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Course on Advanced Characterization and Microstructural Analysis

Every other Fall semester, Prof. Rollett teaches Advanced Characterization and Microstructural Analysis. This course is transmitted over the web so that students at Florida A&M University can take part, as part of our Collaborative to Integrate Research and Education (PREM) project. At Florida A&M, the students are guided by Professor Peter Kalu, who also contributes some lectures to the course. The course is available for students from other universities to link in via videoconference; please contact Prof. Rollett for details

This course is about the representation of internal structure and the relationships between these representations and the properties and performance of crystalline materials, with special emphasis upon their polycrystalline form. Polycrystalline materials find widespread use in complex engineered systems for sustaining of mechanical, electrical, magnetic and thermal loads. They are employed over a very wide range of length scales, from the submicron electrical interconnects in computer chips to the meter-scale load-bearing structures in airframes and auto bodies. In these and in many other applications various aspects of the internal structure of the polycrystal are observed to affect the important properties. Among the elements of internal structure that effect properties are included the size and shape of crystallites (grains), the distribution of their crystallographic orientations, spatial correlations between these geometrical and crystallographic features, and various aspects of the defect structure (intercrystalline interfaces, dislocations, point defects, etc.) which punctuate the crystalline structure. These, in turn, are affected by the chemical composition and the processing history used to produce the material.

Figure below: Exposed grain morphologies. An example from Prof. Rollett's lecture notes used to teach Advanced Characterization and Microstructural Analysis

Exposed grain morphologies

 

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