Dr. Jang Hyo-seon of the Computational Materials Laboratory at the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS, President Lee Jeong-hwan), a government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT, was recognized for his efforts to improve the room-temperature formability of magnesium alloys.

The Korea Institute of Materials Science announced on the 5th that Dr. Jang Hyo-seon received the '2021 Excellent Thesis of the Year' award from the 'International Mg Society'.

This award-winning paper was recognized for elucidating the activation mechanism of non-planar slip in multi-component magnesium alloys to improve the room-temperature formability of magnesium alloys, and for elucidating the role of grain boundary segregation and solute clusters during recrystallization.

Magnesium is one of the lightest structural metals and is attracting attention as a next-generation eco-friendly material.

On the other hand, low formability at room temperature is considered a disadvantage. To improve this, it is necessary to activate the non-surface slip and alleviate the aggregation problem that occurs only in one direction during recrystallization through heat treatment.

Dr. Jang used atomic-scale simulations to investigate slip and grain boundary migration behavior in multicomponent magnesium alloys.

This result confirmed that by minimizing the stress deviation of the critical drive between slip systems, the non-surface slip can be activated.

In addition, we successfully calculated the effects of grain boundary segregation and solute clusters on grain boundary movement, and quantitatively demonstrated that solute clusters can contribute to alleviating the recrystallization texture.

Jang Hyo-seon, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute of Materials Science who won the Excellent Paper Award, said, “Non-ferrous metal manufacturing using magnesium alloys is linked to various industries such as steel, shipbuilding, semiconductors, displays, future cars, and machinery,” and expressed his aspirations by saying, “I will continue to dedicate myself to research so that this award can further contribute to the analysis and mechanism elucidation of this.”

Meanwhile, the International Magnesium Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting research, development, and application of magnesium and its alloys, and providing a platform for academic exchange for all magnesium researchers. It supports the hosting of international conferences related to magnesium, the publication and presentation of research results, and regularly publishes the Journal of Magnesium and Alloys.