2004 TMS Annual Meeting: Special Events

Prof. Johnson has been a member of the Caltech faculty since 1977. He has held the Ruben Mettler Chair in Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech since 1988. He was a visiting professor and Alexander von Humboldt Distinguished Fellow at the University of Goettingen, Germany in 1988. His research accomplishments include the first studies of superconductivity in metallic glasses, pioneering studies of crystal to glass transformations in metals and the discovery, characterization, and development of bulk amorphous metals as engineering materials. Prof. Johnson is a Fellow of TMS and ASM International and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2000.

Prof. Johnson is an inventor on over 20 U.S. Patents and the co-founder of a company, Liquidmetal Technologies Inc., which is currently pioneering the commercialization of bulk amorphous metals in engineering applications.

Date: Monday, March 15, 2004
Time: 12:30 PM–1:30 PM
Location: Westin Charlotte Hotel
Room: Grand Ballroom A

“Science and Technology of Bulk Amorphous Metals”

Presented by:
William L. Johnson, California Institute of Technology

About the topic:
Over the past 15 years, novel families of metal alloys have been developed which show exceptional resistance to crystallization in the undercooled liquid state. These “bulk” glass forming alloys can be processed and formed into three dimensional net shapes in much the same manner as injection molded plastic. Studies of flow behavior of viscosity effects (shear thinning), and localization of flow into shear bands as strain rate increases or temperature decreases. In the solid amorphous state deformation is controlled by the formation and propagation of highly localized shear bands of sub-micron width. Under unconfined mechanical loading, shear band propagation often results in catastrophic failure and limits the utility of amorphous metals in structural applications. To suppress this instability, bulk metallic glass composites have been developed in which shear bands interact with the alloy microstructure to stabilize the system against global failure. This results in formation of shear band patterns, ability to support global plasticity, and dramatic toughening of the material. Both bulk amorphous metals and composites are being explored for wide range of engineering application. Examples will be given in the talk.

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