2023 has been a prosperous year for SFI PhysMet, in terms of scientific results and potential innovations. We have made short presentations of some of the recent scientific achievements made in the various research areas. 

Håkon Longva Korsvold started as a PhD candidate at SFI PhysMet in August 2023. The topic of his PhD project is Advanced nanoscale characterization of grain boundary segregation in metals. Håkon will study segregation of solute atoms to grain boundaries in aluminium alloys using state-of-the-art characterization techniques. Solute atoms are known to influence grain boundary behavior and to affect properties such as strength, corrosion and recyclability.

All SFI PhysMet members were invited to the biannual SFI consortium meeting November 1-2, 2023. More than 60 participants from the industry and research partners attended the meeting, which was organized at Nidelven hotel in Trondheim.

Profs. Yanjun Li and Knut Marthinsen, from SFI PhysMet, together with 8 other Norwegian representatives (6 from NTNU, 2 from SINTEF and 1 from Hydro) attended  4-7. October 2023, the Seventh Chinese-Norwegian Symposium on Light Metals and New Energy Materials (CNS7), in Tianjin, China. In total more than 200 people attended the conference, including a number of persons who have obtained their PhD from NTNU and/or have spent time as Postdocs with us, and who now have continued their academic career in China.

During the Kavli Prize Week 2022 NTNU organized an event at Dokkhuset scene: Presentations of the Kavli Prizes awarded in Nanoscience. The winners if the Kavli Prize in 2020 have succeeded to improve the Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and played an enormous role both in fundamental science and technology.

Professor Randi Holmestad from SFI PhysMet gave a presentation on the TEM and explained to the audience why the new knowledge is important and useful to society and humanity. The presentation was streamed and can be seen here.

September 13th - 14th SFI Physmet and the EU project Smart-SWAAM organized a two days international course on additive manufacturing (AM). Several international and national experts were invited to give lectures about different aspects of AM from fundamental solidification, equipment, powder production, processing, microstructures and properties to applications.

The 12th International Conference on Processing & Manufacturing of  Advanced Materials Thermec’2023, was organized in Vienna, Austria, July 2 - 7. The Thermec conference provides a forum that connects professionals (engineers, technologists, researchers) working in industry, academia and government research labs from around the world to present their research findings in the overall field of science and technology of processing, fabrication and manufacturing of advanced materials.

More than 1100 participants attended Thermec’2023 in Vienna. SFI PhysMet was represented by Professor Randi Holmestad who gave an invited presentation on Advanced TEM studies of precipitation in (deformed) aluminium alloys and center manager Professor Knut Marthinsen, who also gave an invited talk with the title: Correlated subgrain and particle analysis in scanning electron microscopy and its influence on the recovery and recrystallization behaviour of an AlMn alloy.
 

The 7th international Conference of Engineering against Failure, ICEAF7, was held in Spetses Greece in June 2023. SFI PhysMet PhD candidate Magnus Reiersen gave a presentation at the conference.  ICEAF is set up to attract interdisciplinary work dedicated to: the design against engineering failure, the implementation of appropriate guidelines and the development and application of concepts and technologies to prevent of failure with the use of both, novel and established approaches, technologies, and tools for failure analysis.

PhD candidate Andreas Voll Bugten and his co-authors have published an article in Springer Nature: The Role of Boron in Low Copper Spheroidal Graphite Irons. The purpose of Bugten's PhD project in SFI PhysMet is to understand the role and effect of trace elements on the microstructure and properties of ductile cast iron as more recycled steel scraps are added in the industry to reduce costs and CO2 footprint. 

Around 90 participants from industry and researcher users of Thermo-Calc products attended the seminar on Computational Thermodynamics and Kinetics, which was organized by Thermo-Calc Software (partner of SFI PhysMet) in Stockholm on June 8th, 2023.

All SFI PhysMet members were invited to the biannual SFI consortium meeting May 31st -June 1st, 2023. More than 60 participants from the industry and research partners attended the meeting, which was organized at Nidelven hotel in Trondheim.

46 participants attended a successful seminar on clustering and precipitation in aluminium alloys MAY 10-11, 2023. The seminar was organized by the TEM Gemini Centre through the KPN project SumAl and coordinated by Randi Holmestad (SFI PhysMet research area leader) and Jonas Frafjord (SumAl postdoc). 

April 11-20, 2023 a large delegation from NTNU, SINTEF and Hydro travelled to Japan. The purpose of the travel was to visit several universities and industry companies and organize a two-day workshop. In the delegation were 2 professors from NTNU: Holmestad, Marthinsen, 3 researchers from SINTEF: Mariaora, Bjørge and Thronsen, 3 PhD candidates, 2 Postdocs and 2 MSc students and one representative from Hydro, Sunndalsøra: Thrane.

March 10th 2023 Alf Bjørseth received NTNU’s Award of Honour. Alf Bjørseth has played a crucial role in Norwegian industry and has been a pioneer in research and production of renewable energy. He founded the company ScanWafer in 1994 (later REC). He was the director of Norsk Hydro from 1984-1990 and director of technology at Elkem from 1990-1994. He received NTNU’s award of honour at the doctoral seremony in the Aula at Gløshaugen.

The paper Orientation dependent pinning of (sub)grains by dispersoids during recovery and recrystallization in an Al–Mn alloy has recently been published in the journal Acta Materialia. Authors are PhD candidate Håkon Wiik Ånes , Prof. Antonius T.J. van Helvoort and Prof. Knut Marthinsen.

Centre leader Knut Marthinsen participated 9th February, 2023 at the 7th NTNU European Conference, organized by NTNU at the Residence Palace in Brussel, where he chaired a session on Critical Raw Materials. The topic of the conference was: The Future guiding the Present: The Role of R&I and Education in navigating current and incoming EU Challenges.