{"id":50857,"date":"2025-10-01T06:36:42","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T10:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/materials\/?post_type=news&p=50857"},"modified":"2025-10-06T10:26:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T14:26:24","slug":"breaking-boundaries-with-chemical-complexity","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/materials\/news\/breaking-boundaries-with-chemical-complexity\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Boundaries with Chemical Complexity"},"content":{"rendered":"

A team including Johns Hopkins materials scientists used computer simulations to demonstrate the link between an alloy\u2019s chemistry and its ability to mitigate radiation damage, a finding that could enable the creation of stronger materials for use in extreme environments, like nuclear reactors or outer space<\/span>. Their findings were reported in <\/span>Physical Review Materials<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>The <\/span>team<\/span> focused <\/span><\/span>their investigation on the <\/span>atomic <\/span>structur<\/span>e<\/span> of grain boundaries, the tiny <\/span>interfaces<\/span> <\/span>where crystals meet <\/span>in an alloy <\/span>that<\/span> can help<\/span> absorb radiation<\/span> damage<\/span>.<\/span> <\/span><\/span>\u201c<\/span>Exposure to radiation introduces defects in an alloy that can weaken its performance. <\/span>Our goal <\/span>was<\/span> to<\/span> <\/span>investigate <\/span>if <\/span>cha<\/span>n<\/span>ging<\/span> the n<\/span>umber of elements in an alloy<\/span> can improve<\/span> a <\/span>material<\/span>\u2019<\/span>s resilience to <\/span>radiati<\/span>on<\/span>,\u201d says Annie Barnett, a PhD student in the <\/span><\/span>Department of Materials Science and Engineering<\/span><\/span><\/a>.<\/span> <\/span>\u201c<\/span>We <\/span>wanted to<\/span> <\/span>determine if <\/span>the <\/span>alloy\u2019s <\/span>chemistry influence<\/span>s<\/span> the behavior of <\/span>its<\/span> <\/span>grain boundaries<\/span> to<\/span> <\/span>limit<\/span> radiation damage and prevent<\/span> <\/span>failure<\/span>.<\/span>\u201d<\/span> <\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span>In prior studies, Barnett observed that when grain boundaries are exposed to radiation, they undergo atomic reorganization into denser structures, potentially due to the absorption of defects which extends the lifetime of materials during exposure to radiation. She thought that a material comprising more elements might increase its number of stable grain boundary structures, making it better suited to accommodate defects.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To understand how the materials\u2019 chemistry activated the grain boundaries, the team chose to simulate irradiated alloys of nickel, chromium, and cobalt because when exposed to radiation, the mechanical performance of these materials is superior to that of the steel used in many of today’s nuclear reactors. \u201cPast experiments have shown that this composition maintains exceptional strength and stability under radiation so, given our baseline understanding of its deformation processes, it was an ideal material to model,\u201d says Barnett.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Using pure nickel, a dilute alloy consisting of 95% nickel and 5% chromium, and a complex alloy containing equal parts nickel, chromium, and cobalt, the team ran three molecular dynamics simulations to observe how grain boundary atoms behaved when they were exposed to radiation and therefore developed defects. \u201cBy running three otherwise identical models that differed only in their composition, we isolated the role of chemistry in driving grain boundary structural evolution during defect absorption,\u201d says Barnett.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The simulation was conducted on a nanometer scale, providing the researchers with the atoms\u2019 precise locations while the rearrangement occurred within the grain boundary region.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“We learned that grain boundaries in chemically complex alloys mitigate radiation damage more effectively than in the pure or dilute alloys we evaluated because of the greater number of possible atomic arrangements they provide,\u201d says Barnett. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers also found the relationship between defect absorption and alloy chemistry wasn\u2019t linear: there are other variables that affected the alloy\u2019s interaction with radiation damage.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we believed chemical complexity would enable grain boundaries that are better defect absorbers, we discovered there are factors, like stress, that also can influence defect absorption,\u201d says Barnett, who now wants to design a lab experiment to better\u00a0 understand boundary structure transitions and which factors cause defect absorption.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This work was led by <\/span>Michael Falk<\/span><\/a>, professor of materials science and engineering, and the team was led by <\/span>Mitra Taheri<\/span><\/a>, professor of materials science and engineering and director of the <\/span>Materials Characterization and Processing (MCP)<\/span><\/a> facility. The team collaborated with Jamie Marian, professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. This research was funded by the <\/span>United States Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences<\/span><\/a>, through the Mechanical Behavior and Radiation Effects program.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-50857","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry","news_categories-research"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBreaking Boundaries with Chemical Complexity - Department of Materials Science & Engineering<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/materials\/news\/breaking-boundaries-with-chemical-complexity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Breaking Boundaries with Chemical Complexity - Department of Materials Science & Engineering\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A team including Johns Hopkins materials scientists used computer simulations to demonstrate the link between an alloy\u2019s chemistry and its ability to mitigate radiation damage, a finding that could enable…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/materials\/news\/breaking-boundaries-with-chemical-complexity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Department of Materials Science & Engineering\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-06T14:26:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Breaking Boundaries with Chemical Complexity - 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