Smart Materials Can Stimulate Breakthroughs in Microelectronics and Aviation Industry

10:58, June 20, 2018

The project is supported by the State Foundations for Basic Research

Scientists of Ural Federal University conduct research on the creation of smart materials; such materials change their properties reacting to changes in the environment. The project is implemented in collaboration with Belarusian colleagues. The strength and conductivity of materials directly depends on the success of these scientific studies. New smart materials can stimulate serious breakthroughs in such industries as microelectronics and aviation industry, in particular, creation of unique chips and aircraft details. The project received a two-year grant of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. Russian scientists will receive 1,400,000 rubles and the Belarusian group of researchers will be funded separately by the Belarusian Republican Foundation for Basic Research.

According to Dmitry Aleksandrov, professor of UrFU Academic Department of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, the goal of the work is to develop eutectic and hypereutectic silumins additionally doped with Fe, Mg and other elements, with a homogeneous distribution of nano (ultra) disperse phases. The scientists work on the methods of melt solidification at various cooling rates to carry out complex studies of their structural-phase state, mechanical and thermal properties. It is also important to determine the synthesis conditions for creating alloys with the best technical characteristics.

‘The scientific hypothesis suggests the simultaneous use of ultrahigh cooling rates of the liquid phase and additional doping with metals of silumin to achieve homogeneity of the microstructure and nano (ultra) dispersity of the constituent phases, which will result in a combination of high strength and plasticity and ensure their efficient use. The development of a physical and mathematical model for the solidification of eutectic alloys of silumin is necessary for scientifically based selection of optimal regimes of ultrafast melt quenching,’ said Dmitry Alexandrov.

The software for simulation of the formation and growth of eutectics using supercomputers will be developed on the base of that model. The complex experimental and theoretical studies of the structure and phase composition allow establishing the mechanisms of highly nonequilibrium crystallization of eutectic and hypereutectic alloys at ultrahigh melt cooling rates.