People Ian Nettleship
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EducationBSc (Hons), Materials Science and Engineering, Leeds University, United Kingdom, 1983. Professional InterestsDr Nettleship’s teaching interests include materials processing and mechanical properties. He teaches introductory materials science and engineering as well as higher level undergraduate courses in ceramics, materials processing and mechanical properties of materials. He is particularly interested in the undergraduate laboratory experience and its role in teaching fundamental concepts and tools. At the graduate level he teaches ceramics processing and mechanical behavior of ceramic materials. Dr. Nettleship has two main areas of research. The first is the processing of macroporous ceramics for biomedical and environmental applications. The second, termed “Microstructure Mining”, involves creating and using microstructural information to support decision making for processing high reliability materials. This is described below. Dr. Nettleship’s research interests are rooted in the concept of “microstructure mining” which he has developed over the last decade. Until now materials research has tended to focus on new materials, often emphasizing underlying mechanisms and new physical understanding. While this results in an appreciation of the “ideal microstructure”, it often fails to provide information on the microstructural phenomena that control reliability, a topic that is of primary concern to those interested in manufacturing. Microstructure mining has been developed as a response to this circumstance. It is an interdisciplinary approach which considers material structures to be complex systems and combines new methods in quantitative microstructural analysis and materials informatics to address problems in processing for high reliability. In this method, digitized microstructural images are processed and assembled into databases that can be searched using existing database mining methods. The resulting correlations can be used for: (i) empirical process modeling, (ii) exploring new physical understanding of materials processing and (iii) developing and testing of phenomenological models of microstructure evolution.
Our research team has pursued examples of all three applications of microstructure mining. In the area of process modeling a series of collaborations with Professor Smith of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Auburn University has focused on establishing model inputs and outputs that are microstructural, thereby inserting a fundamental aspect of material science into process modeling. A pertinent example of this approach examined the effect of powder forming method on the extreme value of the flaw size in advanced ceramics. The resulting ranking of the forming methods was in agreement with existing data on fracture strength while also providing the link to our understanding of the causes of brittle fracture. An example of the use of microstructure mining to improving physical understanding is in its application to freeze casting of ceramics. Analysis of quantitative microstructural information has lead to a new hypothesis with regard to the morphological evolution during freeze casting. This information is now being used to develop new oriented pore structures suitable for biomedical and environmental applications. Finally, collaboration with Dr. William Slaughter of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh has used microstructure mining to develop and test phenomenological simulations of the effect of particle packing on microstructure evolution during the sintering of ceramics. Such simulations could be invaluable in testing the effects of particle packing that cannot be accessed experimentally. Selected PublicationsMethods in Microstructure Mining R.J. McAfee and I. Nettleship, “A Mesoscale Description of Microstructure Evolution for the Sintering of Ceramics,” Acta Mater., 53 4305-4311 (2005). R.J. McAfee and I. Nettleship, “The Application of Information Entropy to the Estimation of Three-Dimensional Grain or Particle Size Distributions from Materialographic Sections,” Scripta Mat., 52 1281-1285 (2005). R.J. McAfee and I. Nettleship. “A Mesoscale Description of Microstructural Evolution for Slip Cast Alumina Sintered at 1350OC” Ceram. Eng & Sci Proc., 157 105-115 (2004). R.J. McAfee and I. Nettleship, “The Simulation and Selection of Shapes for the Unfolding of Grain Size Distribution,” Acta Mater., 51 4603-4610 (2003). I. Nettleship and W.S. Slaughter, "Dimensionless Parameters of Microstructure Pathways During Sintering," J. Am. Ceram. Soc.,. 81 700-714 (1998). Microstructure Mining and Empirical Models O. Dengiz, R.J. McAfee, I. Nettleship and A.E. Smith,“The Application of Automated Image Analysis to Dense Heterogeneities in Partially Sintered Alumna,” J. Euro. Ceram. Soc., 27 1927-1933 (2007). O. Dengiz, A.E. Smith and I. Nettleship, “Two-Stage Data Mining for Flaw Identification in Ceramic Manufacture,” International Journal of Production Research, 44 2839-2851 (2006). O. Dengiz, T. Chen, I. Nettleship and A.E. Smith,“The Effect of Powder Forming Method on the Pull-Out Flaw populations Observed on Polished Surfaces of Alumina Ceramics,” Mat. Sci. & Eng. A, A427 160-166 (2006). O. Dengiz, A.E. Smith and I. Nettleship, “Grain Boundary Detection in Microstructure Images Using Computational Intelligence,” Computers in Industry, 56 854-866 (2005). A. Konak, S. Kulturel-Konak, A. E. Smith and I Nettleship, “Estimation of Shrinkage for Near Net-Shape Using a Neural Network Approach,” J. Intelligent Manufacturing., 14 [2] 219-228 (2003). Microstructure Mining for Physical Understanding I. Nettleship, T. Chen and K. Ewsuk “Characterization of Heterogeneous Microstructure Evolution in ZrO2-3mol%Y2O3 during Isothermal Sintering,” J. Am. Ceram. Soc., 90 3793-3799 (2007). R.J. McAfee and I. Nettleship, “Effect of Slip Dispersion on Microstructure Evolution During Isothermal Sintering of Cast Alumina,” J. Am. Ceram. Soc., 89 1273-1279 (2006). P. Kisa, P. Fisher, A. Olszewski, I. Nettleship, N. G. Eror; “Synthesis of Porous Ceramics Through Directional Solidification and Freeze-Drying.” Proc. Mat Res Soc., 788 (2004). S.A. Schmidt and I. Nettleship, “The Effect of Coarse Particles on the Microstructural Evolution of Porous Alumina Sintered at 1375OC,” J. Euro. Ceram. Soc., 24 2741-2747 (2004). I. Nettleship, B.R. Patterson and W.S. Slaughter, “The Evolution of Average Microstructural Properties in Final Stage Sintering of Alumina,” J. Am. Ceram. Soc,. 86 252-256 (2003). I. Nettleship, R. J. McAfee and W. S. Slaughter, “The Evolution of the Grain Size Distribution During the Sintering of Alumina at 1350OC,” J. Am. Ceram. Soc,. 85 1954-1960 (2002). Developing and Testing Phenomenological Models Using Microstructure Mining K. Kumar, R.J. McAfee, I. Nettleship, W.S. Slaughter, "A Representative Volume Element for the Densification of Powders,” J. Am. Ceram. Soc., 89 2311-2313 (2006). J.J. Conway, I. Nettleship, R.J. McAfee and E.S. Loehlein, “Experimental Validation of Ashby 6.0 Model Using Interrupted HIP Cycles of P/M LC Astroloy,” in Advance in Powder Metallurgy and Particulate Materials 2002, vol.9, published by MPIF (2002). W.S. Slaughter, I. Nettleship, M.D. Lehigh and P.P. Tong, "A Quantitative Analysis of the Effect of Geometric Assumptions in Sintering Models." Acta Mater., 45, 5077-5806, (1997). Curriculum VitaeDr. Nettleship joined the department in 1992. He was a Teaching Fellow in the Ceramics Department at Leeds University from 1987 until 1988. He then carried out postdoctoral research in the Department of Materials Engineering of the University of California at Santa Barbara from 1988-1989 and the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1989-1992. |
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