INDUSTRY news
WPI’s Lados Receives NSF Award for Nanoceramic Reinforced Aluminum
Diana Lados, associate profes- sor of mechanical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Worcester, Mass., and founding director of the university’s Integrative Materials Design Center (iMdc), has received a three-year, $424,000 award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to sup- port the development of a new way to manufacture metal-ceramic composites, which can be used to make vehicles lighter and more energy efficient while increasing performance. The research will focus on
ceramic-reinforced metal matrix composites, which are produced by incorporating ceramic particles within aluminum to enhance its strength and high operating temperature. With the award, Lados will
conduct fundamental and applied Diana Lados is at work in WPI’s laboratory.
research aimed at developing an energy and cost-efficient process for making nanoceramic reinforced metal matrix composites, over- coming the limitations of existing processes and enabling the creation of materials with unprecedented combinations of desirable properties and sustainability benefits. “This project is another signifi-
cant step in a large ongoing research program dedicated to developing novel materials and processes using a combination of fundamental ma- terials science knowledge, property evaluations, and computational modeling,” Lados said. Unlike current methods, in which
the ceramic particles are mixed into the metal during processing, the new technique involves the formation of nanoreinforcements directly within the molten metal. T e resulting composite materials will contain ceramic particles of the proper size, distributed uniformly in and fi rmly bonded to the metal matrix. Less expensive and more fl exible and energy effi cient than existing methods, the process can be used with a broad selection of metal-ceramic systems to manu- facture a wide variety of structural components.
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5/16/13 11:37 AM
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