Briefs and Posts

Advances in materials are essential to continued economic growth, to the security of the nation and to ensuring human well-being. Nanomaterials science enables new catalysts that reduce the carbon emissions of chemical engineering plants, sensors that can rapidly and reliably detect viruses and a wide array of nanoelectronics devices. Continued innovation relies on a healthy ecosystem encompassing industry, academic institutions, and government laboratories and an educational system that attracts and trains talented engineers and scientists.

A new class of materials known as high entropy alloys (HEAs) has generated considerable excitement in the materials research community.The number of possible HEAs can easily exceed a million or even billion, resulting in vastly numerous possible compositions and crystal structures. The large degree of compositional freedom provides vast and unique opportunities for discovering outstanding properties that will benefit society.

Over the summer of 2021, I interned in the research and development department of Bright Lite Structures in Stamford, England, a technology startup manufacturing company that produces carbon fiber parts for industry.Their product is a patented sandwich structure with a strong, lightweight core between two sheets of carbon fiber. The sandwich is heat molded to fit a specific shape, and a finished product is removed from the press. While I was there, the company was primarily producing two products in this way, airline seats and delivery truck floors.,

Leonid V. Zhigilei, professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, has earned the Fojtik-Henglein Prize for advancing our understanding of nanoparticulate materials that are vital to energy and environmental sustainability, semiconductors and electronics, biomedicine and advanced automotives.The Fojtik-Henglein Prize honors Anton Fojtik and Armin Henglein, who together invented an outstanding technique to fabricate functional nanostructures and prepare chemically clean and environmentally friendly nanoparticles.

Alex Uy, a second-year undergraduate in materials science and engineering at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, spent the summer sharpening her skills as an experimentalist.Uy worked alongside members of the advanced high temperature materials research group led by Elizabeth J. Opila, professor of materials science and engineering with a courtesy appointment in mechanical and aerospace engineering.

Second-year materials science and engineering major Trevor Eggleston learned how theoretical principles apply to industrial processes while interning at Cleveland-Cliffs, Inc., a steel fabrication and mining company located in Burns Harbor, Indiana,Eggleston worked in the finishing quality assurance department, where he investigated steel coils that failed to meet specifications for mechanical properties. At the start of each week, Eggleston checked the process automation logs for coils that needed to be reprocessed.

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Virginia congratulates James T. Burns and Robert G. Kelly, who have earned NACE International's highest recognitions for teaching excellence and seminal research in corrosion science and engineering.Burns, associate professor of materials science and engineering, earned the 2021 H. H. Uhlig Award, the singular teaching award in corrosion science and engineering.

Bi-Cheng Zhou, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Virginia, has published research in npj Materials Degradation that more accurately explains how metal alloys corrode when immersed in water.His co-authored paper, Potential-pH diagrams considering complex oxide solution phases for understanding aqueous corrosion of multi-principal element alloys, leads to a better understanding of aqueous corrosion of chemically complex alloys and suggests more effective protective measures.

Maxim Shugaev, a post-doc in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Virginia, has earned the Dieter W. Baeuerle Prize for Fundamentals and Applications of Laser-Matter-Interaction.The Dieter W. Baeuerle Foundation awards the prize to young scientists whose research concerns the fundamentals and applications of laser-matter interaction in physics, chemistry, life science, medicine and art, and who completed their doctoral dissertation or Ph.D. study within 10 years of their nomination.

Blades applies his knowledge of quantum mechanics and nanoscale chemistry to understand the different reactive processes of water and oxygen.Will Blades, a Ph.D. student in materials science and engineering, participated in the 15th annual UVA Engineering Research Symposium, organized by the Graduate Engineering Student Council. He earned second place in the judged competition for his work on new models that better describe early stage oxidation and corrosion of transition metals such as nickel-chromium and nickel-chromium tungsten.