Ames Laboratory, Ames, Iowa, announces that it will play a key role in the Lightweight Materials National Lab Consortium, which is dedicated to developing cleaner, cheaper, smarter, stronger, lighter, and more corrosion-resistant materials for industry. Called LightMAT, the consortium consists of nine DOE national laboratories and will focus on developing and deploying lightweight materials more quickly and at a fraction of current costs, to strengthen U.S. manufacturing.
According to Ames Laboratory materials scientist and ASM Fellow Iver Anderson, “Every vehicle will go farther if it’s lighter, but at the same time lightweight materials must be strong enough to combat denting problems and corrosion. These are great problems for LightMAT scientists to be addressing with industry.”
Ames Laboratory will contribute to LightMAT through three core capabilities. The first will combine the Laboratory’s strengths in lightweight powder processing, additive manufacturing, and nondestructive evaluation.
The second core capability takes advantage of Ames Lab’s expertise in pilot-scale materials processing through its Materials Preparation Center. “We’ll be extending our current research in both conventional and unconventional materials processing, particularly in the area of single-crystal growth, one of the Ames Laboratory’s strengths,” says Dr. Anderson.
The third capability will target Ames Lab’s strengths in theoretical alloy development and rapid verification of new materials. The theoretical effort will be led by Duane Johnson, Ames Laboratory Chief Research Officer and MSE professor.
LightMAT is managed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. In addition to Ames, partners include Argonne, Idaho, Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, National Renewable Energy, Oak Ridge, and Sandia National Laboratories.
