Webpage: http://mbm.xjtu.edu.cn

The Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials was established on the base of Research Institute for Strength of Metals which was founded in 1963 at Xi’an Jiaotong University. The Lab. was approved by the State Education Committee in 1985. It was constructed under the support of World Bank in 1990, and it is available to the public in 1995. This Lab is engaged in the research of fundamental rules of mechanical behavior, peculiar phenomenon and performance under various service conditions. The research activities are focused on four areas: characterization and evaluation of mechanical properties; strength of surface layer and interfacial strength; high-performance materials and their application; materials performance under harsh conditions.

MBM has won awards of Achievement Prize, such as “Expanding Materials Strength Potential”, “Study of low Carbon Martensite and Its Application” and “Optimization Design for Strength”. Among them the “Study of low Carbon Martensite and Its Application” won a number of awards, such as the first prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award. These research findings had being applied in multi material systems and industrial areas and their economic benefit reached RMB1 billion. More than 600 research projects were conducted since 2005, including state level programs such as National Basic Research Program of China (973), High-Tech R&D Program of China (863), National Key Technologies R&D Program, and National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC). The lab won the second prize of National Natural Science Award 1 item; the second prize of National Technological invention 3 items; the second prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award 1 item. More than 20 items were appointed Provincial science and technology awards and more than 100 patents were obtained. More than 1000 papers were published on famous international journals including Nature, Science and PRL.

In recent years, MBM carried out highly effective research work on characterization of mechanical properties and multi-scale effect of materials in mesoscopic, which obtained international wide attention. The team directed by Professor Sun Jun found strong crystal size effect of deformation twins in dense rank hexagonal titanium aluminum crystal, which was published on Nature on Jan 21th 2010. They proposed new concept-nanospring that is a new device that can store and release mechanical energy high effectively. This work was published on Nano Letters. The research achievements represented by these work were selected “China University Top Ten Advances in Science and Technology”, which have important guide meaning to design and fabrication of Micro-nano devices and provide significant basis on experiment and theory to develop the theory of Micro-nano-scale material deformation.