MSE Seminar: Aluminum Alloy Design and Processing Strategies for Enhanced Performance

Abstract: The demand for light-weighting of our infrastructure and transportation equipment has seen a significant growth the last two decades; this need is expected to increase as reduction of carbon footprint and energy consumption will be major drivers in the decades ahead. Aluminum has played a pivotal role in this light-weighting movement and will continue to do so with the increase of EV vehicles. There is a need for high performance Al alloys such as enhanced modulus, usage at elevated temperatures, and damage resistant alloys, etc. In this presentation a retrospective and a prospective view of alloy design for Al as well as processing strategies will be reviewed and discussed. A brief look at the need to recover, reuse and repurpose Al alloys at the end of life will also be presented.

Bio: Diran Apelian is Distinguished Professor of materials science and engineering at UCI (since 2019) and heads the advanced material processing activities of IDMI [http://manufacturing.uci.edu]. Previous to joining UCI, Apelian was the Alcoa-Howmet Professor of Engineering and founding eirector of the Metal Processing Institute (MPI) at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). Between 1990-1997, he served as WPI’s Provost. Apelian is a fellow of TMS, ASM and APMI; he is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Inventors, European Academy of Sciences and the Armenian Academy of Sciences. Apelian was TMS president (2008/9) and chair of the ASM Educational Foundation Board (2016/2018). He is a co-founder of Solvus Global LLC, Battery Resourcers Inc., Kinetic Batteries LLC, and Melt Cognition LLC. For more info see: www.mindyourmetal.com