Short Courses

"3-Dimensional Materials Science"

Date and Time: Sunday, March 12, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Cost: $100 members; $250 nonmembers (Advanced registration price listed)
Who Should Attend?
Scientists who are interested in the practical aspects of acquiring three-dimensional microstructural data by means of serial sectioning techniques, and the subsequent visual representation of this data.

Sign up to attend this course by completing the TMS 2006 Annual Meeting & Exhibition Registration form.

Mechanical serial sectioning is a well-established technique for obtaining 3-D microstructural data from standard metallographic specimens. In its simplest form, the process involves the careful removal of a layer of material, followed by imaging of the freshly-created surface. This is repeated many times in order to build up a series of 2-D images (slices) as the specimen surface recedes.

SPEAKERS

MARK DeGRAEF Carnegie Mellon Univ. USA

JONATHAN SPOWART Air Force Research Lab USA

MICHAEL UCHIC Air Force Research Lab USA

Course attendees learn about two experimental serial sectioning methods: manual and automated metallographic sectioning and dual beam focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy. The tutorial presents:

• State-of-the-art advances in both serial sectioning methods
• Practical issues of sample preparation and optimization of imaging and slicing/milling conditions
• An overview of the most important image processing steps needed to convert a stack of 2-D images to a complete 3-D dataset as well as several methods to visually represent the 3-D data

Marc De Graef is currently professor and co-director of the J. Earle and Mary Roberts Materials Characterization Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. His research interests lie in the area of microstructural characterization of structural intermetallics and magnetic materials.

Jonathan E. Spowart has worked for the past five years on the microstructure-properties relationships of metallic composite materials. His work first began as an on-site contractor with UES Incorporated, but it continues as an Air Force civilian within the Metallic Composites Group of the Air Force Research Laboratory/MLLMD. Spowart is the co-inventor of Robo-Met.3D, a fully-automated (robotic) serial sectioning device (U.S. Patent Pending).

Michael D. Uchic works with the Metals Development Group of the Materials & Manufacturing Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory. For the past four years, his research efforts have focused on the development of new experimental methods to rapidly assess both the microstructure and mechanical properties of aerospace metals.