News Archive

An archive of older news events, return home for newer activities:

18/06/2018 - Dr Britton's introduction to electron backscatter diffraction talk at the UK-Israel Workshop Summer School 2018 on Nano Scale Crystallography for Bio and Materials Research is available here.

14/06/2018 - New paper on imaging in the scanning electron microscope

Britton, T.B., Goran, D., Tong, V. "Space rocks and optimising scanning electron channelling contrast" Materials Characterization (2018)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matchar.2018.06.001 (open access preprint also available https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.08754)

08/04/2018 - AstroEBSD is launching. This is a new indexing code for EBSD analysis, based upon the Hough transform. We hope it will support community efforts to increase the rigour in EBSD analysis. You can find out a bit more about this project here.

27/03/2018 - the group now has a Code of Conduct for membership of the group.

13/03/2018 - Congratulations to Dr Giorgio Sernicola for successfully defending his thesis today!

11/01/2018 - Congratulations to Giorgio Sernicola for submitting his thesis today!

28/09/2017 - Welcome to Xinping who joins the group as a PhD candidate. Xinping will be studying strain partitioning in dual phase titanium alloys.

25/07/2017 - New paper on Ti brazing

Jing, Y., Su, D., Yue, X., Britton, T.B. and Jiang, J. "The development of high strength brazing technique for Ti-6Al-4V using TiZrCuNi amorphous filler" Materials Characterisation (2017)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matchar.2017.07.039

24/07/2017 - New cracking work on measuring fracture energy using stable crack growth with in situ measurements

Sernicola, G., Giovannini, T., Patel, P., Kermode, J.R., Balint, D.S., Britton, T.B., and Giuliani, F. "In situ stable crack growth at the micron scale" Nature Communications (2017)

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00139-w

21/07/2017 - New paper combining TEM, micro-mechanical deformation and alloy development.

Knowles, A.J., Jun, T.S., Bhowmik, A., Jones, N.G., Britton, T.B., Giuliani, F., Stone, H.J., and Dye, D. "A new beta titanium alloy system reinforced with superlattice intermetallic precipitates" Scripta Mat (2017)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scriptamat.2017.06.038

06/07/2017 - Ben's HR-EBSD tutorial talk is now available as a PDF over on the Techniques page

08/05/2017 - The Engineering Alloys Theme (our parent research grouping at Imperial) won an Imperial College President's Award for best Research Team. Ben also won an President's award as an Outstanding Early Career Researcher.

04/05/2017 - New paper on studying fine scale microstructure in Ti alloys - studied with transmission Kikuchi diffraction (TKD)

Tong, V., Joseph, S., Ackerman, A., Dye, D. and Britton, T.B. "Using transmission Kikuchi diffraction to characterise α variants in an α+β titanium alloy"

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jmi.12569/full

03/05/2017 - Congratulations to Vivian on graduating today! Her PhD focused on studying zirconium for nuclear applications. Vivian also won a prize for the best PhD in Materials Characterisation in the Department - very well done!

29/03/2017 - Alex talks about his journey into a PhD and shows off some of his neat card tricks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi6GHZjqU0k

26/03/2017 - Three papers from our work are now available online:

We perform micromechanical testing (in the computer) to explore the role of the beta phase in titanium alloys. Lovely work from Patrick Ashton who visited our labs from The University of Galloway:

Ashton, P.J., Jun, T.S., Zhang, Z., Britton, T.B., Harte, A.M., Leen, S.B., and Dunne, F.P.E. "The effect of the beta phase on the micromechanical response of dual-phase titanium alloys" International Journal of Fatigue (2017)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2017.03.020

Vivian has formed some VERY BIG GRAINS in zirconium and shed some light on their formation:

Tong, V. and Britton, T.B. "Formation of very large ‘blocky alpha’ grains in Zircaloy-4" Acta Materialia (2017)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359645417301817

Finally, Jun Fionn and Ben have written a review of their work in the "Nickel Campaign" - a three year programme of work to understand fatigue crack initiation in Ni alloys

Jiang, J., Dunne, F.P.E., and Britton, T.B. "Towards predictive understanding of fatigue crack nucleation in Ni-based superalloys" JOM (2017)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11837-017-2307-9

12/01/2017 - Pre-print of collaborative HexMat work on transmission kikuchi diffraction (TKD) of dual phase titanium alloys now on ArXiv (it is also under review with a Journal)

Vivian Tong, Sudha Joseph, Abigail K. Ackerman, David Dye, T. Ben Britton Using transmission Kikuchi diffraction to characterise α variants in an α + β titanium alloy

http://arxiv.org/abs/1701.03014

28/10/2016 - New paper on twins in HCP alloys. Blog write up here.

Guo, Y., Abdolvand, H., Britton, T.B., and Wilkinson, A.J. Growth of {

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} twins in titanium: A combined experimental and modelling investigation of the local state of deformation Acta Materialia (2016)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2016.12.066

20/10/2016 - New paper on deformation in Ni-based superalloys, an excellent joining of experiment and simulation. Blog write up here.

Guan, Y., Chen, B., Zou, J., Britton, B., Jiang, J. and Dunne, F.P.E.

Crystal Plasticity Modelling and HR-DIC measurements of Slip Activation and Strain Localisation in Single and Oligo-crystal Ni Alloys under Fatigue International Journal of Plasticity (accepted)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijplas.2016.10.001

03/10/2016 - Welcome to Alex, who joins the group as a PhD candidate. Alex will be developing new HR-EBSD analysis approaches.

29/09/2016 - Vivian successfully defended her thesis today! Subject to a few minor corrections, she'll soon be Dr Tong - well done! Many thanks to Prof John Wheeler (Liverpool) and Dr Luc Vanderperre (Imperial) for examining her.

23/09/2016 - Ben attended the Recent Appointees in Materials Science conference - story here.

19/09/2016 - Siyang, Qinmeng and Monojit finish their MSc projects in the group. Well done!

07/08/2016 - Public Engagement, Media and Advocacy section updated! (Featuring recent work on Brexit & Nuclear Power in particular.)

07/08/2016 - Two new papers, both open access:

Zhen's excellent and hard work on modelling out the intrinsic (rather than extrinsic) rate sensitivity of titanium micropillars -

Zhang, Z., Jun, T-S., Britton, T.B., and Dunne, F.P.E. Intrinsic anisotropy of strain rate sensitivity in single crystal alpha titanium Acta Materilia (2016)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2016.07.044

Jun's lovely work on testing fatigue cracking parameters, as proposed by Prof Dunne and colleagues, using combined experiments (HR-DIC and HR-EBSD) and simulations:

Jiang, J., Yang, J., Zhang, T., Wang, Y., Dunne, F.P.E., and Britton, T.B. Microstructurally sensitive crack nucleation around inclusions in powder metallurgy nickel based superalloys Acta Materialia (2016)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2016.07.023

27/07/2016 - Ben becomes a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.

24/07/2016 - EBSD Tutorial talk from Microscopy and Microanalysis 2016 'Focussed Instrument Group' on Electron Diffraction uploaded at the EBSD techniques page.

11/07/2016 - Ben becomes a Chartered Engineer.

01/07/2016 - Jim Hickey heads off to Tsingua University for the Global Fellows Programme on Climate Change and the Environment and will collaborate with Prof Andrew Godfrey on EBSD of steels during his visit.

27/06/2016 - Ben win's the RAEng Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year award - for more information see the Imperial College release.

20/06/2016 - New Poster - at the IUTAM symposium discussing our work on Deformation Compatibility - based upon our Proc Roy Soc paper using HR-EBSD and HR-DIC

http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/472/2185/20150690

09/06/2016 - New Publication - Wallis, D., Hansen, L.N., Britton, T.B. and Wilkinson, A.J. Geometrically necessary dislocation densities in olivine obtained using high-angular resolution electron backscatter diffraction Ultramicroscopy (2016)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304399116300821

07/06/2016 - Spiral links for many of the publications listed on this site are now available - this provides easy open access to much of our work

02/06/2016 - Following the EBSD workshop at the MAS USA EBSD meeting - new HR-EBSD tutorial notes are now available

11/05/2016 - New Publication - Zhang, T., Jiang, J., Britton, T. B., Shollock, B., Dunne, F.P.E. Crack nucleation using combined crystal plasticity modelling, HR-DIC and HR-EBSD in a superalloy containing non-metallic inclusions under fatigue Proceedings of the Royal Society A (2016)

http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/472/2189/20150792

21/04/2016 - New Publication - Tutorial: Crystal orientations and EBSD — Or which way is up? http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matchar.2016.04.008

T.B. Britton, J. Jiang, Y. Guo, A. Vilalta-Clemente, D. Wallis, L. Hansen, A. Winkelmann, A.J. Wilkinson - establishing and validating conventions for orientations as measured with EBSD published in Materials Characterization

24/03/2016 - Following the EBSD workshop at the RMS EBSD meeting - the HR-EBSD tutorial notes are now available.

19/03/2016 - Technique tutorial pages updated - learn about SEM, EDS, EBSD, and FIB!

18/03/2016 - New Publication - Understanding Complex Intermetallic Alloys using TEM and in-situ micro-Laue diffraction of micro-pillar compression http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4944486

Ayan Bhowmik, Igor P. Dolbnya, T. Ben Britton, Nicholas G. Jones, Giorgio Sernicola, Claudia Walter, Peter Gille, David Dye, William J. Clegg and Finn Giuliani Using coupled micropillar compression and micro-Laue diffraction to investigate deformation mechanisms in a complex metallic alloy Al13Co4 published in Applied Physics Letters (2016)

22/02/2016 - New Publication - Measuring strain rate sensitivity in Ti alloys with nanoindentation - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2016.02.146

Jun, T.S., Armstrong, D.E.J. and Britton, T.B. A nanoindentation investigation of local strain rate sensitivity in dual-phase Ti alloys published in Journal of Alloys and Compounds (2016)

12/02/2016 - New Publication - Measuring strain rate sensitivity in Ti alloys with micropillar compression - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2016.01.057

Jun, T.S., Zhang, Z., Sernicola, G., Dunne, F.P.E., Britton, T.B. Local strain rate sensitivity of single α phase within a dual-phase Ti alloy published in Acta Materialia (2016)

13/01/2016 - New Publication - As a first, Jun has used HR-EBSD and HR-DIC together to unpick how we understand compatability & deformation in materials - fundamentally important work - http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2015.0690

Jiang, J., Zhang, T., Dunne, F.P.E., and Britton T.B. Deformation compatibility in a single crystalline Ni superalloy published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A (2016)

10/01/2016 - New Gallery Page - there is now a gallery page showing some very shiny results and images from our work.

03/12/2015 - Most Downloaded - Terry's paper on two phase micropillar deformation is number 6 in the 'most downloaded' papers in the last 30 days for MSEA - well done Terry!

12/11/2015 - Workshop Announcement - We are hosting the International Workshop on Mechanistic Behaviour of HCP Alloys - 30th March to 1st April 2016 - abstract submission by December 14th.

06/11/2015 - Thesis Submission - Congratulations to Maximilian Schleupen for submitting his Masters Diploma thesis in Aachen! Max was studying the ability of crystal plasticity spectral solvers to understand patterning of residual stresses in alloys.

05/10/2015 - New Group Members - Welcome to William White, Jim Hickey, Tianhong Gu and Simon Wyatt who have started their PhDs (find out what they are up to on the people page) and Yi Qiu who has started her MEng research project!

04/10/2015 - New Blog Posts - two posts written with new PhD students in mind: (1) on making the most of conferences; (2) on writing / generating outputs. Keep up to date with blog posts here.

03/10/2015 - Publication - micropillar deformation of two phase titanium alloys - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.msea.2015.09.016

Jun, T.S., Sernicola, G., Dunne, F.P.E., Britton, T.B. Local deformation mechanisms of two-phase Ti alloy published in Materials Science and Engineering A