Zahra Kahrobaee and Martin Palm win Editor’s Choice Selection

A sound knowledge of phase equilibria in dependence of temperature and composition is crucial for the design of new alloys. The Journal of Phase Equilibria and Diffusion selected an assessment article about the Al-Ti-Zr system written by the Max Planck scientists Zahra Kahrobaee and Martin Palm as one of the six best articles published in the journal in 2020. Their assessment critically evaluates all available evidence on phase equilibria and phase transformations and locates gaps, where only scattered information about this material system is available. “We are very happy that our article convinced the editors and was able to compete with all other articles of 2020. That confirms how important basic materials research is for the development of tailor-made alloys for complex applications.”, says Kahrobaee, PhD student in the group “Intermetallic Materials” headed by Palm. The researchers are now performing dedicated experiments, specifically between 800 – 1300 °C, to determine missing thermodynamic data. The data will become part of a database, which is already widely used by industries for the design of new metallic materials. The database has been successfully employed in the development of “g-TiAl-based alloys”. This new class of materials was the key for the design of a new generation of much more fuel-efficient aero jet engines with reduced noise emission, which came into service about ten years ago. The work at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung is performed within a large-scale European collaborative project aiming at improving strength and oxidation resistance of g-TiAl-based alloys to enable their use at even higher service temperatures.