At the invitation of IMR, Professor Graeme J. Ackland of the University of Eingburgh, 2013 recipient of Hsun Lee Lecture Award, visited IMR during 30 October through 1 Novermber 2013.
On the 31st October Professor Ackland delivered the Hsun Lee Lecture entitled Multiscale Modelling of Materials for Fission and Fusion Reactors, which was warmed received by IMR research staff and graduate students who are interested in this topic. He explained the main phenomena observed in radiation-damaged materials, and how they arose from the initial atomic level damage processes. Professor Ackland outlined the main techniques of modelling at the different lengthscales and took steel as an example to show the importance of selecting the right potential to obtaining correct modeling results. He also presented an explanation of the catalytic healing of radiation damage of an ODS steel based on the results of his computation. Before the lecture IMR director Dr YANG Rui presented the Hsun Lee Lecture Award Certificate to Professor Ackland on behalf of the Award Selection Committee. During the visit Professor Ackland held discussions with computational researchers in IMR, including the first principles computation group headed by Dr HU Qingmiao of Engineering Alloys Division, SYNL, and the molecular dynamics group headed by Dr XU Dongsheng of Titanium Alloys Division.
Graeme J. Ackland obtained his BSc and PhD degrees from the University of Oxford. He worked at AERE Harwell and the University of Pennsylvania as a post-doctoral fellow before he joined the University of Eingburgh as a lecturer in 1990. He was appointed Professor of Computer Simulation in the same university in 2003 and has been the director of the Insitute for Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, University of Eingburgh since 2008.
Professor Ackland has made seminal contributions in the area of first principles computation method and software. He participated in the CASTEP project, and the interatomic potentials he constructed for iron and other transition metals are widely used. He also wrote and maintained the molecular dynamics software MOLDY.
Prof. Graeme Ackland currently works mainly on the fusion materials, high pressure crystallography, and martensitic phase transition in connection with shape memory effect, using molecular dynamics and first-principles methods. He also enjoys other areas of study, particularly the use of computational models to examine processes such as evolution and emergence, pack formation in cycling, herding in animals, boom-and-bust economics, and neolithic farming.
Dr YANG Rui presented the Hsun Lee Lecture Award Certificate to Professor Ackland
Professor Ackland delivers the Hsun Lee Lecture
