Assignments

Problem Sets (undergraduates only)

PROBLEMS SOLUTIONS
HW 1 (PDF) (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)
HW 2 (PDF) (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)
HW 3 (PDF) (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)
HW 4 (PDF)  (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)

Review Assignments (all students)

Four recent research articles will be listed for each review paper. Two will be experiment-oriented (Group A) and two will be simulation-oriented (Group B).

Undergraduates: Select one article from the four choices, submit one document.

Graduates: Select one article from each of Groups A & B, submit two documents.

After selecting an article, read it carefully, and think critically about what you have read. You will then prepare a short review of the article, in about 2 pages. About the first third of your review should be a synopsis of the paper, inclusive of methods and main results. The remainder of the review should offer a critique of the paper, and present some creative thoughts for future questions to be addressed. For example, some things to discuss may include:

  • Does anything in this paper contradict the "textbook" knowledge that you are learning in class?
  • Alternatively, does this paper significantly add to our understanding of something to the point where we should add this new knowledge to our textbook?
  • Are the methods used in the work sufficient to support the conclusions drawn by the authors?
  • Is the logic internally consistent? Do all of the data support the same conclusion?
  • Can you suggest a better way to resolve one or more of the open questions in this work?
  • Is there a simple experiment that can either refute or substantially support the authors' claims?
  • How general are the conclusions of this paper; are these results to be expected for other metals or materials?
  • What doors does this work open for future research?
  • What doors does this work open for industrial development or usage of metals?
ASSIGNMENTS GROUP A GROUP B
Review #1 (PDF)

Douin, J., et al. "Direct Measurement of the Variation in the Energy of a Dislocation Locked in Specific Orientations." Acta Materialia 57 (January 2009): 466-473.

Norfleet, D. M., et al. "Dislocation Structures and their Relationship to Strength in Deformed Nickel Microcrystals." Acta Materialia 56 (August 2008): 2988-3001.

Wang, H., et al. "The Transformation of Edge Dislocation Dipoles in Aluminum." Acta Materialia 56 (October 2008): 4608-4620.

Jin, Z.-H., et al. "Interactions Between Non-Screw Lattice Dislocations and Coherent Twin Boundaries in Face-Centered Cubic Metals." Acta Materialia 56 (March 2008): 1126-1135.
Review #2 (PDF)

Field, D. P., et al. "The Role of Annealing Twins During Recrystallization of Cu." Acta Materialia 55 (July 2007): 4233-4241.

Zhang, Y. B., et al. "Analysis of the Growth of Individual Grains During Recrystallization in Pure Nickel." Acta Materialia 57 (May 2009): 2631-2639.

Ivasishin, O. M., et al. "Implementation of Exact Grain-Boundary Geometry into a 3-D Monte-Carlo (Potts) Model for Microstructure Evolution." Acta Materialia 57 (May 2009): 2834-2844.

Lim, A. T., et al. "Low-angle Grain Boundary Migration in the Presence of Extrinsic Dislocations." Acta Materialia 57 (October 2009): 5013-5022.
Review #3 (PDF)

Krug, Matthew E., et al. "Core-shell Nanoscale Precipitates in Al-0.06 at.% Sc Microalloyed with Tb, Ho, Tm, or Lu." Acta Materialia 58 (January 2010): 134-145.

Adachi, Yoshitaka, et al. "Computer-Aided Three-Dimensional Visualization of Twisted Cementite Lamellae in Eutectoid Steel." Acta Materialia 56 (December 2008): 5995-6002.

Perez, M., et al. "Implementation of Classical Nucleation and Growth Theories for Precipitation." Acta Materialia 56 (May 2008): 2119-2132.

Terentyev, D. A., et al. "Strengthening due to Coherent Cr Precipitates in Fe-Cr Alloys: Atomistic Simulations and Theoretical Models." Acta Materialia 56 (August 2008): 3229-3235.