SFB 761:  Steel - Ab Initio. Quantum Mechanics Guided Design of New Fe-based Materials

• Subject Area: Materials Science and Engineering ; Chemistry ; Mechanical and Industrial Engineering ; Physics
• Term: from 2007 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 29898171

The collaborative research centre develops a methodically new, knowledge-based procedure for designing structural metals, with the high Manganese steels taken as an example. The central working hypothesis is that different deformation mechanisms can be controlled by the metal physics parameter stacking fault energy. As a consequence, for the first time the adjustment of strain hardening and cold formability becomes possible irrespective of the materials` strength level. The mechanical behaviour of a new class of austenitic steels is explained by the combination of fundamental theories, based on natural constants only, and classical engineering approaches in materials technology. Working groups of the RWTH Aachen University and the Max-Planck-Institute of Ferrous Research in Düsseldorf jointly develop models and methods from the atomistic to the macroscopic scale. New process routes are adopted and new characterisation tools developed in order to quantify the steels on the nm scale. Thanks to systematic nanostructuring the mechanical properties of the new materials are significantly superior to the state of the technology.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres

Completed projects

• A01 - ab initio Quantum chemistry of the Fe-Mn-Al-C system (Project Heads von Appen, Jörg ;  Dronskowski, Richard )
• A02 - Ab initio thermodynamics und kinetics in the Fe-Mn-Al-C system (Project Heads Hickel, Tilmann ;  Neugebauer, Jörg )
• A03 - Thermodynamics (Project Heads Hallstedt, Bengt ;  Schneider, Ph.D., Jochen M. )
• A04 - Phasenfeldsimulation der mikroskopischen Erstarrungsstruktur am Materialsystem Fe-Mn-C (Project Head Emmerich, Heike )
• A05 - Alloy- and Processdesign based on Mechanism maps for high Mn-steels (Project Heads Bleck, Wolfgang ;  Saeed-Akbari, Alireza ;  Song, Wenwen )
• A06 - Atomic structure and properties of interfaces (Project Head Mohles, Volker )
• A07 - Microstructure mechanics and fundamentals of twinning in the alloy system Fe-Mn-Al-C (Project Head Roters, Franz )
• A08 - Phasefield simulation of the microscopic solidification structure and phase distribution (Project Heads Lopes Rezende, Joao Luiz ;  Senk, Dieter )
• A09 - Ab initio based mesoscale simulation of hydrogen embrittlement (Project Heads Neugebauer, Jörg ;  von Pezold, Johann ;  Spatschek, Robert )
• A10 - Inhomogeneous yieldingge (Project Head Svendsen, Robert )
• B01 - Solidification Experiments Of The Fe-Mn-C System (Project Head Senk, Dieter )
• B02 - Metal forming experiments of Fe-Mn-C system (Project Heads Bambach, Markus ;  Hirt, Gerhard )
• B04 - Heat treatment of high Mn steels (Project Heads Barrales-Mora, Luis Antonio ;  Molodov, Dmitri A. )
• B06 - Short process chain for the production of tailor-made semi-finished products (Project Head Hirt, Gerhard )
• B07 - Synthesis and Characterization of Reference Materials (Project Heads Dronskowski, Richard ;  Sandlöbes-Haut, Stefanie )
• C01 - Microstructure analytics (Project Heads Mayer, Joachim ;  Scheu, Christina )
• C02 - Material properties of high Mn-Steels (Project Head Bleck, Wolfgang )
• C03 - Local Mechanical Properties of the Fe-Mn-C System (Project Heads Music, Ph.D., Denis ;  Schneider, Ph.D., Jochen M. )
• C04 - Fatigue, damage and stress corrosion cracking under cyclic loading (Project Heads Raabe, Dierk ;  Zaefferer, Stefan )
• C05 - Defekte und Spannungen in Fe-Mn-C Stählen (Project Heads Kaysser-Pyzalla, Anke Rita ;  Pinto, Haroldo Cavalcanti ;  Winning, Myrjam )
• C06 - Damage and failure in the Fe-Mn-Al-C system (Project Head Prahl, Ulrich )
• C07 - solid state-NMR-spectroscopy (Project Head Haarmann, Frank )
• C08 - 3D atomic analysis of the local chemical composition by atom probe tomography (Project Heads Choi, Pyuck-Pa ;  Gault, Ph.D., Baptiste Jean Germain ;  Li, Yujiao )
• C09 - Deformation mechanisms and local residual stresses in the system Fe-Mn-C (Project Head Zaefferer, Stefan )
• C10 - Deformation behavior of multi-phase steels (Project Heads Ponge, Dirk ;  Sandlöbes-Haut, Stefanie )
• MGK - Integrated Research Training Group (Project Heads Prahl, Ulrich ;  Roters, Franz )
• T03 - Materials design for components in automobile industry (Project Head Bleck, Wolfgang )
• T04 - Influence of microstructure on hydrogen embrittlement in Cr-alloyed high-Mn steels (Project Heads Hickel, Tilmann ;  Neugebauer, Jörg )
• T05 - Development of a corrosion-inert steel for automotive applications in the alloying system Fe-Cr-Mn-N-Cu (Project Head Bleck, Wolfgang )
• T07 - Liquid metal embrittlement by Zn in Mn-containing steels with significant austenite content (Project Heads Hickel, Tilmann ;  Sandlöbes-Haut, Stefanie ;  Todorova, Mira )
• Z - Central Task of the Collaborative Research Center (Project Head Bleck, Wolfgang )

• Applicant Institution: Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen
• Participating Institution: Max-Planck-Institut für Nachhaltige Materialien GmbH (MPI SusMat)
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Bleck