September 2006 Vol. 2, No. 1 Material News MSE UMR A newsletter for the alumni of the Metallurgical, Ceramic and Materials Engineering programs of the Missouri School of Mines/University of Missouri-Rolla Greetings from Rolla! Big changes on campus, big increases in student enrollments, and the biggest corporate cash gift in UMR history are setting up MSE for exciting times ahead. Let’s start with the campus activities- Jack Carney has completed his first year as chancellor, and he has certainly had an impact on cam- pus business. He has set us on a path to a new administrative struc- ture- one that no longer includes deans (and schools). We have hired a new provost, Kent Wray from Michigan Tech University, to lead the reorganization. He is on campus now- and we will be sure to let him know how the faculty, students and alumni of the materials science and engineering programs can help meet the strategic goal for UMR to become one of the top technological universities in the US. What do these changes mean for us? I expect that we will have greater flexibil- ity in organizing the department and our undergraduate programs, and we will have greater responsibility for developing relationships with corporations and for developing financial support from our alumni. It will be interesting. This newsletter is, as you might expect, full of news about the depart- ment. Let me note a couple of highlights about the faculty. Rajiv Mishra and Matt O’Keefe were both promoted to professor of met- allurgical engineering this year, and Jeff Smith earned tenure as an associate professor of ceramic engineering. Kent Peaslee, professor of metallurgical engineering, will be named ‘Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor’ at the December 2006 graduation ceremony. Kent will be our first DTP since Don Askeland retired in 2000, but will not be the last. Four of our faculty members, Greg Hilmas, Ron Kohser, Kent Peaslee and Jeff Smith, received ‘outstanding teaching awards’ last year, and Rajiv Mishra, Greg Hilmas, Matt O’Keefe, and Jeff Smith received ‘faculty excellence awards’. (Not to brag, but over the past four years, MSE faculty earned more teaching awards and more faculty excellence awards than any department on campus- not bad for a little department!) Bob Schwartz will be elevated to fellow of the American Ceramic Society at the October 2006 Materials Science & Technology (MS&T) in Cincinnati, and Delbert Day will be named a ‘Distinguished Life Member’ of ACerS at the same meeting. Our undergraduate programs are building back up- we have had good recruiting success the past several years and our sophomore through senior classes are averaging over twenty students for both metallurgical engineering and ceramic engineering. Overall we have nearly 160 undergrads in the department (including freshmen), up over 10% compared to last year, and, once again, our department has been tapped as one of the top fifty undergraduate MSE programs in the US by US News & World Report. The growth of our undergraduate pro- grams is due to many things, including the hard work of Mary Reidmeyer and Ron Kohser, who organized our summer camps and who ‘sell’ the opportunities in our disciplines to visiting high school students throughout the year. Our alumni play a huge role in our recruiting success- our ability to offer scholarships that supplement other financial aid sets us apart from other UMR engineering programs and often make the difference when a student makes their decision about which program to join. Alumni connections to find that first job or to host a summer intern or co-op position are also critical to our recruiting efforts- new students pay attention to the opportunities that are available to upper classmen and graduates- and the better those opportunities are, the more attractive the future of ceramic engineering and metallurgical engineering become. Speaking of alumni- it was a connection through Gary Pennell (MetE 1997) that produced the largest corporate gift in UMR history, a $2M donation from Nucor Corporation to establish the Kenneth Iverson Steel Technology Chair. We are now engaged in the search to fill this position, and we see this as a means of ensuring that our met- allurgical engineering program retains a strong connection to its steel manufacturing roots. Finally, let me share one more piece of good news. There are at least 52 companies that will visit the UMR Fall Career Fair at the end of September, looking for students with metallurgical, ceramic, and mate- rials degrees. This is the largest number of companies pursuing our graduates, ever! Many of these companies will be represented by MetE and CerE alumni- and we always look forward to ‘catching up’ on things when our alumni return. By the way- if you are returning to UMR for the October 2006 MSM/UMR Homecoming, you should know that the MSE Department will host an Ice Cream Social on Friday, October 20, at 3:30-5:00 PM, at McNutt Hall. Come on by to renew acquaintances with fellow alums and faculty- and meet some of our current students. Immediately preceding the social (at 3 PM), we will be dedicating the “Fred Kisslinger Metallographic Classroom” in B5A McNutt Hall. Fred was a long-serving (1964-1990) member of the Metallurgical Engineering Department. He still lives in Rolla and has maintained ties to our program since his retirement. His gen- erous donations have allowed us to overhaul and equip the metallo- graphic lab we use for undergraduate training. If you are on campus then, I hope you will join us in McNutt Hall for this dedication. I look forward to the opportunity to share with you some of the excitement in the department. Drop me a line or give me a call and let us all know how you are doing! Richard Brow [email protected] or (573) 341-4711
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
September 2006 Vol. 2, No. 1
Material NewsMSE UMR
A newsletter for the alumni of the Metallurgical, Ceramic and Materials Engineering programs of the Missouri School of Mines/University of Missouri-Rolla
Greetings from Rolla!Big changes on campus, big increases in student enrollments, and the
biggest corporate cash gift in UMR history are setting up MSE for
exciting times ahead.
Let’s start with the campus activities- Jack Carney has completed
his first year as chancellor, and he has certainly had an impact on cam-
pus business. He has set us on a path to a new administrative struc-
ture- one that no longer includes deans (and schools). We have hired a
new provost, Kent Wray from Michigan Tech University, to lead the
reorganization. He is on campus now- and we will be sure to let him
know how the faculty, students and alumni of the materials science and
engineering programs can help meet the strategic goal for UMR to
become one of the top technological universities in the US. What do
these changes mean for us? I expect that we will have greater flexibil-
ity in organizing the department and our undergraduate programs, and
we will have greater responsibility for developing relationships with
corporations and for developing financial support from our alumni. It
will be interesting.
This newsletter is, as you might expect, full of news about the depart-
ment. Let me note a couple of highlights about the faculty. Rajiv
Mishra and Matt O’Keefe were both promoted to professor of met-
allurgical engineering this year, and Jeff Smith earned tenure as an
associate professor of ceramic engineering. Kent Peaslee, professor
of metallurgical engineering, will be named ‘Curators’ Distinguished
Teaching Professor’ at the December 2006 graduation ceremony. Kent
will be our first DTP since Don Askeland retired in 2000, but will not
be the last. Four of our faculty members, Greg Hilmas, Ron Kohser,
Kent Peaslee and Jeff Smith, received ‘outstanding teaching awards’
last year, and Rajiv Mishra, Greg Hilmas, Matt O’Keefe, and Jeff
Smith received ‘faculty excellence awards’. (Not to brag, but over the
past four years, MSE faculty earned more teaching awards and more
faculty excellence awards than any department on campus- not bad for
a little department!) Bob Schwartz will be elevated to fellow of the
American Ceramic Society at the October 2006 Materials Science &
Technology (MS&T) in Cincinnati, and Delbert Day will be named a
‘Distinguished Life Member’ of ACerS at the same meeting.
Our undergraduate programs are building back up- we have had
good recruiting success the past several years and our sophomore
through senior classes are averaging over twenty students for both
metallurgical engineering and ceramic engineering. Overall we have
nearly 160 undergrads in the department (including freshmen), up over
10% compared to last year, and, once again, our department has been
tapped as one of the top fifty undergraduate MSE programs in the US
by US News & World Report. The growth of our undergraduate pro-
grams is due to many things, including the hard work of Mary
Reidmeyer and Ron Kohser, who organized our summer camps and
who ‘sell’ the opportunities in our disciplines to visiting high school
students throughout the year. Our alumni play a huge role in our
recruiting success- our ability to offer scholarships that supplement
other financial aid sets us apart from other UMR engineering programs
and often make the difference when a student makes their decision
about which program to join. Alumni connections to find that first job
or to host a summer intern or co-op position are also critical to our
recruiting efforts- new students pay attention to the opportunities that
are available to upper classmen and graduates- and the better those
opportunities are, the more attractive the future of ceramic engineering
and metallurgical engineering become.
Speaking of alumni- it was a connection through Gary Pennell
(MetE 1997) that produced the largest corporate gift in UMR history,
a $2M donation from Nucor Corporation to establish the KennethIverson Steel Technology Chair. We are now engaged in the search to
fill this position, and we see this as a means of ensuring that our met-
allurgical engineering program retains a strong connection to its steel
manufacturing roots.
Finally, let me share one more piece of good news. There are at least
52 companies that will visit the UMR Fall Career Fair at the end of
September, looking for students with metallurgical, ceramic, and mate-
rials degrees. This is the largest number of companies pursuing our
graduates, ever! Many of these companies will be represented by
MetE and CerE alumni- and we always look forward to ‘catching up’
on things when our alumni return. By the way- if you are returning to
UMR for the October 2006 MSM/UMR Homecoming, you should
know that the MSE Department will host an Ice Cream Social on
Friday, October 20, at 3:30-5:00 PM, at McNutt Hall. Come on by to
renew acquaintances with fellow alums and faculty- and meet some of
our current students. Immediately preceding the social (at 3 PM), we
will be dedicating the “Fred Kisslinger Metallographic Classroom”
in B5A McNutt Hall. Fred was a long-serving (1964-1990) member
of the Metallurgical Engineering Department. He still lives in Rolla
and has maintained ties to our program since his retirement. His gen-
erous donations have allowed us to overhaul and equip the metallo-
graphic lab we use for undergraduate training. If you are on campus
then, I hope you will join us in McNutt Hall for this dedication.
I look forward to the opportunity to share with you some of the
excitement in the department. Drop me a line or give me a call and let
2 September 2006 Material News, Volume 2, Number 1
DEPARTMENT NEWS
CERAMIC ENGINEERS BECOME TV STARS
Students from the UMR Chapter of Keramos won the ‘mug
drop’ competition at the American Ceramic Society-sponsored
meeting in Cocoa Beach, FL in January, 2006, producing an alu-
mina-zirconia slip-cast body that survived a twelve-foot drop to
the pavement. News of the competition was picked up and distrib-
uted by several national science news venues, which brought our
students to the attention of a producer for the Discovery
Channel/Canada, who sent a film crew to Rolla to produce a short
feature on ceramic engineering. Jeff Rodelas (CerE ‘06) and
Sheena Foster (CerE ‘07) are the two stars of the film which first
aired in March 2006, and which can be viewed from the MSE
website at http//mse.umr.edu. Watch out CSI- our engineers will
be the next ‘hot’ TV property!
Jeff Rodelas and Sheena Foster exhibiting ‘star qualities’ in their television
debuts.
NUCOR ENDOWS STEEL TECHNOLOGYCHAIR AT UMR
Nucor Corp. has donated $2 million to endow a chair in the MSE
department, The Kenneth Iverson Steel Technology Chair, named
in honor of Nucor’s founding chairman, will provide support for
steelmaking research. The MSE Department plans to have the pro-
fessor in place for the start of the 2007-2008 academic year.
Nucor’s endowment supplements state-budgeted funds and will
be used to support graduate or post-doctoral students working
with the named faculty member. Funds will also be used to sup-
port travel, dues and professional enrichment.
“A partner with UMR for many years, Nucor appreciates our
commitment to providing a traditional metallurgical engineering
program that produces leading research and contributions to the
steel industry,” said UMR Chancellor John F. Carney III, during
a June 2006 campus reception with Nucor representatives UMR
faculty and students.
Nucor, based in Charlotte, N.C., manufactures carbon and steel
products. “Nucor has always embraced new technologies, from
thin-slab casting to environmentally friendly pig iron facilities,”
says Dan DiMicco, the company’s chairman, president and chief
executive officer. “This endowment will help support develop-
ment of tomorrow’s technologies in the steel industry.”
About half of the students who study metallurgical engineering
at UMR eventually take jobs related to the iron and steel indus-
tries.
Gary Pennell (MetE’97) presenting a ‘check’ for $2 M to Chancellor Jack Carney
UMR CERAMIC ENGINEER LANDS PAIR OFACADEMIC HONORS
Becca Kueny, a senior in the ceramic engineer-
ing program, earned a pair of academic awards in
June for her work in the classroom and on the ath-
letic field, as she was selected to ESPN TheMagazine’s Academic All-America team for the
2005-06 school year -- and selected as the Great
Lakes Vally, (GLVC) Conference’s scholar-athlete
of the year for women’s track and field. Becca had a personal-best
throw of 148'-6" during her first appearance at the national meet
in May. She was also the GLVC champion in the event when she
had a throw of 138'-6" -- her previous best prior to nationals -- at
the conference meet in early May to break the conference record
in the event. Earlier this year, Becca was named to the academic
all-district third team in women’s basketball, but earned first team
honors in track to make her eligible for Academic All-America
honors. Becca has maintained a perfect grade point average in
ceramic engineering and was the only student-athlete from a
GLVC institution named to this year’s national squad. She is the
first from UMR to earn one of the conference’s academic laurels
in the institution’s first year as a member of the GLVC.
Becca Kueny
Material News, Volume 2, Number 1 September 2006 3
UNDERGRADUATE SCHOLARSHIPS ANDENROLLMENT NEWS
We have started another academic year and UMR, with over 1150
new freshman and transfer students on campus, has its largest enter-
ing class in over 10 years. That brings the campus up to nearly 4500
undergraduate students and around 5400 total students (including
graduate students). The MSE department has a total of 116 under-
graduate students, sophomores through seniors, with 56 studying
ceramic engineering and 60 studying metallurgical engineering. In
addition, there are 43 freshmen that have made ceramic or metallur-
gical engineering their preference (19 with a ceramic engineering
preference and 24 with a metallurgical engineering preference). This
brings the total undergraduates in the department to approximately
160 students, the largest enrollment in the last five years. To wel-
come our freshman, the Materials Advantage student group cooked
lunch for 25 new metallurgical and ceramic engineering freshman on
campus (see photo).
One of the major advantages to students majoring in metallurgical
or ceramic engineering is the number of scholarships available to our
students. Because of the generosity of our alumni and corporate sup-
porters through our annual phonathon and through special scholar-
ships established for our students, almost every metallurgical engi-
neering and ceramic engineering student received financial assis-
tance from the department totaling over $230,000 in metallurgical or
ceramic engineering scholarships or scholarship loans; an average of
approximately $1,400 per student. Every new MSE freshmen this
year received a departmental scholarship, in addition to the scholar-
ship package they received from the university to help them attend
UMR.
Annual costs for a freshman studying engineering at UMR
(Educational fees - not including books, room, board, etc.)
In-state Out-of-state
1986 $2,324 $5,144
1996 $5,174 $12,395
2006 $9,414 $19,680
Scholarships are important today because the cost of education has
increased tremendously during the last few years. For several years,
the state of Missouri has reduced funding to higher education in the
state resulting in several large increases in educational fees charged
by UMR. Today, students studying metallurgical or ceramic engi-
neering are paying nearly $10,000 in educational fees ($20,000 if
out-of-state), figures that are nearly double the costs from just 10
years ago and 4 times the costs of 20 years ago. When the costs of
books, room and board, and other typical living expenses are added,
it costs between $15,000-$20,000 per year for an in-state student or
$25,000-$30,000 for an out-of-state student to attend UMR. Many
of our students are first generation college students and come to
UMR with financial needs which means that the scholarships pro-
vided by our alumni and corporate friends make a tremendous dif-
ference in their opportunity to study our disciplines. Thank you foryour generosity and for helping us provide the scholarship supportthat brings new students to MSE.
Lunch with the new freshmen in the metallurgical and ceramic engineering pro-grams.
MSE Chair Richard Brow congratulates Cheri Turner received a $1,000 schol-arship from the SW section of ACerS for the fall 2006 semester.
Hank Rawlins received the ($10,000) Henry DeWitt Smith Graduate Scholarshipfrom SME.
4 September 2006 Material News, Volume 2, Number 1
I would like to thank the Materials Science and Engineering
Department so much for their support in sending me to Rio
Colorado, Bolivia.
Our UMR Engineers without boarders team identified four oppor-
tunities to help students at the Rio Colorado School.
The first is to develop an ample supply of potable water and show-
er water. The second is to provide the school with an alternative
power source. This power will help increase water supplies and will
allow the use lights and electricity for longer periods of time.
Currently, the school’s power is run by generators that for financial
reasons are only run for three hours a day. Without power, the stu-
dents spend hours studying by candle light. Our third job is to design
and build shower facilities for 160 boys and 80 girls. These will be
the first and only shower facilities for the students. We will be inves-
tigating how to use resources in Bolivia to help build these facilities
and make them sustainable. The final job is to provide internet access
for the few computers the school has. This will allow the students to
see and understand the rest of the world.
I was also able to visit Inka Katurapi, Bolivia, where another EWB
team built latrines in May. We were able to make sure that the peo-
ple were following the design for the second latrine and let them
know that we have not forgotten them and will continue to return to
work with their community. This experience has changed my life
and my views on what I can do as an engineer. I know I would not
have experienced this very beautiful, very different part of the world
without the help of MS&E. Thank you again!
The boys’ well for bathing at the Rio Colorado School in Bolivia.
The well for drinking water at the Rio Colorado School in Bolivia.
Engineers Without Bordersby Lindsey Campbell, CerE ‘07
The MSE Department also supported six students who participat-
ed in a ‘clean water’ demonstration project in Guatemala over
the 2006 spring break. The students designed, installed and test-
ed different filtration systems for a village water source to fulfill
part of their senior design requirements.
Lindsey Campbell with students in Inka Katurapi, Bolivia.
Material News, Volume 2, Number 1 September 2006 5
In 1987, the metallurgical engineering and ceramic engineering
departments moved into the (then) brand new McNutt Hall. This
new building provided more laboratory space and included suffi-
cient funds to provide several of the undergraduate laboratories
with new, state-of-the-art equipment. After nearly 20 years of
training metallurgical and ceramic engineering students, many of
McNutt Hall’s undergraduate laboratories have begun showing
signs of wear with frequent equipment maintenance issues causing
student (as well as faculty) frustration. Also, several labs needed
technological upgrades. Therefore, in 2006, the department
upgraded the equipment in several labs to enhance students’
undergraduate learning experience. Because the university budg-
et does not provide funds for equipment replacement, the depart-
ment had to come up with $200,000 in funds for the new equip-
ment. Over $150,000 for the project was provided by direct gifts
to the department from alumni and corporations and through the
gifts received in the annual metallurgy and ceramic phon-a-thons.
These funds were supplemented by those from research projects
that also utilize the equipment.
Two new Buehler cut-off saws have been installed which make
metallographic sample preparation much easier. (We are sure
many of our recent graduates wish this upgrade had come a little
earlier.) In addition, the microscopy laboratory has been remod-
eled and upgraded with digital cameras and computers. This lab
will be dedicated as the Fred Kisslinger MetallographicClassroom during Homecoming, in honor of the many years Prof.
Kisslinger has supported metallurgy education through his work
as a UMR metallurgical engineering professor and his continued
support of our program after his retirement.
The SEM and TEM laboratories were upgraded by replacing
outdated data acquisition and computer systems, including that
used for the EDS system on the TEM, extending the capabilities
of the instrument and making the dissemination of data much eas-
ier.
Improvements in the mechanical testing lab include new
hydraulic systems for two of the MTS units along with a new high
cycle fatigue testing lab.
A new Struers Duramin-5 microhardness tester was purchased
and now resides in the department’s new mechanical properties
testing laboratory. This is a state-of-the-art Vickers microhardness
system that replaces the ancient Wilson-Tukon microhardness
tester (circa the 1950’s). This equipment will be used by both
ceramic and metallurgical engineering students. The new system
includes such features as PC integration, a high-resolution CCD
camera to image the diamond indents, automatic measurement of
indent diagonals, computer-generated graphical representation of
results, and automated indentation profiling.
Other new undergraduate laboratory equipment includes two
new uniaxial press and dies for compacting ceramic powders, ball
mills for processing ceramic powders, and new balances. This
equipment will be used in sophomore labs to introduce students to
the basic laboratory skills needed for processing and characteriz-
ing ceramic powders.
New equipment for metallurgical and ceramic
engineering undergraduate laboratories
New Buehler cut-off saws.Undergraduate students using the digital microscopy equipment in the new FredKisslinger Metallographic Classroom.
6 September 2006 Material News, Volume 2, Number 1
Six new laptops each equipped with wireless connectivity, data
acquisition cards and the National Instruments Educational
Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Suite (NI ELVIS), were pur-
chased. This will provide students with experiments in data acqui-
sition, programmable logic controls, and simulation of processes.
The department also purchased a small CNC lathe that can be
used to cut tensile bars and do machinability tests.
These new additions enhance the undergraduate laboratories in
the department and will help our students have far more meaning-
ful lab experiences at UMR. We thank all of the alumni and cor-
porations for their continued support in providing the funds for
these labs. Without their support, our students would not be pro-
vided with the same high quality education that is a trademark of
UMR.
If you are interested in learning more about how you or your
company might help us continue to upgrade our undergraduate lab
New high cycle fatigue lab equipment.
New Struers Duramin-5 microhardness tester in new mechanical properties test-ing laboratory.MTS Units with new hydraulic systems.
Dr. Richards teaching an undergraduate casting laboratory using the new CNClathe.
laboratory, ceramic processing lab, and the, materials research cen-
ter. To learn about electronic ceramics, the students disassembled
portable CD players under the guidance of Bob Schwartz and inves-
tigated the components. On Tuesday afternoon, the students left
campus and toured Mo-Sci Corporation (the company founded by
Delbert Day) and the die casting section of the Briggs and Stratton
facility, both of which are in the Rolla industrial park. The bulk of
Wednesday was an all-day field trip heading north on Highway 63.
We stopped at Quaker Window in Freeburg and toured their tem-
pered glass facility, then reboarded our bus and went on to Mexico,
Missouri, where we were the guests of Spartan Light Metal Products
and saw the die casting and finishing of aluminum and magnesium
automotive products destined for GM, Ford, Toyota and Honda.
Thursday evening was a capstone activity, beginning with a pres-
entation by Wayne Huebner highlighting research at UMR. This
was followed by our infamous “Walk-on-Water” contest. On
Monday, the students were grouped into six teams of 5-6 individuals
and challenged to design and build “shoes” that would attach to their
feet and allow a member of their group to “walk” across the Thomas
Jefferson Residence Hall swimming pool. They could spend up to
$50 on their “shoes” which needed to address the features of buoy-
ancy, stability and propulsion. Design commenced on Monday
night, and materials requisition lists were submitted on Tuesday
morning. The materials were delivered on Tuesday evening, and
construction commenced. Characteristic of future engineers, duct
tape was still being applied minutes before the actual contest.
Several teams made successful crossings of the pool, and the others
had fun trying and learned a bit about engineering design and mate-
rials.
One key feature of the ASM Materials Camps is the fact that they
are totally FREE for the student who attended! Financial sponsor-
ship for UMR’s program came from ASM International, Caterpillar
Tractor, and two divisions of Nucor Steel. If any alumni would like
their companies to be involved in sponsoring students for our 2007
Summer Camp, please contact the camp co-directors Ron Kohser
and Mary Reidmeyer.
2006 ASM/UMR Materials Camp
ASM Campers prepare to pour glass. Students setting up a Friction Stir Weld.
Material News, Volume 2, Number 1 September 2006 9
LEAD FREE SOLDER RESEARCH
Members of Prof. Matt O’Keefe’s group, including Dr. Martin
Perez, Richard Colfax, Vanessa Eckhoff and Ken Doering,
have been working with Boeing-St. Louis, Northrop Grumman
Interconnect in Springfield, MO and the Air Force investigating
the use of lead free (LF) solders for aerospace electronic assem-
blies. Due to environmentally-based legislation in Europe and
Japan, current PbSn solders that have been in use for decades are
being phased out. The ability to repair and rework solder joints
using the new alloys, many of which are based on Sn (96%)-Ag-
Cu compositions, is the current focus of the UMR work rework
issues which are important to the military and aerospace industry
due to the long service life of aircraft. Also, the potential for mix-
ing LF and PbSn alloys on assemblies is very likely, so studies are
also being conducted on LF/PbSn solder compositions. Thermal
cycling and vibration testing of circuit boards assembled and
repaired with LF and PbSn solders are being conducted along with
characterization of the resulting microstructures and failures.
Side view of a printed circuit board during vibration testing at the (+)first mode of vibration (board deflects upward in the middle as indicated by the
arrow).
Figure 2. Cross section image of a failed ball grid array solder joint after vibra-tion testing. There is a void and a crack along the top of the joint.
RESEARCH NEWS
A Partial List of New MSE Research Programs in FY06
• Fellowship Program in Graduate Education inInterdisciplinary in Materials Engineering, U.S. Dept
of Education (Robert Schwartz, et al.)
• Friction Stir Channeling: An Innovative Technique forHeat Exchanger Manufacturing, National Science
Foundation (Rajiv Mishra)
• Bio-Inspired Sources for Long-Lasting and HighEnergy Density Power Storage with EfficientConversions, US Department of Air Force (Fatih
Dogan, Matt O’Keefe)
• Inter-American Materials Collaboration (CIAM)Stability, Durability and Crystallization of IronPhosphate Glasses, National Science Foundation
(Mark Schlesinger, Richard Brow)
• Fabrication of Near Net-Shaped Ceramic Parts byRapid Freeze Prototyping and Freeze Drying, Air
Force Research Laboratory (Greg Hilmas, Fatih
Dogan)
• Lead-Free Solder Characterization, Air Force
Research Laboratory (Matt O’Keefe)
• Injection Molding and Micromolding of MetallicGlasses, Air Force Research Laboratory (Rajiv Mishra,
Scott Miller, Richard Brow)
• Geological Sequestration of CO2 by HydrousCarbonate Formation with Reclaimed Slag, American
Iron & Steel (Von Richards, Kent Peaslee, Jeff Smith)
• Design of Ultra High Temperature Ceramics forImproved Performance, Air Force Office of Scientific
Research (Bill Fahrenholtz, Greg Hilmas)
• Ni-Si Alloys for the S-I Reactor-Hydrogen ProductionProcess Interface, Department of Energy (Joe
Newkirk, Richard Brow)
• Multi-Laser Beam Open Atmosphere Surface CoatingTechniques Based on Precursor Excitation,Photodissociation and Controlled Cooling, ONR
MURI/Univ. Nebraska (Matt O’Keefe, Robert
Schwartz)
• Corrosion Finishing/Coating Systems for DODMetallic Substrates Based on Non-ChromateInhibitors and UV Curable, Zero VOC Materials, US
Army Corps of Engineers (Matt O’Keefe, Bill
Fahrenholtz, Tom O’Keefe)
• Development of a Novel Efficient Solid-Oxide Hybridfor Co-Generation of Hydrogen and Electricity UsingNearby Resources for Local Applications, Dept. of
Energy/MSRI (Harlan Anderson, et al.)Contact us at [email protected] if you would like to knowmore about these, or any other, research projects.
10 September 2006 Material News, Volume 2, Number 1
Ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) continue to be a focus
area for research in the MSE department. Dr. Greg Hilmas and Dr.
Bill Fahrenholtz collaborate on several projects that investigate
these unique materials. Recently, the group was awarded a three
year, $450,000 grant by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research
to go along with current projects funded by the U.S. Army Space
and Missile Defense Command, the Air Force Research Laboratory,
the National Science Foundation, and Advanced Ceramics
Research, Inc.
The new AFOSR project involves research on zirconium diboride
based ceramics for hypersonic aerospace vehicles. The materials
are needed for areas such as the nose cap, leading and trailing edges,
and the propulsion systems where temperatures of more than
2000°C may be encountered in use. The goal of the new project is
to understand the effect of composition, microstructure, and meso-
scale architecture on the oxidation behavior and mechanical per-
formance. Zirconium diboride is one of the few candidates for these
applications because of its ultra-high melting temperature (3250°C)
in combination with its strength at high temperature, oxidation
resistance, and chemical stability. In addition, zirconium diboride
has a significantly lower density than the refractory metal alloys
based on tungsten and rhenium that are commonly used for these
types of applications.
The UHTC research group (shown below) currently consists of
six graduate students and one research professor in addition to Drs.
Hilmas and Fahrenholtz. Former research group members,
Alireza Rezaie and Adam Chamberlain recently completed their
doctorate degrees. Adam now works for Rolls-Royce in
Indianapolis, IN and Ali is working for General Electric in
Schenectady, NY.
In the last year, the group has made significant progress in sever-
al areas. Most significantly, Adam Chamberlain, Shi Zhang, and
Sumin Zhu demonstrated, for the first time, that zirconium diboride
could be densified without the use of hot pressing or additives that
promoted liquid phase sintering. Some of the other notable activi-
ties of the group include Jim Zimmermann spending three months
at the Institute of Science and Technology for Ceramics in Faenza,
Italy and Sean Landwehr completing two separate stints at the
Naval Surface Warfare Center-Carderock Division in the
Washington DC area. Finally, the group received $135,000 from
the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program for the
acquisition of a high temperature mechanical testing system and the
design of an ultra-high temperature (2500°C) furnace for testing
Ultra-high temperature ceramics
The UHTC research group at UMR consists of (left to right) Xiaohong Zhang,
Sean Landwehr, Sumin Zhu, Jim Zimmermann, (back row) Bill
Fahrenholtz, Harlan Shaklee-Brown, Andrew Buchheit, Shi Zhang, Ali
Rezaie, and Greg Hilmas.
UNDERGRADS STUDY ENVIRONMENTALIMPACT OF STEEL PRODUCTS
A team of materials science and engineering students at the
University of Missouri-Rolla has been awarded a total of $47,500
by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and the
Association for Iron and Steel Technology (AIST) to study the
environmental impact of steel construction and manufacturing
materials.
AISI and AIST awarded 2006 design grants to teams from two
universities, UMR and Carnegie Mellon University. The two
teams submitted winning proposals addressing the theme,
“Comparative Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Assessments of Steel
Products.” Each institution will receive $47,500 to support student
research.
Under the direction of Dr. Kent Peaslee, professor of metallur-
gical engineering, a team of about 10 UMR seniors will quantify
the energy requirements and greenhouse gas emissions of various
steel products through their life cycles, from extraction through
end use. The UMR students will then compare the steel products
to other materials in the same market. Products to be compared
include structural steel versus wood in residential construction,
steel cans versus plastic frozen food containers in the food con-
tainer market, steel roofing versus standard asphalt shingles in res-
idential construction and automotive-quality steel body panels
versus aluminum.
“The universities are addressing one of steel’s most important
attributes – sustainability – and we look forward to seeing the
progress the teams and projects make in the coming year,” says
Andrew Sharkey, president and chief executive officer of AISI.
“The design grant program will expose metallurgy and materials
science students and professors to real-life issues and enable them
to acquire better knowledge of the North American steel industry.”
“Not only will the design grant initiative bring practical working
knowledge in ferrous metallurgy to students, but it will also bring
the industry insight into how steel competes with other materials
with respect to environmental sustainability,” says Ronald
Ashburn, executive director of the AIST Foundation.
Material News, Volume 2, Number 1 September 2006 11
DEVELOPMENT OF AN ENVIRONMENTALLYFRIENDLY CORROSION COATING SYSTEM
With a total of $1.8M in funding over three years from the
Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program
(SERDP), Prof. Matt O’Keefe and Prof. Bill Fahrenholtz, grad-
uate students Philip Jones and Will Pinc, and undergraduate Kate
Oliver of the MSE Department, in collaboration with John
DeAntoni of Boeing Phantom Works-St. Louis and Dr. Ben
Curatolo of Light Curable Coatings in Cleveland, are developing
environmentally friendly corrosion coating systems for metallic
substrates to replace existing systems that use hexavalent chromi-
um and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Coating systems
used for military aircraft typically employ a hexavalent chromium
(Cr(VI)) conversion coating in direct contact with the metallic
substrate, a strontium chromate primer over the conversion coat-
ing, and a top coat over the primer. The approach being developed
would consist of a two layer coating system including a non-chro-
mate conversion coating layer and an ultra-violet (UV) light cur-
ing materials (see figure below). A chromate-free primer devel-
oped as part of a previous UMR-Boeing effort that has been com-
mercialized by Deft Industrial Finishes is now being used on the
U.S. Air Force fleet of F-15s. However, non-chromate primers
and top coats require a significant amount of time to cure and still
contain undesirable VOCs and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). In
contrast, UV-curable systems do not contain VOCs or HAPs and
can be completely cured within seconds. Incorporation of environ-
mentally benign, corrosion inhibiting compounds into UV-curable
coatings is an attractive alternative to the existing systems as it
would reduce the complexity of the coating system by combining
the primer and topcoat into a single layer while at the same time
eliminating VOC’s. When used with a non-chromate conversion
coating, an environmentally friendly corrosion coating system
would be obtained.
The UMR part of the project is focusing on cerium oxide based
conversion coatings as potentially viable corrosion inhibitors and
replacements for chromate conversion coatings on aluminum
alloys. The CeCCs are deposited from aqueous solutions contain-
ing cerium chloride using processing technology that is very sim-
ilar to that currently used for the chromate system. To date, both
a current-driven (non-spontaneous electrolytic) process and spon-
taneous (immersion, spray, etc.) processes have been developed
(see figure above). The cerium oxide coatings are deposited on
the aluminum alloy surface by an electrochemically driven precip-
itation process. Typically, coatings are 100 to 500 nanometers
thick with a characteristic grain size of a few nanometers in diam-
eter. Depositions are done in less than 15 minutes and use com-
mercially available materials and equipment, making the overall
process compatible with industrial operations such as those
employed by current aircraft manufacturers.
Development of UV-curable coatings containing corrosion
inhibiting compounds is being led by Light Curable Coatings and
Boeing and has shown promise during initial studies. Results indi-
cate that UV curable self-priming topcoats can approach the cor-
rosion performance of chromated primer and topcoat systems
when applied over a chromated conversion coating. Optimizing
the corrosion resistance over various aluminum alloys coated with
cerium oxide conversion coatings is a major focus of the project,
with extension of the technology to other metallic substrates also
planned.
Figure 2. Spray deposition of a cerium oxide conversion coating (yellowish-orange) on an Al2024-T3 substrate.
Figure 1. Schematic representation (not to scale) showing (a) the three layers of a conventional chromate-containing corrosion protection system and (b) the twolayer system in the system being developed by the UMR-Boeing-Light Curable Coatings team.
12 September 2006 Material News, Volume 2, Number 1
PhD’s awarded in 2005/06
• Sachin Deshmukh, An Investigation of CreepThreshold Stress in Aluminum Alloys (Rajiv Mishra,
advisor)
• Oratai Jongprateep, Microstructural Control andSuperconducting Properties of YBa2Cu3O7-x MeltTextured Single Crystal (Fatih Dogan, advisor)
• Jingye Li, Metal Seed Deposition from OrganicSolutions for Subsequent Electroless Plating (Tom
O’Keefe, advisor)
• Martin Perez, Zinc Alloy Powders for AlkalineBatteries (Matt O’Keefe, advisor)
• Siddharth Sharma, Microstructural Modification forImproved Mechanical Properties in A356 Using FSP(Rajiv Mishra, advisor)
• Brad Tischendorf, Interactions between Water andPhosphate Glasses (Richard Brow, advisor)
2005/06 UMR MSE FACULTY NOTES AND
HIGHLIGHTS
• Richard Brow was elected to the Board of Directors of theAmerican Ceramic Society.
• Delbert Day has been named a ‘Distinguished Life Member’of the American Ceramic Society.
• Fatih Dogan organized and edited proceedings for a sympo-sium on “Advances in Electronic and ElectrochemicalCeramics”, American Ceramic Society 2005.
• Greg Hilmas is the President-Elect, Ceramic EducationalCouncil of the American Ceramic Society
• Scott Miller serves as President, Central States Microscopyand Microanalysis Society and as Assistant Director, UMRFreshmen Engineering Program
• Rajiv Mishra organized and edited proceedings for a sympo-sium on Creep Deformation and Fracture, Design, and LifeExtension, Materials Science and Technology 2005, andserves on the Board of Review, Metallurgical and MaterialsTransactions A
• Joe Newkirk is an Associate Editor, Journal of MaterialsEngineering and Performance
• Mohamed Rahaman has a new book, Ceramic ProcessingSintering (August 2006; CRC Press/Taylor & Francis).
• Von Richards is a Foundry Education Foundation ‘KeyProfessor’ for UMR.
• Bob Schwartz finished his term as President of the UMRAcademic Council.
• Jeff Smith is the North American Representative, UNITECRInternational Executive Board.
• David Van Aken received the 2005 Caterpillar Inc.‘Technology Excellence Award’.
FERROUS MICROSTRUCTURES TAUGHT AT
CATERPILLAR, INC.
A two day seminar on the physical metallurgy of ferrous alloys is
now being taught by Professor David Van Aken. The UMR course
was first offered at Caterpillar, Inc. in October of 2005 and was
taught for the second time this past summer. The course was
designed to teach materials engineers about steel and how
microstructure affects performance. “It’s much more than just met-
allography,” states Professor Van Aken, “it’s the physical metallur-
gy of iron-based alloys taught by looking through the oculars of an
optical microscope. In a 128 hour curriculum, materials science and
engineering programs typically can’t afford to teach a course devot-
ed to steel.” The class has been well attended with approximately 40
to 50 engineers each time offered. University of Illinois emeritus
professor Robert Bohl taught this course prior to 2005 and was one
of Dr. Van Aken’s instructors at Illinois. According to Professor Van
Aken “Creating this course was a wonderful opportunity to return to
Caterpillar, visit with UMR alumni and have some fun in the labora-
tory with steel microstructures.”
Microstructures of a quenched and tempered W-2 tool steel.
Recent MSE Patents
• “Methods for Fabricating Nanostructured Solid Oxide
Fuel Cell Components,” Harlan Anderson, Xiao-Dong
Zhou, and Wayne Huebner, USP 7,090,891, August 15,
2006.
• “A Method of Preparing a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell,” Greg
Hilmas and Dustin Beeaff, USP 7,090,938, August 15,
2006.
• “Cerium-based Spontaneous Coating Process for
Corrosion Protection of Aluminum Alloys,” James
Stoffer, Thomas J. O’Keefe, et al., USP 7,048,807, April
11, 2006.
• “Method for Preparing Nanometer Cerium-based Oxide
Particles,” Xiao-Dong Zhou, Wayne Huebner and Harlan
Anderson, USP 7,025,943, March 7, 2006.
• “Integral Channels in Metal Components and Fabrication
Thereof,” Rajiv Mishra, USP 6,923,362, June 14, 2005.
Material News, Volume 2, Number 1 September 2006 13