Research > Mechanichal Physics and Interface Department
Division for Materials and Structure Sciences
Research areas
The research activities of the mechanical physics and interface department address the damage mechanisms of materials in service. The five areas of investigation are as follows : corrosion-deformation interaction, damage at interfaces, intermetallics, fatigue and microstructure, biomaterials.
Studies are made on low temperature creep of titanium and new developments are in progress to define a testing method for the selection of materials which resist corrosion under stress.
Work on damage at interfaces, particularly at high temperatures and aggressive environments (molten metals, , oxidizing or reducing atmospheres), made it possible to highlight nanometre-thick intergranular films which are responsible for extreme brittleness ( the cracking phenomenon due to embrittlement by molten metals, ruptures at the elastic limit) and to develop quantitative assay methods of surface (Auger/XPS spectrometries), in relation with the University of Surrey, UK.
Activities currently centered on Embrittlement by Molten Metals (EMM) will evolve to studies relating to high temperature reactors (HTR).
In the field of intermetallics, a plastic anomaly model was developed for FeAl .
Work on the fourth area of investigation concerned oligocyclic fatigue in metastable austenitic stainless steels with study of the influence of the test temperature and microstructure parameters and fatigue in hyper-hardened and aged superduplex stainless steels with research into damage mechanisms and microstructural anisotropy.
As far as biomaterials are concerned, recent research addressed the characterization and comprehension of fretting-corrosion of metal biomaterials used in joint protheses . In addition, the last year was devoted to the design and set-up of an original machine to generate shocks on hip protheses. This will aims at improving the performance of implants.
Faculty & staff