Bio

B.E. Powder Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University, China, 2010 Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, 2015Post-Doc, Pennsylvania State University, 2016Post-Doc, Northwestern University, 2017-2018

Bi-Cheng Zhou is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Virginia. His education and research backgrounds are computational thermodynamics and kinetics of materials. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2015 in MSE with a minor in computational science and a subsequent one-year postdoc from the Pennsylvania State University, both under the guidance of Prof. Zi-Kui Liu. In Prof. Liu’s group, he performed thermodynamic modeling of Mg alloys and Ni-base bond coat alloys using the CALPHAD method. He also predicted diffusion coefficients of solutes in Mg alloys with first-principles calculations. In 2017, he joined Prof. Chris Wolverton’s group at Northwestern University as a postdoctoral fellow, working on first-principles calculations of precipitates in Al alloys. In 2018, he joined the University of Virginia as an assistant professor in the MSE department, where he has been collaborating with colleagues and continues to apply computational thermodynamics and kinetics methods to the studies of metal alloys, additive manufacturing, high-temperature corrosion, and aqueous corrosion.

 

Awards

  • NSF CAREER Award 2021

Research Interests

  • Computational thermodynamics and kinetics (the CALPHAD method)
  • Ab initio modeling of thermodynamics and diffusion based on density functional theory
  • Physical metallurgy, theoretical modeling of phase transformations in alloys
  • Oxidation and corrosion in high-temperature systems
  • Electrochemical corrosion of alloys

In the News

Selected Publications

  • “Potential-pH diagrams considering complex oxide solution phases for understanding aqueous corrosion of multi-principal element alloys,” npj Mater Degrad 4 (2020) 35 ABS K. Wang, J. Han, A. Y. Gerard, J. R. Scully, B. C. Zhou
  • “First-principles investigation of the phase stability and early stages of precipitation in Mg-Sn alloys” Phys. Rev. Mat. 4, (2020) 013606. ABS K. Wang, D. Cheng, C. L. Fu, and B. C. Zhou
  • “First-principles study of crystal structure and stability of T1 precipitates in Al-Li-Cu alloys,” Acta Mater. 145 (2018) 337-346. ABS K. Kim, B. C. Zhou, and C. Wolverton
  • “A thermodynamic approach to guide reactive element doping: Hf additions to NiCrAl,” Oxid. Met. 87 (2017) 297-310. ABS T. Gheno, B. C. Zhou, A. Ross, X. Liu, G. Lindwall, Z. K. Liu, and B. Gleeson
  • “Diffusion coefficients of alloying elements in dilute Mg alloys: A comprehensive first-principles study,” Acta Mater. 103 (2016) 573-586. ABS B. C. Zhou, S. L. Shang, Y. Wang, and Z. K. Liu
Google Scholar

Courses Taught

  • MSE 6230 Thermodynamics and Phase Equilibria of Materials
  • MSE 6240 Kinetics of Transport and Transformations in Materials
  • MSE 2090 Introduction to Materials Science
  • MSE 3070 Kinetics and Phase Transformation in Materials