Informatics and High Throughput Screening of Thermophysical Properties

The combination of computer-aided experiments with computational modeling enables a new class of powerful tools for materials research. A non-contact method for measuring density, thermal expansion, and creep of undercooled and high-temperature materials has been developed, using electrostatic levitation and optical diagnostics, including digital video. These experiments were designed to take advantage of the large volume of data (many gigabytes/experiment, terabytes/campaign) to gain additional information about the samples. For example, using sub-pixel interpolation to measure about 1000 vectors per image of the sample's surface allows the density of an axisymmetric sample to be determined to an accuracy of about 200 ppm (0.02%). A similar analysis applied to the surface shape of a rapidly rotating sample is combined with finite element modeling to determine the stress-dependence of creep in the sample in a single test. Details of the methods for both the computer-aided experiments and computational models will be discussed