While all of our projects involve materials, the focus of some is engineering better materials. We have two active thrusts in this area: (1) engineering new alloys for additive manufacturing and (2) engineering new damage-resistant alloys for tribological and ballistic applications. These programs span basic research from the origins of hysteresis in materials to the applied optimization of compositions and processing of new materials for applications such as International Space Station ball bearings, additively manufactured biomedical implants, and high-efficiency, high-frequency transformers and power electronics for electric automobiles and airplanes. The graphic below illustrates one of the latest breakthroughs from our group’s efforts to engineer better tribological alloys
