Reported by Yujie Jia and Min Wa
At Prof. Weizhong Han’s invitation, Professor Irene J. Beyerlein came to XJTU-MSE to give a three-days visit. Irene J. Beyerlein, Professor of University of California at Santa Barbara with department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials, Acta Materialia/Scripta Materiallia Editor, Fellow of the Institute of Physics.
On 24th May, Prof. Beyerlein visited CAMP-Nano in MSE and had a nice discussion with the professors and students about their research. On 25th, from 10 a.m. to 12 a.m., Prof. Beyerlein gave a wonderful report entitled “Microstructure Based Modeling of Deformation Twinning Hexagonal Close Packed Crystal” in the Zhou Huijiu Forum. The lecture has attracted a diverse crowd, including professors and students from all sorts of grade. At the beginning of report, Prof. Xiangdong Ding told an interested story about the meeting with Prof. Beyerlein in University of California. Then, Prof. Sun Jun issued the “Xi’an Jiaotong University Adjunct Professor” credential to Prof. Beyerlein. She also has been awarded “Zhou Huijiu Lecture Award” by Prof. Zhiwei Shan.
Hexagonal close packed (HCP) crystalline materials, such as Mg and Ti, can provide a potential solution to the ever-increasing portfolio of structural applications. Successful incorporation of HCP materials into engineering designs is, however, hindered by their limited plasticity. One of the most important and puzzling underlying mechanisms governing their plastic behavior is deformation twinning. In her research, she employ crystal plasticity based micromechanics model to establish and understand the concept of first formation of twin embryos, propagation inside crystals and across their boundaries, and twin expansion and apply it to Mg and Ti. This knowledge and insight will be used to accelerate materials discovery and design of HCP alloys of low-density, high strength, high toughness alloys, reducing weight and fuel consumption.
Prof. Beyerlein used vivid pictures and humorous language to explain deformation twinning in HCP, keeping the presentation alive. At the end of lecture, audiences asked questions and participated in discussions actively.
In the afternoon, from half past four to half past six, she gave XJTU’s students a class to talk about “Deformation Twinning in Hexagonal Close Packed (HCP) Metals”. It contained four parts. Firstly, she talked about the application and basal crystal structure of HCP; secondly, she compared slip and twinning in HCP from types, space configuration and so on; the third part was about slip-twin interactions and the last part was “modeling deformation in HCP metal”. Through this class, students all learned a lot knowledge about HCP metals, and experienced the teaching model of American.
Profile: Irene J. Beyerlein has more than 20 years of experience in multi-scale simulation calculations and analysis of composite materials and polycrystalline metal materials, and great achievements have been made in the structural evolution and deformation mechanisms of materials. At present, she has published more than 260 high-level academic papers, H factor 45. She also made more than 30 special academic reports, wrote one academic monograph, and seven books in collaboration with others. She is currently Visiting Professor at the University of Lorraine, and has won the University of New Hampshire Women's Science and Engineering Association and NSF ADVANCE STEM Award, International Journal of Plasticity Young Researcher Award, Acta Materiallia Outstanding Reviewer Award.
