Abstract:
Microstructure evolution during materials processing assumes a critical role in tailoring material properties, e.g. the austenite-ferrite transformations are a key metallurgical tool to improve properties of advanced low-carbon steels. Computational materials science offers now tremendous opportunities to formulate next generation process models containing fundamental information on atomistic mechanisms of microstructure evolution thereby reducing the number of empirical parameters that are typically used in currently employed models to simulate materials processing. The challenges and opportunities of implementing advanced computational materials science tools into process models will be critically reviewed.
Microstructure evolution kinetics depends on interface migration rates that can be significantly affected by the presence of alloying elements, e.g. Mn, Mo and Nb in steels or rare earths in magnesium. Ab initio simulations can provide guidance for the trends of the solute-interface interactions in a given material system. The challenges of connecting these simulations to larger scale atomistic simulations using molecular mechanics and molecular dynamics will be illustrated for light metals and the Fe-He system. Further, an approach is illustrated that links atomistic scale models for the solute-interface interaction with phase field modelling to describe the formation of microstructures with complex morphologies. The overall status of multi-scale modelling will be analyzed for intercritical annealing of dual-phase steels and the rapid heat treatment cycles in the heat affected zone of line pipe steels.

Short Bio:
Matthias Militzer is the ArcelorMittal Dofasco Chair in Advanced Steel Processing and the Director of the Centre for Metallurgical Process Engineering at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He received a Diploma in Physics from the University of       Technology in Dresden, Germany in 1983 and a Ph.D. in Metal Physics from the Academy of Sciences in East Germany in 1987. He moved to Canada in 1990 where he was first a Postdoctoral Fellow for two years at McGill University before joining the University of British Columbia as a Research Associate in 1993.
Since 1997 he is a faculty member in the Materials Engineering Department at the University of British Columbia. He has published more than 200 papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings. His primary field of research is modelling the microstructure evolution in steels and other metals. Currently, his major research activities include multi-scale modelling of phase transformations in steels and laser ultrasonics for metallurgy for fast in-situ measurements of microstructure evolution during thermo-mechanical processing of metals and alloys. He received the ASM Henry Marion Howe Medal 2010 for the best paper published in a specific volume of
Metallurgical and Materials Transactions.