Dr. Amit Shyam
Materials Science and Technology Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

High Temperature Aluminum Alloy Development for Automotive Engines

ABSTRACT: Steadily increasing U.S. fuel economy standards for vehicles have created an urgent societal demand for higher temperature capability aluminum alloys. These new alloys will have a higher temperature operation limit and will enable higher efficiency passenger car engine designs. For the common precipitation-hardened Al-Cu alloys strengthened by Al2Cu intermetallic precipitates, the upper limit of use is related to the ability to suppress transformation of the θ' phase to the thermodynamically stable θ phase. A new approach to substantially increase the thermal stability of θ′ precipitates in Al-Cu alloys through interfacial solute segregation will be described. Emphasis will be given to demonstrating the use of atomic scale characterization and computational tools that allowed the development of alloys for higher temperature engines. A summary and timeline of activities in the area of lightweight high temperature alloy development for automotive engines will be presented. Current activities including the design of elevated temperature lightweight alloys for additive processing will be discussed. Finally, future prospects in this area of alloy development will be outlined. Various activities described in this presentation were supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office, the Advanced Manufacturing Office and by the ORNL LDRD program.

BIOGRAPHY: Amit Shyam is a Senior R & D Staff Scientist in the Alloy Behavior and Design Group that is within the Materials Science and Technology Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).  He joined ORNL in November 2004 as a post-doctoral researcher.  He has an undergraduate degree in Materials and Metallurgical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur (1997) and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Michigan Technological University (2002).  Prior to joining ORNL, he was a post-doctoral researcher with a joint position between the University of Michigan and Ford Research Laboratory.  His current research interests include design of lightweight alloys for structural applications.