Welcome to the Amira-Avizo Software Use Case Gallery

Li metal is considered as the most important negative electrode active material for Li-based batteries because of its high theoretical specific capacity of 3860mAh g-1, which is an order of magnitude higher than the currently used graphite, and by being the most electropositive metal. When coupled with high-capacity cathodes, either Li insertion materials or conversion chemistries, or applied in a solid-sate configuration, a leap in energy density can be obtained. The main challenge in the di... Read more

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is a powerful and versatile technique for materials characterization and present in many laboratories. The integration of an X-ray target holder and detector allows expanding the modalities of SEM by X-ray imaging. These little hardware adaptations enable radiography ... Read more

The complex mechanical response of open-cell foams depends strongly on the hierarchy of length scales inherent in them, from engineering-part scale to the ligament scale through the grain scale down to the crystal-lattice scale. A first step toward understanding and predicting the coordinated mechanical response across le... Read more

Pigment distributions have a critical role in the corrosion protection properties of organic paint coatings, but they are difficult to image in 3D over statistically significant volumes and at sufficiently high spatial resolutions required for detailed analysis. Here we report, for the first time, large volume analytical serial sectioning tomography of an organic composite coating using a xenon Plasma Focused Ion Beam (PFIB) combined with secondary electron imaging, energy dispersive X-ray (E... Read more

Metallic powders are commonly used in additive manufacturing processes. While their post-process consolidated properties are widely studied, there is little research on the properties of the powders prior to consolidation. Understanding the powder characteristics before use in additive manufacturing processes could lead to fine-tuning properties of additively manufactured materials. The three-dimensional grain structure of metals can be useful in predicting their properties and ... Read more

A key technique for controlling solidification microstructures is magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD), resulting from imposing a magnetic field to solidifying metals and alloys. Applications range from bulk stirring to flow control and turbulence damping via the induced Lorentz force. Over the past two decades the Lorentz force caused by the interaction of thermoelectric currents and a magnetic field, a MHD phenomenon known as Thermoelectric Magnetohydrodynamics (TEMHD), was also shown to drive inter... Read more

A combination of 3D tomography techniques provides direct evidence that links the phase assemblage to the bio-corrosion behaviour of a magnesium-zinc-calcium (Mg-Zn-Ca) alloy. The true shape, connectivity and volume fraction of the components have been determined using focused ion beam (FIB) tomography. The mechanism of the effect of the components with different morphologies on biodegradation was studied with the help of FIB. Micro X-ray CT (MicroCT) was used to investigate the degradation o... Read more

Solid–liquid interfaces are important in a range of chemical, physical and biological processes but are often not fully understood owing to the lack of high-resolution characterization methods that are compatible with both solid and liquid components. For example, the related processes of dendritic deposition of lithium metal and the formation of solid–electrolyte interphase layers are known to be key determinants of battery safety and performance in high-energy-density lithium-metal bat... Read more

4D imaging – the three-dimensional distributions of chemical species determined using multi-energy X-ray tomography – of cathode catalyst layers of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEM-FC) has been measured by scanning transmission x-ray microscopy (STXM) spectro-tomography at the C 1s and F 1s edges. In order to monitor the effects of radiation damage on the composition and 3D structure of the perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) ionomer, the same volume was measu... Read more

A unique approach to correlating an evolving 3D microstructure in an Al-Cu alloyand its micro-scale mechanical properties has been introduced. Using these nanoscale three-dimensional microstructures derived from Transmission X-rayMicroscopy (TXM), individual contributions from different strengthening mechanisms were quantified. The spatial distribution and morphology of the individual θ′ and θ phases were seen to play an important role in influencing dislocation storage. Uniaxi... Read more

Laser processing of metal surfaces by ultrafast Read more

The cleanliness of liquid steel is defined by the amounts of dissolved unwanted impurities and precipitated unwanted non-metallic phases.[…] Improving the cleanliness of the steel would mean a lower fraction of impurities in the final product. […] A novel approach, utilizing controlled synthetic inclusion/metal samples, has been developed to study the reactions between free inclusion-slag droplets and steel. The technique combines High-Temperature Confocal Scanning Laser Microscop... Read more

Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) technology has attracted considerable interest in large-scale metallic components, but porosity and low deposition rate are the two dominating technical challenges in WAAM of aluminum alloy. In order to effectively solve these problems, a novel method of hot-wire arc additive manufacturing is used to fabricate aluminum alloy. Systematic studies are carried out to investigate the formation mechanism of the pores, the macro/microstructures, as well as the ... Read more

High market demands related to material quality and properties strongly influence redesigning of common safety loaded aluminum alloy castings. The quality of aluminum components and associated obtained mechanical properties are strongly dependent on the casting process and parameters, as well as on the chemical composition. Therefore, the redesigning of chemical composition of high-strength aluminum alloys becomes significant for safety critical structural components in automotive industry.Read more

Nowadays, industrial processes demand materials with specific properties and localized microstructures to improve material performance. To satisfy particular needs, the development of materials with changing mechanical properties and/or microstructures along a preferential direction has been developed. These are called Functional Graded Materials (FGMs). Among these materials, a variation on the porosity along the part is very useful for different industrial applications, such as microfiltrat... Read more

Accurate detection, characterization, and prediction of defects has great potential for immediate impact in the production of fully-dense and defect free metal additive manufacturing (AM) builds. Accordingly, this paper presents Defect Structure Process Maps (DSPMs) as a means of quantifying the role of porosity as an exemplary defect structure in powder bed printed materials. Synchrotron-based micro-computed tomography (μSXCT) was used to demonstrate that metal AM defects follow predictable... Read more

The non-metallic inclusions are mostly harmful to the propertiesof the steel products. The effective characterization of the size, morphology, and distribution of the inclusions in steel is a key issue to remove and control the inclusions in the Read more

Inconel 718 (IN718) is the most popular precipitation-strengthened nickel-based superalloy introduced by the Huntington Alloys Division of INCO in 1959 (Ref Read more

In the 6th century BC different techniques of coin manufacture were employed by mints in mainland Greece and in the Greek colonies in Southern Italy. In Greece these techniques were evidently derived from the Lydians and consisted in striking a piece of cast metal of predetermined weight (a ‘blank’ or flan) between two engraved dies made of hardened bronze. Colonies in Magna Graecia, however, uniquely developed another set of minting techniques to produce what today is called incuse coina... Read more

Drop-on-demand jetting of metals offers a fully digital manufacturing approach to surpass the limitations of the current generation powder-based additive manufacturing technologies. However, research on this topic has been restricted mainly to near-net shaping of relatively low melting temperature metals. Here it is proposed a novel approach to jet molten metals at high-temperatures (>1000 °C) to enable the direct digital additive fabrication of micro- to macro-scale objects. […] ... Read more

Additive manufacturing (AM) of aluminum alloy components has drawn broad attention from industrial customers in recent years. With the advantages of low cost and high deposition rate, wire + arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) has been recognized as a promising AM technology in producing large-scale aluminum alloy structural parts. However, the adverse effect of internal defects on mechanical properties has limited the application of WAAM aluminum alloys. Micropores, as one of the most harmfu... Read more