Picture of Dorel MoldovanDorel Moldovan

Fruehan Family Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical & Industrial Engineering Dept., Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

Contact

+1-225-578-6488

dmoldo1@lsu.edu

Specialization

Atomistic and mesoscale modeling and simulation of materials.

Expertise

Molecular dynamics and free energy calculation methodologies; simulation of interfacial phenomena/properties and microstructure formation and evolution.

Education

PhD in Physics from West Virginia University (1999); post-doc at Argonne National Laboratory (1999-2002).

Research

The CIMM supported ongoing research in our group focuses on the development of atomistic level understanding of the mechanism and parameters controlling the kinetics and microstructure development during rapid solidification of metals and metallic alloys. Major scientific achievements include: i) the development of new interatomic MEAM potentials suitable for high temperature molecular dynamics (MD) and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of crystal-melt interfaces in metallic alloys ii) using Ti-Ni as alloy model system, we developed, validated, and used a set of methodologies for MD and MC simulations used to determine crystal-melt (CM) anisotropic interfacial properties such as: CM interfacial energy, interfacial mobility, and kinetic coefficient and the corresponding anisotropy parameters; properties which are difficult or even impossible to measure in experiments iii) developed an hierarchical atomistic - phase field simulation approach for investigation of microstructure formation during rapid solidification. Our research has the potential to impact technologies with great relevance to additive manufacturing by providing accurate quantification of the role of various external and material parameters such as temperature field, cooling rates, alloy composition, crystal-melt anisotropic properties, etc., on the formation of dendritic structure and solute segregation pattern during rapid solidification.

Graph illustrating aspects of Dorel Moldovan's CIMM research portraying atomistic simulation results for rapid solidification of metallic alloys.