MSE works to improve the US position in global manufacturing through CIMJSEA
The Ohio State University Materials Science Department is playing a lead role in a major cooperative research center that will significantly impact the materials joining community and improve the US position in global manufacturing.
The National Science Foundation Industry and University Cooperative Research Program Center for Integrative Materials Joining Science for Energy Applications (CIMJSEA) is helping close the gap between material development and weldability.
The center, which is directed by John Lippold, Ohio State Welding Engineering professor, is developing new methodologies for evaluating material weldability and discovering ways to extend the life of existing material joints within the aging energy infrastructure.The industry-university collaborative is a conduit for companies, government agencies, and non-profits to share findings and combine their resources to maximum research benefits.
CIMJSEA includes the National Science Foundation, Ohio State University, Colorado School of Mines, Lehigh University, and the University of Wisconsin. With over twenty-five organizations, both large and small participating as members, the center is in its third successful year.
The center's research addresses a wide range of critical issues in materials joining science related to energy production, efficiency, and storage. CIMJSEA divides projects into five over-arching topics: joining of dissimilar materials, innovative process control, material development, weldability and characterization, and integrated process modeling.
“Many advanced materials with desirable properties are not weldable, which limits their application for manufactured components. The collaborative research supported by more than 25 members of this center is developing new approaches for assessing material weldability that will eventually lead to more efficient and effective schemes for alloy development,” John Lippold, Interim Director, said. “These include a mix of computational and experimental tools that are being developed at OSU and other partner universities. Some of the benefits of this research are already being realized by the member companies supporting the center.”
Additional OSU faculty making extensive contributions to the center’s efforts include Wei Zhang, Boian Alexandrov, Avi Benatar, Dave Farson, Glenn Daehn, Mike Mills and David Phillips. Faculty act as investigators for the center and supervise a total of fifteen graduate students while working on research projects.