MSE Colloquium: Dennis Dimiduk, Perspectives on Design With and Design Of Materials in the Modeling and Simulation Era

Abstract

Materials, manufacturing and structures design can now access a remarkable set of new modeling and simulation tools, especially for materials. The capabilities of such tools are expanding rapidly for representing mechanisms important to both ‘design with’ and ‘design of’ materials at disparate scales. The present talk examines selected advances in the multiscale aspects of materials behavior simulation for the purposes of predicting materials performance for an engineering design system. Selected tools and techniques are discussed from a viewpoint motivated by two questions: i) what multiscale tools and methods are able to provide predictive capabilities and, ii) how might the methods be incorporated into an integrated computational materials engineering framework to reduce the need for empirical data? The examine leads to an initial conclusion that much fundamental microstructure-level research remains and that tools for including microstructure influences at the engineering design scale are significantly underdeveloped. The situation may be likely to remain for some time; thus, a more structured approach is necessary for integrating computational and empirical methods for engineering. However, unlike the historical past, the pathways for achieving both computation and experimental integration, as well as building a location-specific microstructure-based design system are becoming rather clear.

Bio

Dennis M. Dimiduk, Ph.D. is a current Senior Research Scientist at BlueQuartz Software, LLC. He is Laboratory Fellow and past Research Leader and Technical Director of the Structural Materials Division at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate. Through the early 1980's he performed research on high temperature alloy development, phase transformations, electron microscopy and strengthening mechanisms in high-temperature superalloys. Dr. Dimiduk led the intermetallics research area for the Air Force, conducting in-house research and motivating research at other laboratories and universities. Throughout the 1990’s, work by he and his colleagues on titanium aluminides and refractory intermetallics was at the leading edge of world-wide exploration and development of these materials and opened an approach toward raising use temperatures and realizing weight reductions in advanced engines. Their research led to current introductions and growth of use for titanium aluminides in commercial gas turbine and automotive engines—a major contribution to fuel savings. 

Beginning in 1989, Dr. Dimiduk contributed to and led research seeking to understand the influence of chemistry on microstructural evolution and deformation in alloys through computer simulation. By the mid and late 1990’s the group’s involvement in materials simulations led to building the DARPA Accelerated Insertion of Materials initiative and directly to the community’s current and growing activities for Integrated Computational Materials Science & Engineering (ICMSE). More recently he used those experiences to influence building of the National MGI effort. That research also led to advancements in the 3d characterization and representation of materials including the “DREAM.3D” software tool, new techniques for mechanical property characterization at the micrometer scale and, to discovery of a new regime of size-affected metal deformation behavior. Dimiduk continues to pursue and explore those advancements. 

Dr. Dimiduk received his B.S. degree in Materials Science and Engineering in 1980 from Wright State University. His M.S. and Ph.D. degrees are in Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1984 and 1989, respectively. He has authored or co-authored more than 190 technical papers, 13 patents, 2 book chapters and co-edited 5 books. He is also known in the academic community for over 9800 citations of his work and an h-index of 50. He is a member of the editorial boards for Intermetallics and Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation. He is an adjunct professor at The Ohio State University. In 1993-94 he was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Oxford, UK conducting collaborative research and lecturing on structural intermetallics. Dimiduk has been a member of TMS, ASM and MRS throughout his career. Presently he is the Past Chairman of the Structural Materials Division of TMS and served on their Board of Directors.