China. The project is sponsored by NSF and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The investigators will undertake a new computer development to determine the effect of a non.random arrangement of solute atoms on the strength of an alloy and also to determine if a non.random arrangement is destroyed due to pulling, bending, or twisting. The strengthening of metals by additions to form alloys (the mixing of the atoms of one metal with atoms of another metal) has been practiced for at least 4,000 years. However, an understanding of how this strengthening occurs is still lacking. Several years ago it was proposed that the non.random arrangement of additional atoms within the metal would lead to strengthening, but it has been suggested that the non.random arrangement (i.e., the strengthening) could be destroyed when the metal was actually bent, twisted, or pulled. Using high speed computers, it is now possible to construct a metal alloy in which the locations of all the atoms are known. Therefore, it is possible to have a random or non.random arrangement of the additional atoms in the metal. Then it is possible to calculate the strength, again by the use of the high speed computer, with various arrangements of the additional atoms. While the method of calculating the strength by the use of high speed computers has been developed during the last 20 years by Professor Arsenault's group, the proposed collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences will undertake research on a new aspect: the effect of non.random arrangement of the additional atoms on the strength.
