MVC 13

BEST OF SHOW

"If Plants Grew like Lithium Niobate Crystals, then I’d Plant a Garden of Sunflowers"

Katy Gerace, graduate student, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, advised by John Mauro

Artist's Statement: While black and white electron images are quite possibly the farthest thing from a colorful garden, the radially growing lithium niobate crystals wedged between potassium niobium silicate oxide reminded me of blossoming flowers. As a dabbling gardener myself, I usually focus my energy on growing vegetables. But no matter how hard I try, stray sunflowers always seems to pop-up in the veggie garden. Always appearing with nothing more than soil and sun, sunflowers represent the all-to-easily formed lithium niobate crystals in my SiO2-Nb2O5-Li2O-K2O glass system. Just like sunflowers grow in the garden, lithium niobate crystals grow in my glass-ceramic, producing a beautiful bouquet of flowering crystals in a garden of glass.

SCIENTIFIC CATEGORY

FIRST PLACE

"Dendrites in a Battery"

Rong Kou, assistant research professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Artist's Statement: Light like a feather and delicate like a fern? Do not let the looks fool you. These metal dendrites grown from battery cycling will penetrate the separator, short-circuit the battery, and cause the battery to overheat and, in some instances, catch on fire. This image inspires me because of the soft, delicate appearance in contrast to the material's stiff nature, a candy to eyes but a poison to batteries.

SECOND PLACE

"Heavenly Patterns: Widmanstätten Microstructure in Additively Manufactured Duplex Stainless Steel"

Youssef Refaat Ali, graduate students, Additive Manufacturing and Design, advised by Todd Palmer

Artist's Statement: I still remember the day I first used a microscope to look at onion cells back in middle school. I was astonished at what lies beyond the view of the naked eye. Fortunately, till this day I am still in awe of the world found under a microscope. Microscopy helps us understand much more about material systems and how new sustainable means of manufacturing influence them. Additive manufacturing is a gateway to new discoveries that will eventually improve upon traditional manufacturing methods resulting in more cost-effective and advanced materials with better properties. As the perseverance rover recently landed on the surface of Mars, one day the next mission will be carrying a 3D printer capable of printing materials on the spot aiding the journey of interplanetary travel.

THIRD PLACE

"The Shell - Additive manufactured Ti-6Al-4V fracture surface"

Qixiang Luo, graduate student, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, advised by Allison Beese

Artist's Statement: The spherical gaseous pores have fine shell structure with elegant whirls that initiated from the melt pool solidification on boundary of gas and solid alloys. There are both single placed shells and overlapped ones that separated all over the fracture surfaces, and their unique neat fashion make them stand out compared to the messy crack networks and failure cliffs.

VISUAL CATEGORY

FIRST PLACE

"If Plants Grew like Lithium Niobate Crystals, then I’d Plant a Garden of Sunflowers"

Katy Gerace, graduate student, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, advised by John Mauro

Artist's Statement: While black and white electron images are quite possibly the farthest thing from a colorful garden, the radially growing lithium niobate crystals wedged between potassium niobium silicate oxide reminded me of blossoming flowers. As a dabbling gardener myself, I usually focus my energy on growing vegetables. But no matter how hard I try, stray sunflowers always seems to pop-up in the veggie garden. Always appearing with nothing more than soil and sun, sunflowers represent the all-to-easily formed lithium niobate crystals in my SiO2-Nb2O5-Li2O-K2O glass system. Just like sunflowers grow in the garden, lithium niobate crystals grow in my glass-ceramic, producing a beautiful bouquet of flowering crystals in a garden of glass.

SECOND PLACE

"Gold droplets on graphene leaf"

Rinu Abraham Maniyara, postdoctoral scholar, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, advisor Joshua Robinson

Artist's Statement: My passion for photography always makes me to make an analogy between my work to the daily life. This work explores the relationship between scientific output of my experimental work of gold metal intercalation on graphene surface to the the real-life water droplets on leaves. As the real scientific output image is a colorless, I wanted them to turn around into a colored daily life image that my audience is familiar with. For that I have retouched them using photoshop software and made a colorful one.

THIRD PLACE

"Heavenly Patterns: Widmanstätten Microstructure in Additively Manufactured Duplex Stainless Steel"

Youssef Refaat Ali, graduate students, Additive Manufacturing and Design, advised by Todd Palmer

Artist's Statement: I still remember the day I first used a microscope to look at onion cells back in middle school. I was astonished at what lies beyond the view of the naked eye. Fortunately, till this day I am still in awe of the world found under a microscope. Microscopy helps us understand much more about material systems and how new sustainable means of manufacturing influence them. Additive manufacturing is a gateway to new discoveries that will eventually improve upon traditional manufacturing methods resulting in more cost-effective and advanced materials with better properties. As the perseverance rover recently landed on the surface of Mars, one day the next mission will be carrying a 3D printer capable of printing materials on the spot aiding the journey of interplanetary travel.

COMPUTATIONAL CATEGORY

FIRST PLACE

"Templating Mechanism in Carbon Nanotubes Composite Films"

Malgorzata Kowalik, postdoctoral scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, advised by Adri Van Duin

Artist's Statement: The background is a tunneling electron microscope (TEM) image of the graphitized composite film. The graphitized layers of polymer matrix can be observed in the proximity of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The reactive simulations provide an atomistic view of the chemical changes responsible for a templating mechanism leading to this graphitization. The simulations snapshots of the composite system (CNTs with polyacrylonitrile) after 1ns carbonization simulations at 1500K generated with VMD visualization software are represented in colors. All polymer atoms are translucent and newly evolved all-carbon rings (a starting point for the graphitic structure) are gray clustered polygons. The CNTs are represented only with the carbon-carbon bonds.

SECOND PLACE

"Converting cost-effective polyacrylonitrile/poly(p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole) blend precursors to carbon fibers"

Qian Mao, postdoc scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, advised by Adri Van Duin

Artist's Statement: The traditional approach of producing polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-derived carbon fibers (CFs) is expensive, partially due to the rigorous control over the sequence of thermal treatments such as oxidative stabilization, carbonization, and graphitization. To this end, we propose the PAN/poly(p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole) (PBO) blend as a cost-effective CF precursor. And through our ReaxFF molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we identify that PAN/PBO blends could be a promising alternative for PAN-based precursors, for they can decrease the total cost of CF production by eliminating oxidation process, having a relatively fast conversion rate, and having considerable all-carbon ring formation, comparable to that of oxidized PAN precursor. Based on this finding, a VMD image is made as to describing the process of converting a PAN/PBO blend precursor to clusters of all-carbon ring structures, followed by graphitic 3D or graphene-like 2D structures as the temperature is sufficiently high.

THIRD PLACE

"Electrochemical charging near a pseudocapacitive electrode surface"

James Goff, graduate student, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, advised by Ismaila Dabo and Susan Sinnott

Artist's Statement: With the growing needs for cleaner energy storage and conversion, realistic models of energy storage materials are needed to aid in the design of high-performance energy storage devices. Specifically, there is a need for high-power devices for use in electric/fuel cell vehicles. First-principles calculations with continuum solvent models allow us to model these materials systems in realistic conditions. The system pictured is a Ti3C2O2 pseudocapacitive electrode, suitable for high-power transportation applications. As the electrode charges, the response of the ions in the solvent, shown as colored contours above and below the electrode surface, is related to the capacitance of the electrode.

PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD

"Converting cost-effective polyacrylonitrile/poly(p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole) blend precursors to carbon fibers"

Qian Mao, postdoc scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, advised by Adri Van Duin

Artist's Statement: The traditional approach of producing polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-derived carbon fibers (CFs) is expensive, partially due to the rigorous control over the sequence of thermal treatments such as oxidative stabilization, carbonization, and graphitization. To this end, we propose the PAN/poly(p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole) (PBO) blend as a cost-effective CF precursor. And through our ReaxFF molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we identify that PAN/PBO blends could be a promising alternative for PAN-based precursors, for they can decrease the total cost of CF production by eliminating oxidation process, having a relatively fast conversion rate, and having considerable all-carbon ring formation, comparable to that of oxidized PAN precursor. Based on this finding, a VMD image is made as to describing the process of converting a PAN/PBO blend precursor to clusters of all-carbon ring structures, followed by graphitic 3D or graphene-like 2D structures as the temperature is sufficiently high.

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

13th ANNUAL MATERIALS VISUALIZATION COMPETITION 2021

BEST OF SHOW

"If Plants Grew like Lithium Niobate Crystals, then I’d Plant a Garden of Sunflowers"

Katy Gerace, graduate student, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, advised by John Mauro

SCIENTIFIC CATEGORY

FIRST PLACE

"Dendrites in a Battery"

Rong Kou, assistant research professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering

SECOND PLACE

"Heavenly Patterns: Widmanstätten Microstructure in Additively Manufactured Duplex Stainless Steel"

Youssef Refaat Ali, graduate students, Additive Manufacturing and Design, advised by Todd Palmer

THIRD PLACE

"The Shell - Additive manufactured Ti-6Al-4V fracture surface"

Qixiang Luo, graduate student, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, advised by Allison Beese

VISUAL CATEGORY

FIRST PLACE

"If Plants Grew like Lithium Niobate Crystals, then I’d Plant a Garden of Sunflowers"

Katy Gerace, graduate student, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, advised by John Mauro

SECOND PLACE

"Gold droplets on graphene leaf"

Rinu Abraham Maniyara, postdoctoral scholar, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, advisor Joshua Robinson

THIRD PLACE

"Heavenly Patterns: Widmanstätten Microstructure in Additively Manufactured Duplex Stainless Steel"

Youssef Refaat Ali, graduate students, Additive Manufacturing and Design, advised by Todd Palmer

COMPUTATIONAL CATEGORY

FIRST PLACE

"Templating Mechanism in Carbon Nanotubes Composite Films"

Malgorzata Kowalik, postdoctoral scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, advised by Adri Van Duin

SECOND PLACE

"Converting cost-effective polyacrylonitrile/poly(p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole) blend precursors to carbon fibers"

Qian Mao, postdoc scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, advised by Adri Van Duin

THIRD PLACE

"Electrochemical charging near a pseudocapacitive electrode surface"

James Goff, graduate student, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, advised by Ismaila Dabo and Susan Sinnott

PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD

"Converting cost-effective polyacrylonitrile/poly(p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole) blend precursors to carbon fibers"

Qian Mao, postdoc scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, advised by Adri Van Duin