Ceramic Materials Commons^™

Spark Plasma Sintering Of Alumina With Controlled Porosity, Harshail Patet

Discovery Day - Daytona Beach

Alumina is one of the most widely used advanced ceramics, serving applications that range from dense structural and wear-resistant components to porous thermal insulation and filtration systems. Porosity is a defining microstructural feature that governs mechanical strength, thermal conductivity, and permeability, meaning different applications demand different porosity levels from the same material. Spark plasma sintering (SPS) enables rapid consolidation by simultaneously applying pulsed electric current and uniaxial pressure, offering precise control over density, grain size, and porosity in significantly shorter processing times than conventional sintering. While prior studies have investigated the individual effects of SPS parameters on alumina densification, a …

Structural Analysis On Iron Phosphate Glasses After Dechlorination Of Mixed Chloride Waste Forms, Lucas Greiner

Miners Solving for Tomorrow Research Conference

Molten salt reactors (MSRs) require durable waste forms for immobilizing halide-rich salts. This study examines iron phosphate glasses derived from a simple salt mixture (SSM), focusing on the effect of Fe₂O₃ additions (2.5–10 wt%) on structure and phase stability. Intermediates were processed at 300–600 °C and vitrified at 1050 °C. Raman spectroscopy and HPLC show that increasing iron content depolymerizes the phosphate network, shifting from Q² toward Q¹ species and reducing chain length. XRD confirms amorphous behavior for ≤7.5 wt% Fe₂O₃, while 10 wt% shows crystallization, with KFeP₂O₇ observed in samples processed at 400 °C. Despite reduced connectivity, iron enhances …

Improvement Of Lithium-Metal Electrode All-Solid-State Batteries Performance By Shot Peening And Magnetron Sputtering, Atsuro Okumura, Manabu Kodama

15th International Conference on Shot Peening

To enable fast charging in lithium-metal anode all-solid-state batteries, suppressing lithium dendrite formation at the solid electrolyte (SE) interface is critical. Increasing fracture toughness via shot peening (SP) and improving interfacial contact with Au sputtering can inhibit dendrite growth. However, conventional sputtering may reduce toughness due to localized thermal damage. This study investigated magnetron sputtering as a low-damage, plasma-based Au deposition method. SEs with and without SP were fabricated and coated via normal and magnetron sputtering. Critical current density (CCD) and fracture toughness were evaluated. Without SP, CCD improvement was limited regardless of sputtering method due to poor bonding. With …

Fabrication Of Ultra High-Temperature Compact Heat Exchanger By Extrusion-Based Ceramic Additive Manufacturing, Abid Hasan Rafi, David W. Lipke, Jeremy Lee Watts, Greg Hilmas, Ming-Chuan Leu

Miners Solving for Tomorrow Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Sustainable Solutions To Eutrophication: The Role Of Glass Fertilizers, Lucas Greiner, Charmayne Lonergan

Miners Solving for Tomorrow Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Microstructural Evolution Of High-Entropy Carbide Ceramics, Elizabeth Pritchett, William Fahrenholtz, Greg Hilmas, Steven Smith

Miners Solving for Tomorrow Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Lunar In-Situ Aluminum Production Through Molten Salt Electrolysis (Lisap-Mse), Jacob Ortega, Jeffrey D. Smith, Fateme Rezaei, David Bayless, William P. Schonberg, Daniel S. Stutts, Daoru Frank Han

NASA-Missouri Space Grant Consortium

The goal of Artemis is to establish a sustained presence on the Moon. To achieve so, numerous resources are necessary. The Moon contains several essential elements needed to sustain human presence. Most of those elements are trapped in the form of minerals. To refine those minerals into useful materials, reduction methods are needed. Most reduction methods on Earth require large amounts of mass and power which is unrealistic for early stages of building a lunar base. To solve this problem, we are developing a concept of Lunar In-Situ Aluminum Production through Molten Salt Electrolysis (LISAP-MSE).

The LISAP-MSE project, if successful, …

The Effects Of Curing Temperature On The Hydration Kinetics Of Plain And Fly Ash Pastes And Compressive Strength Of Corresponding Mortars With And Without Nano-Tio2 Addition., Dan Huang, Mirian Velay-Lizancos, Jan Olek

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

Incorporation of fly ash in cementitious systems containing ordinary portland cement (OPC) increases their long-term strength and durability. However, replacement of cement by fly ash also reduces the heat of hydration of such systems and reduces early-age strength development. The reduced rate of strength development can increase the risk of durability problems, e.g. scaling, in cases when young concrete is exposed to low temperatures and deicing chemicals. This study investigated the potential of nano-titanium dioxide (nano-TiO₂) particles to modify the hydration kinetics of fly ash pastes and compressive strength development of corresponding mortars cured under low (4°C) and …

Corrosion Performance Of Embedded Steel Bar In Cl--Contaminated Limestone Calcined Clay Cement (Lc3) At Initial Stage Of Hydration, Weiwen Li, Zuhua Xu, Yaocheng Wang, Xin Wang, Feng Xing

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

Limestone Calcined Clay Cement (LC3) presents brilliant properties in binding Cl^- so that the embedded steel bars are probably protected in Cl^--contaminated condition, which meets the need of sea sand application. However, the corrosion performance of steel bars embedded in LC3 paste with Cl^‑ is unclear, especially in early age hydration. Thus, a series of experiments were carried out to evaluate the corrosion performance of steel bars on initial and hardened stages of hydration, including concentration of OH^- and Cl^- in real pore solution, open circuit potential (OCP) and chemical elements of steel bars. …

Tool For Correlating Ebsd And Afm Data Arrays, Andrew Krawec, Matthew Michie, John Blendell

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Ceramic and semiconductor research is limited in its ability to create holistic representations of data in concise, easily-accessible file formats or visual data representations. These materials are used in everyday electronics, and optimizing their electrical and physical properties is important for developing more advanced computational technologies. There is a desire to understand how changing the composition of the ceramic alters the shape and structure of the grown crystals. However, few accessible tools exist to generate a dataset with the proper organization to understand correlations between grain orientation and crystallographic orientation. This paper outlines an approach to analyzing the crystal structure …

Numerical Simulation Of The Influence Of Ceramic Preform On The Infiltration Process Of Metal Matrix Composites, Chang-Chun Dong, Jian-Xin Zhou, Ya-Jun Yin, Xu Shen

The 8th International Conference on Physical and Numerical Simulation of Materials Processing

No abstract provided.

Wetting And Interfacial Microstructure Of Porous Si3n4/Si3n4 Joint After Silver Metallization, Yanli Zhuang, Tiesong Lin, Shengjin Wang, Peng He, Dusan P. Sekulic, Dechang Jia, Hongmei Wei

The 8th International Conference on Physical and Numerical Simulation of Materials Processing

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Post-Treatment On Micro-Structure And Properties Of Al2o3–13 Wt%Tio2 Plasma-Spray Coating, Zehua Zhou

The 8th International Conference on Physical and Numerical Simulation of Materials Processing

No abstract provided.

Fluorescent Materials Design At Nanoscale For Biomedical Photonics In Near Infrared Window, Kohei Soga, Masao Kamimura

The 8th International Conference on Physical and Numerical Simulation of Materials Processing

No abstract provided.

Review On Joining Of Advanced Materials And Dissimilar Materials In Harbin Institute Of Technology, Jun Qu, Yongping Lei, Peng He, Yunlong Chang

The 8th International Conference on Physical and Numerical Simulation of Materials Processing

No abstract provided.

Cermet Development For High Temperature And High Pressure Applications, Beatriz Justus Ferez, Samantha Guthrie, Brian J. Jaques (Mentor), Darryl P. Butt (Mentor)

Idaho Conference on Undergraduate Research

Many traditionally used low cost alloys are easily corroded in steam or supercritical CO₂. An effective solution is to utilize ceramic heat exchangers that are often integrated with metallic components which result in a significant thermal expansion mismatch. The goal of this project is to develop a sealing method to create a hermetic joint between the ceramic and metal alloy. Proposed is a seal ring containing a cermet powder with a coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) higher than the ceramic and metal to produce a high temperature compressive seal. Cermets of Ag and MgO have been selected to …

Computational Studies Of Grain Boundary Behavior In Uranium Dioxide Nuclear Fuels, Eric Nelson, Lan Li (Mentor), Simon C. Middleburgh (Mentor)

Idaho Conference on Undergraduate Research

Nuclear power is responsible for the production of 380,000 Megawatts of energy worldwide, which results in over 11% of the world’s energy production [world-nuclear.org]. Pellet-cladding interactions (PCI) are a key nuclear fuel failure mechanism which presents formidable challenges to researchers due to extreme nuclear fission conditions. Although PCI interactions have been reduced due to fuel additives, understandings of PCI interactions remain elusive. We propose new approaches to increase understanding of nuclear fuel interactions; specifically, uranium dioxide and the effects of dopants. This study focuses on amorphous uranium dioxide and fission products, while benchmarking new methods with previous computational studies. Results …

Verifying The Implementation Of An Anisotropic Grain Boundary Energy Model In Idaho National Lab’S Marmot, John-Michael H. Bradley, Evan D. Hansen, Jarin C. French, Yongfeng Zhang (Mentor)

Idaho Conference on Undergraduate Research

This work aims to verify the correct implementation of an anisotropic grain boundary (GB) energy model for face-centered cubic (FCC) and fluorite materials in Idaho National Laboratory’s phase field fuel performance code MARMOT. The model was recently implemented in MARMOT with the purpose of enabling higher fidelity simulations of UO₂ nuclear fuels. As part of verification, tests were performed to measure the energy dependence on misorientation of high symmetry GBs in an FCC metal (Cu). The energies of the [100], [110], and [111] twist boundaries result as predicted, as do the energies of the [111] symmetric tilt boundaries. However, …

Grain Boundary Migration Of Nio-Mgo Alloys, Xin Li Phuah, David Lowing, John Blendell

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Grain boundary engineering offers enhanced control of microstructure development during processing, leading to improved final material properties. However, using the effects of the interfacial energy anisotropy on grain boundary mobility to control microstructure development is not well understood. The NiO-MgO system is studied as it has complete solid solubility and a transition in the faceting behavior with composition due to changes in the interfacial energy anisotropy. NiO-MgO powders were produced through the amorphous citrate process and modifications to the process were made to reduce particle and agglomerate size. The powders were pressed and sintered in various conditions to produce fine …

Crystal Nucleation Of Palladium-Doped Lithium Disilicate Glass, Gregory Humble

Symposium of Student Scholars

The effect of concentration of palladium particles on crystal nucleation was investigated for lithium disilicate glass. The heterogeneous nucleation rate for 470°C and 480°C were calculated for a concentration of 0.001% palladium by weight. The DTA method of measuring nucleation and crystallization was used in this calculation.

Investigation Of The Performance Of Different Types Of Zirconium Microstructures Under Extreme Irradiation Conditions, Eric M. Acosta, Osman J. El-Atwani

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The safe and continued operation of the US nuclear power plants requires improvement of the radiation resistant properties of materials used in nuclear reactors. Zirconium is a material of particular interest due to its use in fuel cladding. Studies performed on other materials have shown that grain boundaries can play a significant role on the radiation resistant properties of a material. Thus, the focus of our research is to investigate the performance of different zirconium microstructures under irradiation conditions similar to those in commercial nuclear reactors. Analysis of the surface morphology of zirconium both pre- and post-irradiation was conducted with …

Microstructure Development Of Granular System During Compaction, Chen Shang, Marcial Gonzalez

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Granular materials is the second most manipulated material in the industry today. They are easy to transport and more and more newly developed materials cannot stand the process of traditional casting, like energetic materials and bio-materials, but will survive the powder compaction process. Having a better understanding of the microstructure development of granular systems during compaction process, especially for particles that will heavily deform under loading, will give an insight of how to better process the powders to produce materials with overall better performance comparing to bulk materials. The main theory and mechanism applied are Hertz law and nonlocal contact …

Characterizing The Pore Structure Of Carbonated Natural Wollastonite, Chiara Villani, Robert Spragg, Raikhan Tokpatayeva, Jan Olek, W. Jason Weiss

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

This paper focuses on examining the pore structure of a cementitious paste made with a calcium silicate (wollastonite) that reacts with carbon dioxide and water to form a hardened solid. The pore structure of the hardened solid has been characterized using vapor sorption and desorption, low-temperature differential scanning calorimetry (LT-DSC), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The total porosity was also measured using mass measurement in oven-dry and vacuum-saturated conditions. Evidence exists that support the hypothesis that the solid has two main pore sizes: large macropores (>10 nm) appear to form between the initial calcium silicate particles and small micropores …

Freeze Thaw Durability Of Internally Cured Concrete Made Using Superabsorbent Polymers, Wesley A. Jones, W. Jason Weiss

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

The use of superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) to produce internally cured concrete has been shown to be effective in reducing the potential for restrained shrinkage cracking of high performance concrete mixtures. However, not much is known regarding the freeze–thaw durability of concrete mixtures that incorporate SAPs for internal curing (IC). When SAP particles desorb (or partially desorb) the “water” (pore fluid) they contain for the purposes of IC, some believe that the void space created by these particles can provide enough empty voids to accommodate the additional volume caused by water expansion upon freezing. This paper investigates the freeze–thaw durability of …

Characterization Of Lead-Free Piezo-Ceramics, Hanhan Zhou, John Blendell

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) has been the most commonly used piezoelectric material due to its high piezoelectric performance under varied operating conditions. However, it has been noticed that the lead component is toxic, causing some environmental issues and a lead free substitute material was introduced. The substituted environmental friendly piezoelectric material, Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3–x(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3 (BZT-xBCT) system that can fulfill the need of high piezoelectricity has been developed. The research was conducted to characterize the BZT-xBCT system with five different compositions (x=0.06, 0.08, 0.1, 0.12 and 0.14).. XRD was applied to examine the crystal structure of the samples before and after poling and …

Computation Of Piezo-Electric Materials, Seung Yun Song, R. Edwin García

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Piezo -electric materials are materials that will change its shape and size when an electric field is applied to the material. Vice versa, these materials will generate a certain voltage when they are bent, vibrated, or deformed. These materials show promising future , because they link mechanical and electrical properties of a material. In 21^st century when electronic devices such as smart phones or touch-screen TV’s depend highly on mechanical input such as human’s touch, developing and researching materials that can link the mechanical and electrical properties can greatly improve the quality of i-phones. The main challenge regarding piezo-electric …

Hydraulic And Thermal Performances Of A High Temperature Ceramic Plate-Fin Heat Exchanger (Pfhe), Vijaisri Nagarajan, Yitung Chen, Qiuwang Wang, Ting Ma

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

• Numerical analysis was carried for novel configuration of high temperature PFHE
• Fluid flow and heat transfer properties were studied for various fin configurations
• Ripsaw fin design with thickness of 0.05 mm gives maximum heat transfer with less pressure drop and friction factor
• Validation and parametric study were carried out for all fin configurations

2nd Annual Undergraduate Research Conference Abstract Book, University Of Missouri--Rolla

Undergraduate Research Conference at Missouri S&T

No abstract provided.