Fighting Entropy: Strategies for Retention of Nanostructured Material Performance 

Suveen Mathaudhu, Ph.D.  
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
UC Riverside

Nanostructured  and  nanocomposite  materials  have garnered  tremendous  interest  over  the  past two  decades  due  to  their  impressive  increases  in physical  and  functional  properties  over  their course-grained    counterparts.    Laboratory-scale    properties    have    forecast    revolutionary performance  in  a  wide  breath  of  technological  applications,  however  advancement  has  largely been limited by the relative instability of the nanostructured features and phases at the elevated temperatures and pressures needed for manufacturing and fabrication. In this lecture, strategies that  incorporate  new  predictive  theoretical and  computational  approaches,  state-of-the-science processing  and  3D/4D  characterization  tools  for  “top-down”  and  “bottom-up”  processing  of ultrahigh strength nanostructured/nanocomposite Mg-alloys will be presented. From this “model” case,  we  will  target  and  distill  some  key emerging  areas  of  scientific  and  technological opportunity for overcoming the daunting challenges that thermodynamic equilibrium presents us with, and that will enable the creation of bulk engineered structural and magnetic materials with stable, tailored nanostructured features and revolutionary functionalities.

Mathaudhu  serves  as  an  Assistant  Professor in  the  Mechanical  Engineering  Department  and Materials  Science  and  Engineering  Program, where he  studies  the  underpinning  mechanisms that  will  make  metallic  materials  and  composites lighter  and  stronger.    He  received  his  Ph.D.  in Mechanical  Engineering  from  Texas  A&M  University  in  2006.    There,  he  studied  processing methods  to  produce  bulk  nanoscrystalline  and  metastable  metals  for  structural  and  defense applications.    He  subsequently  served  as  an  ORISE  post-doctoral  Fellow  and  then  a  Staff Scientist at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory from 2006-2010.  From 2010 - 2014, he was the Program  Manager  for  the  Synthesis  and  Processing of Materials  at  the  U.S.  Army  Research Office,  and  also,  an  Adjunct  Assistant  Professor  in  the  Materials  Science  and  Engineering  Department  at North  Carolina  State  University.    He  is  active  in  several  technical  societies,  and  frequently speaks and writes on science of superheroes as a broad STEM outreach tool.