Characterization

Unleashing ceramic potential through root cause analysis, plus more inside March 2024 ACerS Bulletin

By Lisa McDonald / February 29, 2024

The March 2024 issue of the ACerS Bulletin—featuring methods and procedures to determine the root cause of material failures and behavior—is now available online. Plus—Zachariasen and the Manhattan Project.

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Health hazards of space travel: Investigating the effects of high-energy radiation on synthetic bone materials

By Lisa McDonald / February 23, 2024

Exposure to high-energy radiation is a main health concern for future human space travel. Researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County investigated the effects of high-energy radiation on hydroxyapatite, an important bone material.

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Toward better glass design: Neutron scattering data reveal correlation between medium-range order and fragility

By Lisa McDonald / January 26, 2024

Fragility is a key glass property that helps manufacturers optimize processing parameters during glass fabrication. Measuring fragility, though, is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process. Identifying structural parameters that correlate with fragility could make predicting this property easier, and a new study led by Corning researchers reveals a correlation with the medium-range atomic ring structure.

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Inside the world of brood parasitic birds: The role of grain boundaries in eggshell strength

By Lisa McDonald / January 5, 2024

The eggs of brood parasitic birds have evolved in response to host bird defense strategies. An international group of researchers used imaging techniques and conceptual frameworks from the field of grain boundary engineering to understand how structural features affect eggshell strength.

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New framework strengthens link between a ceramic’s structural hierarchy and its properties

By Lisa McDonald / September 1, 2023

Materials scientists often use grain size as the determining variable when correlating a ceramic’s structure with its properties. But the morphology and orientation of the grains can also significantly affect a material’s properties. Researchers in China developed a framework that can correlate a material’s structural hierarchy with its properties, and their latest paper explores the potential of linking this framework to Vickers hardness.

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Ultrafast deposition reveals true shape of lithium

By Lisa McDonald / August 15, 2023

The complex feedback loop between solid electrolyte interphase formation and lithium deposition means researchers have struggled to develop a general framework for understanding and predicting lithium morphology. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, modified the electrodeposition process to decouple lithium deposition from interface growth and thus reveal the intrinsic deposition morphology of lithium.

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High-throughput automated testing platform saves time and energy by placing dozens of samples on same substrate

By Lisa McDonald / July 28, 2023

Automating experiments can help speed up the materials development process. Researchers led by North Carolina State University developed a new high-throughput automated testing system that deposits multiple samples on the same substrate, thus saving time and energy.

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Video: Computer vision method demonstrates potential of rapid and automated quality control for cements

By Lisa McDonald / July 26, 2023

Testing the durability of building materials is typically a slow, tedious, and labor-intensive process. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign used computer vision to develop a fast and affordable method for testing cement durability, demonstrating the potential to improve quality control in the cement industry through automated methods.

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‘SiC’ new analytical protocol offers affordable purity analysis of silicon carbide

By Lisa McDonald / May 30, 2023

Verifying the purity of ultrahigh-purity materials can be a challenge. Researchers in Italy and Norway developed a new analytical protocol based on laser ablation paired with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry to determine the purity of silicon carbide.

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Freely available deep learning method ‘fills in the blank’ of unknown internal material structures

By Lisa McDonald / May 9, 2023

What if you could predict a material’s internal microstructure based solely on its external surface characteristics? A new deep learning method developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology provides such a capability, and all data and codes used for the study are freely available for anyone to use through GitHub.

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