Dr. Xinzhu Zheng ’21, along with her Ph.D. advisor, Dr. Ankit Srivastava, associate professor, both from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, along with their industry collaborator Dr. Hassan Ghassemi-Armaki from General Motors R&D, received the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) 2021 finalist medal for their paper titled “Structural and Microstructural Influence on Deformation and Fracture of Dual-Phase Steels.”
The award was presented during the AISI board of director’s awards ceremony on Tuesday, Nov. 2 at The InterContinental Washington, D.C. – The Wharf by Leon Topalian, president and CEO of Nucor and chairman of AISI.
“I am extremely honored to receive this award,” said Zheng. “For me it is double excitement since this award recognizes the technological relevance of my Ph.D. research.”
In their award-winning paper, the researchers demonstrated that the traditional material property measures and microstructure are not sufficient descriptors of a general mechanical response of advanced multiphase steels. Interestingly, they showed that it is possible that more than one multiphase steel microstructure can yield the same traditional material properties, but their response differs significantly under bending dominated manufacturing processes or in the presence of structural discontinuities. The implications of this work extend to both materials and manufacturing process design and development.
The American Iron and Steel Institute Medal was established by the board of directors in 1927 to perpetuate the memory of the late Elbert H. Gary, AISI’s founder and first president, and to stimulate improvement in the iron and steel and allied industries. The institute medal and two finalist medals are awarded for technical papers having special merit and importance in connection with the activities and interests of the iron and steel industry.