Prof. Peter Liaw

Affiliation: 

Department of Materials Science & Engineering, The University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN 37996

Title: Design of Advanced Light-Weight High-entrropy Alloys (HEAs)*

Abstract: 

Traditional high-temperature materials, such as Ni-based or Co-based superalloys, are heavy and expensive, despite their outstanding high-temperature performance. However, recent emergence of high-entropy alloys (HEAs) offers new avenues for exploring novel low-cost, great strength-to-weight ratio elevated-temperature structural materials. In the present study, advanced light-weight HEAs (LWHEAs) are designed, based on the Al-Cr-Fe-Mn-Ti system, through the integrated high-throughput thermodynamic calculations, first-principles calculations, and experimental methods. These LWEHAs are composed of coherent nano-sized L21 and BCC two-phase structures. Due to the remarkable precipitation strengthening and solid-solution strengthening, the newly-designed light-weight HEAs possess attractive high-temperature strengths, which is comparable with those commercial superalloys

*R. Feng, M.C. Gao, C. Zhang, W. Guo, J.D. Poplawsky, F. Zhang, J.A. Hawk, J.C. Neuefeind, Y. Ren, P.K. Liaw, Acta Materialia 146 (2018) 280-293; R. Feng, M.C. Gao, C. Lee, M. Mathes, T. Zuo, S. Chen, J.A. Hawk, Y. Zhang, P. K Liaw, Entropy 18(9) (2016) 333; R. Feng, P.K. Liaw, M.C. Gao, M. Widom, npj Computational Materials 3(1) (2017) 50; L.J. Santodonato, Y. Zhang, M. Feygenson, C.M. Parish, M.C. Gao, R.J. Weber, J.C. Neuefeind, Z. Tang, P.K. Liaw, Nature Communications 6 (2015) 5964.

Acknowledgement: We very much appreciate the support of the U.S. Army Research Office project (W911NF-13-1-0438) and National Science Foundation (DMR-1611180 and 1809640) with the program directors, Drs. M. P. Bakas, S. N. Mathaudhu, D. M. Stepp, G. Shiflet, and D. Farkas.

Biography:

Peter K. Liaw was born in Chiayi, Taiwan. He graduated from the Chiayi High School, obtained his B.S. in Physics from the National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, and his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University, USA, in 1980.

After working at the Westinghouse Research and Development (R&D) Center for thirteen years, he joins the faculty and becomes an Endowed Ivan Racheff Chair of Excellence in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The University of Tennessee (UT), Knoxville, since March 1993. He has been working in the areas of fatigue, fracture, nondestructive evaluation, and life-prediction methodologies of structural alloys and composites. Since joining UT, his research interests include mechanical behavior, nondestructive evaluation, biomaterials, high-temperature alloys, bulk metallic glasses, high-entropy alloys, ceramic-matrix composites and coatings with the kindest and greatest help of his colleagues at UT and the near-by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and around the world. He has published eight hundred and seventy-one journal papers with a total citation number of 26,953 and an h index of 72, based on Google Scholar, edited more than thirty books, and presented numerous keynote and invited lectures at various national and international conferences, universities, and industries.

He was awarded the Royal E. Cabell Fellowship at Northwestern University. He is a recipient of numerous “Outstanding Performance” awards from the Westinghouse R&D Center. He was the Chairman of the TMS (The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society) “Mechanical Metallurgy” Committee, and the Chairman of the ASM (American Society for Metals) “Flow and Fracture” Committee. He has been the Chairman and Member of the TMS Award Committee on “Application to Practice, Educator, and Leadership Awards.” He is a Fellow of ASM and TMS. He has been given the Outstanding Teacher Award, the Moses E. and Mayme Brooks Distinguished Professor Award, the Engineering Research Fellow Award, the National Alumni Association Distinguished Service Professor Award, the John Fisher Professorship, and L. R. Hesler Award at UT, and the TMS Distinguished Service Award.

He has been the Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) Program, the Director of the NSF International Materials Institutes (IMI) Program, and the Director of the NSF Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program at UT. Several of his graduate students have been given awards for their research and presentations at various professional societies and conferences. Moreover, his students are teaching and doing research at universities, industries, and government laboratories.