Luckily, this month I have managed to finish first basic features of my software toolbox. It can correctly discover geometric character of any given boundary, is able to recognize whether boundaries are near-twist, near-tilt or symmetric. It can detect, for now only for cubic system, if the boundary can be classified as CSL boundary. Now I am able to move to further, i.e. more interesting steps. Having a tool which can deal with one single boundary, one can process large date sets, and then see what happens!

My research in January:

During the first month of the year I started to conduct experiments. At first I bought 10 kg of magnesium and 50g of calcium. I also used zinc, but it was from supplies of my supervisor. I cast 25g of Mg-Zn4 wt% alloy in the presence of argon atmosphere at 750 oC. During this experiment I used steel mold and graphite crucible. Unfortunately it appeared that I got big pores in this alloy. Conclusion: steel mold has to be avoided or should be heated up before casting.

Most of my research time in January I devoted to preparation of samples from my composites (AA7475 with different additions of AlN) for compressive tests and then performing those tests using INSTRON 3382 mechanical testing machine.

On the very first day of February, which was not particularly frosty from what I can recall, the beforehand annealed samples (annealing is performed in order to ensure a satisfactory chemical homogeneity) were prepared to be sealed in quartz tubes. Annealing at 900 ºC for 1 hour and rapid quenching in water followed suit. This was done in order to induce martensitic transition.
This month we also studied by TEM one of the ribbons containing 3 at. % of aluminum namely the sample of the following chemical composition Ni48Mn39.5Sn9.5Al3. The analysis revealed the presence of martenistic phase.

My research carried out in January

- The analysis of chemical composition was obtained with the scanning electron microscope EDS / SEM for newly purchased alloys: Al - 25% Zr and Al - 3% Mg - 0.25% Zr in order to verify the chemical composition comparing with certificate of analysis issued by the manufacturer. Specimens were taken from the corners of the ingot for each of materials. Then prepared for observation of the desired surface - grinding on abrasive papers and polishing (without electropolishing). Due to the very low content of zirconium - its measurement error is large and there is need to be verified by the other method - using optical emission spectrometer.
- Implementation of the orientation maps for alloys (Al-Zr and Al-Mg-Zr). Microstructure as ordered - is seen small precipitates of Al3Zr.
- Processing through the channel angular (ECAP) samples of material AA3004with road A - three times and six times. Next samples will be cut up into smaller specimens to prepare the surface for EBSD research on the scanning electron microscope (SEM).
- Implementation of orientation maps using the technique of EBSD / SEM for aluminum alloys: AA1050 - for initial state in cross-section TD-RD and in the deformed state after three passages in cross-section TD-ND and for AA3004 alloy - for initial state in the cross section ND-RD and ND-TD.