Welcome to the Charpagne research group at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign!
Our vision:
Metal Additive Manufacturing is revolutionizing the way we conceptualize materials synthesis, performance, and life cycle. One may think of physical metallurgy as an established and mature field, but what if we told you that out of 5,000 commercially available alloys, only a handful are printable? This arises from the extreme heating and cooling rates associated with additive manufacturing, which lead to microstructures that are far from thermodynamic equilibrium. In our group, we leverage these unique aspects of additive manufacturing as a strength to re-think how to design new alloys dynamically, out-of-equilibrium. Our research sees direct applications in the fields of aerospace (space, rocket engines, impact resistance at cryogenic temperature), bio-compatible materials (implants), energy production (radiation tolerance, fusion), energy storage (mostly hydrogen-related), and thermal management (heat waste recovery).
We design and synthesize new alloys that self-adapt to extreme environments via dynamic transformations, leading to superior performance. Our materials reach metastable states that would never be achievable under thermodynamic equilibrium, and possess unique combination of mechanical, thermal, electrical properties, as well as superior resistance to environmental degradation.
As a member of our group, you can expect to get hands-on experience in alloy synthesis using our Directed Energy Deposition (DED) Additive Manufacturing (AM) system, arc-melting, and solid state processing, sputtering. You will operate SEMs, FIBs, TEMs, AFMs, mechanical testing frames, and nano-indenters. If you are a hands-on person who likes experimental work, you will enjoy working in our lab. As we move towards incorporating more and more machine learning / computer vision / statistical analysis into our research, basic coding skills (python preferred) are a huge plus.
We seek to maintain a friendly and welcoming atmosphere, which we believe is the right environment to see scientific ideas come to life. Stop by our offices to see for yourself!
Check out our Research page for current projects.
We gratefully acknowledge our funding sources:
and generous gifts from:
