Thermo-Calc Software, Inc. Supports Dr. Wei Xiong for Research at Pitt in Advanced Manufacturing Design

Thermo-Calc Software has provided new support for the Swanson School of Engineering’s Physical Metallurgy and Materials Design Laboratory led by Dr. Wei Xiong, with the in-kind provision of software and database licenses. Dr. Xiong, who joined Pitt in September 2016 said, “Thermo-Calc software is the most frequently used simulation toolkit in my research group for new materials and advanced processing design. I have used Thermo-Calc software for all of my previous research both in computational materials science and materials processing design such as additive manufacturing. In addition, it allows me to perform simulations by linking our in-house materials design software with Thermo-Calc Software’s databases of thermodynamics and diffusion.” Dr. Xiong went on to express his sincere appreciation for the support of Thermo-Calc to facilitate his research in materials and manufacturing design using the CALPHAD-based ICME techniques. ( http://www.pitt.edu/~weixiong)

CALPHAD (CALculation of PHAse Diagrams) is a well-recognized technique for computational thermodynamics and diffusion in materials science that has evolved for over 40 years. CALPHAD describes the underlying thermodynamics and diffusion in multicomponent systems incorporating composition and temperature dependence and is considered as one of the most useful tools for materials genome research providing databases stemming from experiments and atomistic simulations. CALPHAD is widely used in the Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) techniques for multiscale process-structure-property simulations.

Dr. Brian Gleeson, Chair of the MEMS Department emphasized, “We look forward to including the Thermo-Calc software in our teaching labs, to help students gain and apply knowledge of thermodynamics and kinetics to applied engineering problems via simulation.”   

A delegation from Thermo-Calc Software visited Pitt, meeting with ten Swanson School of Engineering faculty members active in the research areas of materials science and chemical engineering to discuss additional collaborations in computational materials simulation for advanced manufacturing design.  Anders Engström, President of Thermo-Calc Software said, “We are impressed by the Faculty's comprehensive materials expertise and are both excited and confident that this collaboration will promote the use of our products and advance our understanding of many topics critical to advanced manufacturing.”

About Thermo-Calc Software
Thermo-Calc Software is one of the leading software companies in computational thermodynamics and kinetics for materials systems (based on the CALPHAD approach). It was originally developed by researchers in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. (http://www.thermocalc.com) Thermo-Calc is widely used in over 70 countries and more than 1300 academic and government institutes and industrial companies now license the software. Thermo-Calc is considered one of the most powerful research tools for the Materials Genome Initiative due to its important role in bridging fundamentals of materials science and applications of engineering design. The headquarters of Thermo-Calc Software is in Stockholm, Sweden. In addition, there is a subsidiary company in Pittsburgh, PA, providing services to North America. Thermo-Calc Software was founded in 1997. The main software products are Thermo-Calc used in thermodynamic and phase diagram calculations for multicomponent systems, with its additional Diffusion (DICTRA) and Precipitation (TC-PRISMA) modules.

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Pictured above from left in the ANSYS Additive Manufacturing Laboratory at Pitt: Paul Mason, Andrew Falk, Anders Engström, Brian Gleeson and Hai-Len Chen.