Miss Reid at MIT

Worked with Menglei for tensile testing on the sample that we viewed with the electron microscope.  Instead of breaking, we stretched it a bit, but not enough to let it neck (get skinnier).  She is then going to check it out under the electron microscope again to see how the crystalline structure changes. Met with Ke about the three projects she is working on:  - The first is doing bulge testing on some samples. They are preparing some samples today, and doing some testing on Friday that I can observe.  They are seeing how the damage to the materials changes with different shapes of washers over it so that they can control the damage (round vs. rectangle).  - The second is laser healing of materials.  She uses a laser instead of a furnace to heat the metals, which melts them and heals any cracks/imperfections.  If you use a furnace it will take about 1 hour at 600C, but using a laser takes about 10 minutes!  This project is almost over and wil...

Today I worked with Ben to learn about Hydrogen Embrittlement.  We put a piece of steel in to an acid, and connected it to an electric charge, which charged the piece of steel with hydrogen.  Next we painted the steel white with black dots - and ran it through a tensile test - which pulled it apart until it actually broke.  Tomorrow we will measure the difference in the dots on the camera to see where the material stretched and broke. We discussed the facings on the atomic crystalline structures and I got to work with Menglei late at night (9pm! That's bedtime!) to work on the electron microscope and get some pre-tested shots of the crystalline structure of the atoms.  We plan to test that tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon.

Today I got introduced to my team here - Tasan Group - who work in Materials Science and Engineering.  There are so many people!  My goal for the first two weeks is to meet with different people in the group, find out what they do, and do an experiment with them.  Fun!