Materials
Systems Lab
The Materials Systems Laboratory
(MSL) analyzes the competitive position of materials and the strategic
implications of materials choice in the automotive, electronic, and aerospace
industries.
For a product developer, the
selection of a material for an engineering application has major ramifications.
Effective choices require an understanding that it is the properties of
the product, not the material itself, that determine product competitiveness.
To understand the intricacies of material selection and substitution,
it is vital to understand the interrelationships between materials, their
processing, and resulting product properties.
To develop this knowledge,
MSL has worked extensively on classic engineering process modeling for
the past two decades. Modeling elements have been married to elements
of product design, material properties, and manufacturing assumptions
to yield tools that can estimate the costs of product manufacture under
a wide range of conditions.
These tools analyze primary
materials production, primary materials processing, component and subassembly
manufacture, and end-of-life vehicle processing. In each case, these tools
estimate the costs of production as a function of processing technology,
material flows, operating conditions, and energy and capital requirements.
MSL also has developed techniques
for understanding how markets respond to the different combinations of
engineering and economic performance available by using different materials.
Further, MSL researchers analyze
the environmental consequences of materials and process choice, incorporating
the emerging life-cycle analysis paradigm.
These tools make it possible,
when used with economic and engineering assessments, to develop robust,
credible, and defendable product strategies that take life-cycle information
into account.
Outreach
Annual MSL Steering Committee
meetings present research findings directly to participating sponsors
and set the directions of future research activities. MSL work is often
presented at the annual SAE and IBEC conferences and is often published
in journals such as JOM and Resources, Conservation and Recycling.
Faculty
and staff
Richard Roth, Director
Research Associate
Frank
Field, Research Director; Senior Research Engineer
Jamie Sieger, Administrative
Assistant
Joel
Clark, Professor of Materials Systems, Materials Science and Engineering
Sponsors
American
Iron and Steel Institute
Cambridge Technology Center, Division
of Alcan Aluminum Corporation
Ford Motor Company
Hoogovens Groep BV, the Netherlands
Hydro Aluminum Metal Products, Norway
IAPMEI, Portugal
Owens Corning
Program Links: CMP
| Ford-MIT
| IMVP | LAI
| LARA | LSI
| MSL | MITIQ
| T&L
|
