REU Site: Advanced Metallurgical Design for Transportation, Infrastructure, and Energy – Intellectual Merit Kip O. Findley, Colorado School of Mines, DMR Program Overview: 13 students were recruited from schools nationwide to participated in the REU site program at the Colorado School of Mines Metallurgical and Materials Department in the summer of The student participants contributed to funded research programs through multiple research centers and faculty initiatives at CSM and through collaborative projects at NIST-Boulder with the Materials Reliability Division. A wide range of metallurgical topics were investigated including: Accelerated Aging of Aluminum 2618 Upon Quenching in Boiling Water High Entropy Alloys Effect Of Surface Condition On The Bendability of Zinc- Coated Advanced High Strength Steels Influence of heating rate on galvanized coating evolution prior to hot stamping Effects of Hydrogen Trapping on Hydrogen Induced Cracking Susceptibility Experimental Investigation of Aluminum Nitride and Vanadium Nitride Solubility in Medium Carbon Steels Effect of Silicon on Retained Austenite Stabilization in Intercritically Annealed Steels The Effects of Measured Cross-sectional Area on the Measured Mechanical Response of Bake Hardenable Sheet Steel Characterization of Lead-Free Solders for Photovoltaic Applications Metal Matrix Composites in Zinc-4Aluminum through SHS Reactions Microstructure Evolution in Incoloy® 945 During Hot Deformation Microstructure (left) and and composition map (right) of a concentrating photovoltaic cell that was heat treated to simulate heating due to sunlight concentration during operation. Red is nickel, cyan is tin, purple is silver, and green is the concentrating photovoltaic cell. Diffusion of some elements occurs during thermal cycling. Ductility versus strength for quench and partitioned TRIP steels with various silicon levels (low, medium, high) and processed to have different amounts of intercritical ferrite. The plot shows that microstructure plays a larger role than Si alloying in strength and ductility.

REU Site: Advanced Metallurgical Design for Transportation, Infrastructure, and Energy – Broader Impacts Kip O. Findley, Colorado School of Mines, DMR Students, ranging from incoming college freshman to seniors, participated in the program. In an effort to emphasize the multidisciplinary themes of Transportation, Infrastructure, and Energy of the program, the participant majors included materials engineering, mechanical engineering, physics, and chemistry. The students were exposed to specialized metallurgical research equipment at NIST-Boulder and CSM, including the recently NSF-funded Gleeble 3500 (DMR ). The objectives of the program are to stimulate/increase interest in STEM disciplines, to promote retention for underclassmen, and to help inform the career decisions of upperclassmen considering research careers. In order to expose the participants to metallurgical techniques and research tools not necessarily available at their home institutions, they took part in hands-on workshops including the workshop on forging shown to the right, where the students all manufactured their own nails. CSM joined forces with other REU programs at CSM and Washington State University (collaborators: D.F. Bahr and M. Liberatore) to collect data on student self-efficacy in research before and after the research experience. As shown in the plot above, which is the combined data set from all CSM and WSU programs for those who “Strongly Agree” they can perform the listed items, the student self-efficacy improved significantly in some areas but did not change in others. This data helps guide the future program design. A joint poster session between 3 CSM REU programs was held at the end of the summer. In total, there were approximately 50 student poster presentations. The event was well-attended by administration, students, faculty, and staff from the entire CSM campus.