Metallurgy Colloquium

To register for the colloquium, please click here: Materials Science: Metallurgy Colloquium

Hatem Zurob

Presentation: “Student-centred Partnership between McMaster and UGA:  History and Opportunities”
McMaster and UGA have a long history of collaborations in research and teaching.  At the centre of these collaborations is the student experience including student exchanges, research visits and internships.  Some of the opportunities that are available will be reviewed and feedback from recent students will be shared.

Professor, Chair
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, McMaster University
Dr. Zurob obtained his PhD from McMaster University in 2003. He completed post doctoral fellowships at the Grenoble institute and Technology and Oxford University prior to joining McMaster as an Assistant Professor in 2005.  He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012 and Professor in 2017. Dr. Zurob is presently serving as Chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. The aim of Dr. Zurob’s research is to understand and control microstructure development in engineering materials with the goal of optimizing mechanical properties. The applicant has made significant contributions to the areas of thermomechanical processing, recrystallization modelling, functionally-graded materials, austenite decomposition and structure property relationships. Dr. Zurob is an active participant in professional societies including ASM, TMS and ASM Materials Camps Canada. 

André Phillion

Presentation: “Metallurgy Research at McMaster University: Processing, Properties, and Characterization of Engineering Metals”
Anchored by our Steel Research Centre, research in metallurgy within the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at McMaster University emphasizes the practical applications and collaboration with industry partners. In this presentation, I will discuss our ongoing research activities in several key areas, including Metallurgical Processing, Casting, Additive Manufacturing, Product Development, and Corrosion. I will also highlight our foundational research in advanced characterization techniques and materials modeling, which underpin these areas. Additionally, I will provide an overview of our state-of-the-art facilities and will outline our grants currently “in preparation” that could prove fruitful for collaboration with UGA.

Professor and ArcelorMittal Dofasco Endowed Chair in Ferrous Metallurgy
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, McMaster University
André Phillion is a Professor and ArcelorMittal Dofasco Endowed Chair in Ferrous Metallurgy in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada. Prior to his arrival at McMaster in 2016, he was a faculty member in the School of Engineering at The University of British Columbia. His research interests fall at the intersection of industrial-alloy solidification and advanced materials characterization, where he studies how microstructure and defects are influenced by solidification processing conditions. Current projects focus on (1) Green steelmaking/continuous casting; (2) Multi-modal 3D correlative tomography for energy materials development; and (3) Structure-Process modelling during Additive Manufacturing.

Alexis Deschamps

Presentation: “Overview of Metallurgy at the Materials and Processes Science and Engineering (SIMAP) laboratory at UGA”
The main activities involving metallurgy research at the SIMAP laboratory will be reviewed. After introducing the global research strategy and link to societal challenges, the main specific experimental and simulation tools available will be reviewed, to provide an overview of the possibilities for mutual exchanges between UGA and McMaster. In a second part, a few examples of recent highlights will be given, covering phase transformations, additive manufacturing and mechanical behaviour.

Professor at Grenoble INP – Phelma and researcher at SIMAP, UGA
Alexis Deschamps is professor at Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP – UGA) at the school of materials science, and researcher at the SIMAP laboratory. He has strong links with Canada, being a former alumni of McMaster University (M. Eng) and was a post doc at UBC in Vancouver. His research activities are in the field of physical metallurgy, mostly on Aluminium alloys and steels. He has been developing advance characterization techniques, particularly involving large scale facilities such as synchrotrons, to determine quantitatively the microstructure characteristics that control mechanical properties. This has lead to the development of high throughput techniques to map the microstructure in the alloy design space (time, temperature, composition, strain, …), and associated modelling using physically based approaches as well as machine learning.

Marion Bregeault

Presentation: “Modelling of the bainitic transformation during continuous cooling in nuclear steel forgings”
Low-alloy bainitic steels are widely used in nuclear industry for massive pressure vessels that require good fracture toughness. The local microstructure, on which mechanical properties depend, is established during the phase transformation that takes place during final cooling. A major challenge lies in better describing the effect of local composition (carbon and substitutional alloying elements) on the kinetics of this transformation, as the pieces often present persistent chemical heterogeneities at the meso-scale, inherited from inter-grains segregation during solidification. In this study, the transformation kinetics in continuous cooling was followed by in-situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction experiments. Gradient materials are prepared so as to span a wide range of compositions. The vast resulting dataset is used to train a decoder-type deep learning model able to predict kinetic curves. Precious time- and space-resolved data on the evolution of carbon content and dislocation density in austenite and carbides precipitation are also collected in addition to the mere bcc phase fraction. This critical information is used to feed a physics-based model for global continuous cooling phase transformation, that builds on theories for bainite laths nucleation and growth from the literature. It is calibrated with isothermal in-situ laser scanning confocal microscope experiments carried out in McMaster University.

PhD Student
Université Grenoble Alpes
Marion Bregeault is a third year PhD student in Grenoble Alpes University. She grew up in France and studied Materials Science in Paris and Lausanne. Her research concerns bainitic transformation in low-alloy steels for nuclear pressure vessels applications. She visited in McMaster for 3 months last winter to collaborate with Pr’s Zurob team and carry out experiments at CCEM.

Bita Pourbahari

Presentation: “Unlocking New Insights in Alloys: The Power of Correlative Microscopy”
In this presentation, we will delve into how correlative microscopy deepens our understanding of phase transformations and the physical metallurgy of diverse alloys. We will examine a variety of characterization techniques, including SEM, EBSD, 3D-EBSD, APT, TEM, AES, XCT, and FIB, which enable us to reveal intricate mechanisms and phase changes. Specifically, we will focus on the crystallography and morphology of lath martensite in low-carbon 13Cr-4Ni stainless steel, using large-volume, high-resolution serial sectioning tomography that combines Xe plasma-focused ion beam (PFIB) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) methods. We will compare the extracted 3D-EBSD data with 2D observations to highlight potential misinterpretations arising from 2D analyses. Additionally, we will discuss the correlation between 3D-EBSD and 3D-DCT, paving the way for advancements in 3D characterization techniques. Moreover, we will introduce an innovative technique for fabricating micro-tensile specimens that merges advanced technologies, including a dual-chamber FIB-SEM equipped with a femtosecond laser add-on and a PFIB. Lastly, we will showcase various applications of correlative microscopy, including investigations into liquid metal embrittlement (LME), sample preparation for atom probe tomography (APT), and the oxidation and segregation behaviors in Fe alloys.

Postdoctoral Researcher
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, McMaster University
Dr. Pourbahari is a postdoctoral researcher at McMaster University, working in Professor Nabil Bassim’s group, where she specializes in the advanced characterization of diverse materials using a range of innovative techniques. She also held the position of Sessional Faculty, teaching materials science courses. In 2023, she obtained her Ph.D. in Materials Science from McMaster University, where she was awarded multiple prestigious scholarships, including the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. Her Ph.D. thesis focused on determining the effects of Sb on the selective oxidation and reactive wetting of advanced high-strength steels (AHSSs). Her research contributions have significantly advanced the development of new steels, Mg, Al, and high entropy alloys, resulting in numerous published works. Dr. Pourbahari is currently serving as Co-Editor for a Special Issue in the Materials journal.

To view a recording of the Metallurgy Colloquium, please contact Maia Lepingwell-Tardieu (lepingam@mcmaster.ca).