Jeffrey J. Derby, Fellow

Materials Processing Fundamentals

Large-scale numerical modeling is employed to study several materialsprocessing systems. On the continuum level, these systems are characterized by nonlinear interactions between field and inter-facial phenomena. These phenomena—specifically, the transport of momentum, heat, and mass and effects of solidification and capillarity—are analyzed via finite element computations. On the atomistic level, this research group performed ab initio simulations (in collaboration with James Chelikowsky, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science) to study phenomena that affect the microscopic properties of materials. Specific research areas included the modeling of the growth of several crystalline materials, ceramics sintering systems, the microwave heating of food, and polymer fluid mechanics. Several topics were addressed specifically during this research period. One was the development of algorithms needed to model materials processing systems. Past work has concentrated on the development of finite element methods for solution of these problems. The current work focuses on massively parallel implementations, the development of moving boundary techniques for three-dimensional problems, better preconditioners to be used with iterative linear solution methods, and implementation of advanced formulations for strongly nonlinear flows and transport. In another continuing study, the team’s effort has been directed at understanding several crystal growth systems. The work focuses on multi-scale models for melt and solution crystal growth systems. One such project focuses on the description of molten II–VI materials using atomistic methods to better understand their peculiar properties during crystal growth. Still another focus of interest for these researchers was the study of sintering phenomena. The team has successfully modeled the viscous sintering of simple configurations of particles. They are modeling vacancy diffusion phenomena, which dominate the sintering behavior of crystalline materials, and extending analyses to more complicated, three-dimensional particle arrangements. The researchers are also developing methods to describe microwave heating. They have developed finite element techniques to study the microwave heating of solids and liquids in various materials processing systems, and are studying food processing. Lastly, the team is studying polymer fluid dynamics in processing. The researchers are developing and applying finite element methods with differential constitutive equations for viscoelastic fluids to study various flows in polymer processing. Of particular interest are polymer drop deformation and break-up in extensional and shear flows.

Research Group and Collaborators

Simon Brandon, Department of Chemical Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
Bing Dai, Graduate Student Researcher
Valmor de Almeida, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Hadrain Djohari, Graduate Student Researcher
Russell Hooper, Graduate Student Researcher
Yong-Il Kwon, Graduate Student Researcher
Michael Metzger, Institut Für Werkstoffwissenschaften, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany
Georg Mueller, Institut Für Werkstoffwissenschaften, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany
Arun Pandy, Graduate Student Researcher
Paul Sonda, Graduate Student Researcher
Andrew Yeckel, Senior Research Associate