Light alloys, shape memory alloys, magnetic alloys

We have recently focused on magnesium-based alloys, which are interesting lightweight (low density) materials for automotive, aerospace and biomedical applications. We were looking for alloying elements to enhance desirable material properties and explored combinations of Mg with rare earth elements to produce strong, ductile and economical low density alloys.

After experimental work led by a UNSW collaborator (with an HMC student) resulted in a conference paper, the HMC student began computational work that led to Best Undergraduate Poster prizes at TMS in 2017 - and again in 2018! With continued computationalwork by another student, they published a journal paper showing that magnesium with scandium plus yttrium or erbium (but not lanthanum, cerium, or neodymium) is the way to go,

Aluminum and titanium are the other common base elements for light alloys, and the very first work that our UNSW collaborators and an HMC student did on compositionally complex alloys (more than 10 years ago) was on Al-Ti-Co-Ni-Fe-Cr alloys. Recently we did new thermodynamic modeling of this system and published a paper.

Laspa Fellows: David Golay '12 (engineering), Adam Shaw '18 (physics), Anna Soper '22 (physics/math)

We experimentally explored potential shape memory effects in PdPtTiZr, NiCuTiZr and other precious metal plus transition metal systems and continued with computational study.

Laspa Fellows: Simone Griffith '19 (chemistry), Geneva Ecola '19 (engineering)

The magnetism that we found in our first compositionally complex brass family led to exploration of magnetic properties in further computational work on CuNiMnAl and CuNiMnSn

Laspa Fellows: Shifrah Aron-Dine '16 (physics), Kate Reed '18 (physics), Lillian Liang '18 (engineering)