University of Nottingham
Supervisors: Prof. Richard Smith, Prof. Matt Clark.
Contact: Richard.J.Smith@nottingham.ac.uk
Advanced engineering alloys are used in many high value, high performance industries. The performance of these parts is strongly dependant on both the elastic properties and the crystallographic structure. The design of alloys with specific properties and processing routes to obtain the ‘right’ microstructure for the part is incredibly important for increasing the capabilities of materials to meet the emerging needs of industry. The measurement of the elastic constants and the orientation non-destructively would have a large impact in this area.
This PhD will focus on the development of methods to take advantage of the huge redundancy of information contained within crystallographic orientation images. These images are derived from acoustic measurements and so could be used to calculate the elastic constants of the material. This project requires development of forward models to predict the possible wave speeds for a given set of elastic constants and crystallographic orientations and the reverse model to extract orientation and elastic constants from acoustic measurements and include exploration of the accuracy of the method for orientation and the elastic constant measurements.
