| NSF Org: |
CMMI Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | July 26, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 26, 2016 |
| Award Number: | 1629160 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Alexis Lewis
alewis@nsf.gov (703)292-2624 CMMI Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation ENG Directorate for Engineering |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2016 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2021 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $500,000.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $500,000.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
10900 EUCLID AVE CLEVELAND OH US 44106-4901 (216)368-4510 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
OH US 44106-4901 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | DMREF |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.041 |
ABSTRACT
Soft magnetic materials have use in power conversion, conditioning, distribution, and generation technologies, including transportation (electric vehicles), renewable energy (solar inverters), and aerospace (power converters and inductors) sectors. The term "soft magnet" refers to a magnetic material that easily changes magnetic pole directions using small magnetic fields. With over 20 percent of all generated electricity in the US being consumed by industrial electric motor drives, a mere 1 percent improvement in energy efficiency would result in significant financial and environmental benefits. The magnetic components are a major source of energy loss in the above-mentioned applications, motivating the need for soft magnets with better energy efficiency. The design cycle for new soft magnetic materials has so far been informed mainly by direct human engineering intuition and historic knowledge and bias, with materials development occurring by trial-and-error approaches. This Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) award supports research to establish, demonstrate, and validate a computation-guided framework for accelerated discovery of new, better performing soft magnetic materials. This approach will use computational materials science tools to guide alloy design, with the synthesis and experimental validation of properties performed for down-selected new alloys.
Recently, new alloys with microstructures comprised of an amorphous matrix and nanocrystalline grains have revolutionized advanced soft magnetic materials by enabling smaller hysteresis than has been achieved in traditional magnetic materials. This award supports research on the design of new alloys of this type using hierarchical, multi-scale, magneto-structural modeling with input from density functional theory calculations of structural and magnetic properties for single-crystals. Micromagnetic theory will provide the constitutive law for the continuum-level model for optimization of realistic microstructures consisting of an amorphous matrix surrounding nanocrystals. The continuum-level modeling represents a fundamental advancement that will provide much-needed insight into the interplay between the microstructure effects and the magnetic properties of the crystalline phase in determining small hysteresis, as well as an operational understanding of the applicability limits of the currently-prevalent random anisotropy model for coercivity. Structural considerations will be evaluated by continuum thermodynamics modeling and resulting magnetic performance characteristics will be evaluated by micromagnetics modeling. Down-selected alloy compositions - as optimized by these computational approaches - will be synthesized using rapid solidification with subsequent annealing and characterized using state-of-the-art structural and magnetic characterization tools.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
A defining characteristic of soft magnetic materials is small coercivity or ability of the material to switch magnetic north/south pole directions easily. Nanocrystalline soft magnetic materials provide excellent energy efficiency in power applications due in part to their remarkably small values of coercivity. Due to their small coercivity, thin cross section, and favorable resistivity, the poles of these magnets can be switched thousands of times per second without significant heating. The high switching frequency enables miniaturization of components that use soft magnets, such as solar inverters, inverters for hybrid electric and electric vehicles, power electronics converters, and inductors. A significant challenge is the design of these alloys which typically consist of at least five elements, the processing of these materials (requiring quenching of molten alloys at a million degrees per second), and the development of the nanoscale microstructure necessary for minimization of the coercivity.
The work performed by Case Western Reserve University validated the complex alloy design of new nanocrystalline soft magnetic alloys to consist of phases predicted by out collaborators. Using quantum mechanical modeling of various magnetic phases, we were able to identify several magnetic crystals with potential to make excellent soft magnets. Much of our validation work focused on (Co,Ni)-based, (Fe,Ga)-based, and (Fe,Sn)-based nanocrystalline alloys, all of which were computationally predicted to have characteristics consistent with low coercivity behavior. Most of the project was devoted to design of a (Fe,Sn)-based magnet that was predicted to out-perform the commercial alloy Finemet. The predicted crystal structure (D03) with lowest coercivity was found to be inaccessible during processing, despite employing other computational methodologies to guide the alloy design. In the end, a good (Fe,Sn)-based nanocrystalline soft magnet was produced consisting of a different phase (B2).
Two PhD students and five undergraduate students were trained in the processing and characterization of nanocrystalline soft magnetic materials over the course of this program. Several of the undergraduates are working toward PhD degrees in related fields of science and engineering.
Last Modified: 01/11/2022
Modified by: Matthew A Willard
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