Alloy Design and Development

The Alloy Design and Development team in MST-6 sits at the intersection of metallurgy, physics, and chemistry. The team’s primary mission is to understand the complex physical and electronic behavior of metal alloys and compounds that contain uranium. As part of this mission the team synthesizes a wide variety of metal alloys and compounds that contain elements from beryllium to uranium at a research scale for researchers at the laboratory and around the world.

The team has synthesis capabilities that include: arc-melting, directional solidification, melt spinning, zone refining, Czochralski crystal growth, single crystal growth via precipitation reactions, and severe plastic deformation processing such as Equichannel Angular Extrusion. The synthesis capabilities are complimented by several characterization tools including: x-ray diffraction, large format (1 meter) x-ray fluorescence, DSC/DTA, heat capacity, thermal expansion, magnetization, resistivity, and mechanical property measurements. The temperature range for most characterization is from liquid helium temperatures up to 1000 centigrade.