JOM Cover | April 2020

CMSD research is featured on the cover of JOM for April 2020. Atomistic modeling of the deformation mechanisms and influence of grain boundaries in nanocrystalline metals.

Advanced Materials Cover | March 2019

In collaboration with scientists from NREL, CMSD research is featured in Advanced Materials. Understanding the influence of atomic order/disorder, defects, and electronic structure on the functional properties of materials.

Discovery and Design of Nanostructured Materials

Atomistic modeling of the fundamental deformation mechanisms that ultimately govern the enhanced properties exhibited by nanostructured materials.

Stronger 2D Materials

Discovering the fundamental properties of functional 2D materials using computational modeling to enable improved design strategies.

Grain Boundary Structure-property relationships

Correlating the atomic structure of grain boundaries to damage initiation and deformation mechanisms

Computational Materials Science and Design Research Group

The Computational Materials Science and Design (CMSD) research group at Mines is headed by Prof. Garritt J. Tucker. The CMSD group integrates high-performance computing and theory to discover the fundamental structure-property relationships of materials that will enable the predictive design of advanced materials with tunable properties. Of particular interest are materials where defects and interfacial-driven properties can be effectively tuned or controlled to enable property enhancement, such as nanocrystalline alloys, multicomponent laminates, materials for energy storage, 2D materials, and hierarchical metals. At the core of the CMSD group approach is to develop collaborations and programs that effectively mesh computation with experiment to tailor functional materials.

Recent work by Prof. Tucker and his group has provided unprecedented understanding into a new defect in layered materials that influences not only the strength of the material, but also other advantageous properties such as strain reversibility and kinking non-linear elastic response. Their work has also addressed many outstanding questions regarding grain boundary properties and structure in metals, and extended this idea to modeling realistic material microstructures. A significant focus has been on providing a fundamental understanding of the mechanics and physics of nanocrystalline alloys – quantifying the roles of grain boundaries, dislocations, and twinning.

CMSD research has recently highlighted how microstructural features can be altered to systemically tailor the operative nanoscale deformation mechanisms within metallic materials. Prof. Tucker’s research group leverages a number of computational methods to research materials and their properties, such as density functional theory, atomistic modeling (e.g., Molecular Dynamics and Statics), phase-field models, and a number of multiscale modeling approaches. Beyond those traditional computational methods, Prof. Tucker and his research group also employ innovative post-processing tools for data analysis and visualization, and pursue novel informatics techniques to build predictive methodologies for materials design.

Recent News

  • CMSD receives funding through SBIR to integrate quantum computing and molecular simulations (Sep 2020)
  • Congratulations to Dr. Jacob Cordell for successful completion of his PhD thesis (May 2022)
  • Congratulations to Dr. Jacob Tavenner for successful completion of his PhD thesis (March 2022)
  • Congratulations to Dr. Gabriel Plummer for successful completion of his PhD thesis (March 2022)
  • CMSD starts projects with Los Alamos National Laboratory on microstructrural design of advanced alloys (2021)
  • CMSD receives supplemental funding through NSF to develop new computational methods for studying nanolaminate interfaces (Apr 2020)
  • Congratulations to Dr. Satish Rajaram for successful completion of his Ph.D. thesis (Dec 2019)
  • CMSD receives new program funded by ARO to study hierarchical nanocomposites (Sep 2019)
  • Jacob Cordell wins poster award at RMCAVS (Sep 2019).
  • Congratulations to Gabriel Plummer and Jacob Cordell for successfully passing the Ph.D. qualifying exam (May 2019)CMSD research group receives new NSF funding to study nanocomposites with a hierarchical structure, collaborating with S. Pathak at UNR (Sep 2018)