2022 Education & Outreach: Introducing the effects of processing on material behavior

MRSEC REU presentation (6/24/21)

  • Presented fundamental materials science processing topics to REUs for the summer session.
  • This work encompassed crystallinity, defects, interfaces, complex concentrated materials, and various processing techniques.

Short materials experiments

  • Created a video detailing a short experiment on the fundamentals of work hardening with copper tubes (Fig.1).
  • A separate experiment involving only soap, water, and a bottle teaches students about surface tension and the fundamentals of grain growth (Fig. 2).

MRSEC summer weeklong project

  • In collaboration with other groups, we detailed a weeklong project on the processing of plaster molds. Students discover different ways of improving or decreasing mechanical properties, which are measured via a drop test. The day 4 example shown in Fig. 3 discusses possible composite strengthening techniques for the molds

J Cortez, A Dupuy, J Schoenung (University of California, Irvine)
Other contributors: C. Belcher, S. Bajpai (Apelian, UC Irvine), S. Ko (Luo, UC San Diego)