Prof. David Poirier Wins Bruce Chalmers Award from TMS

Ed Stiles
Jan. 24, 2007


UA Materials Science and Engineering Professor David Poirier has won the 2007 Bruce Chalmers Award from the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS).

The award is presented to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to solidification science, which involves the physics and technology surrounding the transition of matter from liquid to solid. Freezing water to make ice cubes is an everyday example of solidification. Carefully controlling how this change occurs can dramatically influence the properties and, hence, performance of the solidified substance.

Poirier will receive the award at the TMS 2007 Annual Meeting & Exhibition in Orlando, Fla., which takes place Feb. 25 through March 1.

Poirier is being honored for his contributions both to the technology and fundamental science of solidification, including his scholarly writings and his seminal textbook, which has set the standard for others in the field.

"Bruce Chalmers showed us that solidification processing could and should be treated quantitatively and become yet even more important in physical metallurgy," Poirier said. He noted that Chalmers inspired many students who have made huge contributions in their own right. "I feel very honored and humble" to receive the award, he said.

Poirier has been involved in research pertaining to solidification processing of alloys for more than 30 years. He has written more than 120 research papers and is the author of two textbooks, "Transport Phenomena in Metallurgy" (1974) and "Transport Phenomena in Materials Processing" (1994), and of a primer for casting engineers, "Fundamentals for Metal Casting" (1994).

Poirier's research involves solidification of metallic alloys.

Components that are solidified during manufacturing steps include:
• The so-called "superalloys" that are used in gas turbine engines for "jet" aircraft and electrical power generators.
• Continuously cast steel alloys such as automobile bodies; numerous parts in trucks, autos, and heavy equipment; concrete rebar; steel girders used in buildings; machinery; wire fencing; and automobile engine blocks, which are made from aluminum alloys or from cast iron.

All of these items start with a metal melt that is solidified in a controlled manner. "It's the 'controlled' part that requires an engineering approach based on solidification science," Poirier said.

Poirier's research interests have included metal castings, computer modeling, semisolid processing, manufacturing, heat treatment, materials processing, and applications of transport phenomena.

His current research is focused on developing predictors for simulations that are used by the casting industry; enhancing microstructure and fatigue properties of lightweight casting alloys; and determining the effects of thermal and convective conditions on dendritic solidification of alloys in ingots and castings.

Bruce Chalmers, for whom the award is named, was the McKay Professor of Metallurgy at Harvard University and an internationally recognized expert on solidification science who made many significant contributions to the field of solidification and metal casting. He was the founding editor of "Progress in Metal Physics" (now "Progress in Materials Science") and the first editor of the journal "Acta Metallurgica" (now "Acta Materialia").

While teaching at Harvard, he wrote one of the leading textbooks in the field, "Principles of Solidification," which was published in 1964. He retired from Harvard in 1977 and died in 1990.

Share

Resources for the media

David Poirier
Professor
Materials Science and Engineering
poirierd@u.arizona.edu