Glovebox

Provide inert gas environment for mechanical alloying elemental metal powders as well as sample storages.

Hot press

Consolidate powders into bulk pieces with sizes of ~1 cm using both high temperature and high pressure.

Chiller

Provide a low-temperature environment for hot-pressing consolidation environments.

Ball mill

Mechanically alloy elemental powders. 

Reduce grain sizes.

Research computer

Analyze experimental data.

Back up experimental parameters and data.

Analytical balance

Measure the mass of powders for mechanical alloying.

Fume hood 1

Fume hood 2

Characterization techniques

We are regular users of a variety of characterization equipment, including SEM, FIB, TEM, and APT, at the Core Analytical Facility within the Alabama Materials Institute (https://ami.ua.edu/core-analytical-facility/). We specialize in nanoscale characterization of grain boundaries and in-situ small-scale mechanical testing.

Additive manufacturing

We also frequently use the manufacturing capabilities at the Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Materials Design Integration (https://eng.ua.edu/research/advanced-manufacturing-and-materials-design-integration/) to fabricate customized powders and process novel alloys.