Three horizontal areas of expertise have been identified, which cover the three remaining vertices of the Materials Science and Engineering tetrahedron: Processing, Characterization and Modelling. The techniques and expertise provided by these horizontal lines are readily applicable to any type of materials and processes, and support the research goals of the vertical lines. It should be noted that these horizontal activities are designed as actual research lines and also have their own research goals in the cutting edge of each area.
Processing
- Improvement of casting technologies (vacuum and inert atmosphere, equiaxed, directional and centrifugal) for Ni/Co-based superalloys and intermetallic compounds.
- Development of novel processing methods for metallic alloys based on rapid prototyping, electron-beam melting, direct-metal laser-sintering, spark-plasma sintering, severe plastic deformation, etc…
- Optimization of out-of-autoclave processing techniques for composites (pultrusion, RTM, SQ-RTM) to minimize defects and improve reliability.
Characterization
- Qualitative and quantitative characterization of the composition and microstructure of materials from the atomic level to the micron by means of different kinds of microscopy (approximation, scanning and transmission electron, optical, etc.), spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and high-resolution three-dimensional computer assisted-tomography.
- Nano-mechanical and micro-mechanical characterization of the mechanical properties of materials at the nm and µm scale to establish the relationship between microstructure and properties
Modelling and Simulation
- Development of multiscale modelling strategies to carry out virtual design and virtual processing (casting, forging, thermo-mechanical treatments) of metallic and composite materials (ab initio, molecular mechanics, computational thermodynamics, kinetic Monte Carlo, phase-field modelling, computational fluid dynamics, etc.).
- Development of multiscale modelling strategies to carry out virtual testing of metallic materials and composites (ab initio, molecular mechanics, dislocation dynamics, finite elements, homogenization, etc.)