Through 30 years, the Materials Research Division has held an international symposium on materials science at Risø every year in the first week of September. This year the topic is ”nanostructured metals”. With 70 participants from 11 countries, the event is attracting attention from around the world. The symposium brings together some of the world’s leading researchers in the nanometal field. Countries like the USA, China, Japan, India and of course Europe will be represented. 12 speakers have been invited and there will be about 30 presentations at Risø DTU during week 37.
The subject of the symposium changes every year, and attracts both old and new faces. Last year focused on ’energy materials’, but the subject this year is a little more specific: ’nanostructured metals’. Fields of applications are cars, ships and the transport sector in general, but the electronics industry also shows interest in nanostructured metals.
Nano saves energy
Speaking of Nano, most people understand that we are dealing with a very small size, but only few have in mind how important this type of material is when it comes to saving energy. By producing materials that are both strong and light, it is possible to save a lot of energy. Hopefully this symposium will help to promote development within this field.
”Firstly, you cut down on raw materials by using less material, secondly, you save energy in the extraction process – and it is simply easier to use the materials when there are less of them. Besides it also saves energy in transport, where it obviously costs less energy and therefore less CO2 emissions to transport things that are compact and lightweight - lighter cars are, for example, a great advantage,” Senior Scientist Grethe Winther from the Materials Research Division explains.
So it is a very good idea to look into the possibility of working with nanostructured metals if you want to save energy. These metals are already used in wires which strengthen car tyres and to keep suspension bridges up. Xiaodan Zhang, who is a postdoc in the Materials Research Division, will give a lecture on this subject at the symposium.
The Symposium spans the fields of deformation mechanisms, 3D characterisation of the formed structures, properties of the nano-structured metals and their application in society.
The picture shows conventional copper (left) and nano-copper after plastic deformation (right). |