Vision

To create, discover and characterize advanced materials, with a focus on refractory alloys and high entropy ceramics (HECs) for extreme conditions: high temperatures, irradiation and high strain rates and pressures

About

THE XM integrates first-principles, predictive composition and microstructural modeling with prototype synthesis, in situ characterization and advanced manufacturing. It was established from a $8.7 million Office of Naval Research grant.

The hub brings together state-of-the-art characterization facilities at the NC State’s Analytical Instrumentation Facility (AIF), the extensive materials synthesis and advanced manufacturing capabilities at the Center for Additive Manufacturing and Logistics (CAMAL), and the team’s expertise in atomic, multiscale, thermodynamic and machine-learning-based materials modeling and experiments.

Faculty members are creating a research infrastructure and a global collaboration platform that can partner with Department of Defense and Department of Energy labs, which will form the basis for pursuing large funding proposals.

With a mission to discover, design and qualify high entropy carbides and refractory alloys technologies for applications such as hypersonics and nuclear fusion, the focus of the hub’s efforts is unique to U.S. academic and research laboratories. THE XM will establish NC State as a global leader in material design and discovery, especially in meeting the need for new materials tailored for extreme environments, such as hypersonics and nuclear irradiation. The hub’s unique capabilities include linking synthesis, experiments, manufacturing, data science and modeling.

Researchers

• Donald Brenner, co-director (First Principles Modeling)
• Mohammed Zikry, co-director (Microstructural Modeling)
• Rajeev Gupta (Corrosion, Thermo-Mechanical Experiments)
• Tim Horn (AM, CAMAL Center)
• Bharat Gwalani (Synthesis, FSW)
• 12 Ph.D. students and postdoctoral associates

Facilities

• NC State will be one of only three universities in the U.S. and the only one in the Southeast to house such an advanced microscope
• Highest resolution available (sub-Ångström materials characterization)
• Enabling AI/ML-based capabilities for edge computing and automated experiments
• Compatible with existing in-situ holders for in situ/operando experiments
• Next generation EDS with highest detector collection efficiency
• Improved electronics for stability, fast kV switching, low dose imaging
• Field free Lorentz TEM for magnetic materials
• Automated 3D reconstructions (Imaging/Spectroscopy)

Capabilities

Material Synthesis and Processing

• Gas atomizer
• Arc melters
• Laser and electron beam additive manufacturing
• Spark plasma sintering
• Friction stir processing
• High-energy ball mils
• Electrodeposition methods

Material Testing

• Corrosion testing:
  • 16 channels potentiostat (AC and DC electrochemical methods)
  • Micro-electrode techniques for scanning electrochemical properties of a surface
  • TGA/DSC (up to 1800C with an option of testing in humidity)
  • Furnaces: Load frames for mechanical testing

High Strain Rate/Gas Guns

• Shock tube: 2500 psi, simulates bomb blasts
• Gas gun: 6000 psi
• Hopkinson bar: 100-10,000/s strain-rate
• Drop towers
• DIC
• High-speed Cameras

Multiscale Modeling

• Approaches that span the atomistic to the microstructural scale for refractory alloys and HECs that can be utilized in extreme environments pertaining to high strain-rates, pressures and temperatures

• These computational techniques, which combine atomistic, MD, and FEM have been recently developed by us to show how defects, such as vacancies, stacking faults, dislocations, grain-boundaries can collectively mitigate high strain-rates, oxidation and thermal effects

Computational platforms include the High Performance Center at NC State (HPC), https://hpc.ncsu.edu/main.php and other Department of Defense and Department of Energy computational facilities.