Michael F. Ashby

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Michael Ashby

Michael F Ashby.png
Michael F. Ashby in 2017
Born
Michael Farries Ashby

(1935-11-20) 20 November 1935 (age 88) [1]
Education Campbell College [1]
Alma mater University of Cambridge (BA, MA, PhD)
Awards
Scientific career
Fields Materials science
Thesis The metallography and mechanical properties of internally oxidised copper alloys  (1961)
Doctoral students Lorna Gibson [3]
Website www-edc.eng.cam.ac.uk/mfa2

Michael Farries Ashby CBE FRS FREng [2] [4] (born 20 November 1935) is a British metallurgical engineer. [1] He served as Royal Society Research Professor, and a Principal Investigator (PI) at the Engineering Design Centre at the University of Cambridge. He is known for his contributions in Materials Science in the field of material selection. [5] [6]

Contents

In 1990, Ashby was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering for outstanding contributions to the understanding of mechanical behavior of materials and for development of formats useful for design.

Education

Ashby is the son of the leading botanist and educator Lord Ashby. He was educated at Campbell College in Belfast and the University of Cambridge where he studied the Natural Sciences Tripos as a student of Queens' College, Cambridge. [1] He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Metallurgy in 1957 (First Class Honours); his Master of Arts degree in 1959 and his PhD in 1961. [1]

Career and research

By conducting numerous studies on the active deformation mechanisms under different temperature conditions, M.F. Ashby developed a graphical approach for determining these mechanisms. He generalizes this approach to the broader field of material selection by developing the software CMS(Cambridge Materials Selector)in collaboration with David Cebon, with whom he co-founded Granta Design Limited. He also collaborated extensively with Yves Bréchet (CNRS Silver Medal). He continued to work on the software to improve its pedagogical value across Materials Education ( CES EduPack [7] – used at more than 1000 universities worldwide and value to industry (CES Selector [8] ). This software is currently available from the company Granta Design, of which he is the chairman.

Ashby has revolutionized the approach to the selection of materials to take into account four aspects: feature, material, geometry, and processes; moreover, he worked with the division in classes and subclasses.[ citation needed ] In doing so he has developed a comprehensive approach that associates to the expected mechanical functions of an object a performance index that has to be optimized. These indices allow to better take into account all the properties required of a material, such as specific stiffness (ratio between the elastic modulus and density) instead of single elastic module. His approach allows one to rationally choose the most suitable materials for each application.

In practice, this approach firstly asks to identify the performance index starting from the expected function and geometry. Then it is possible to select thresholds for certain properties in order to select the most useful materials from those present in a database that has some 80,000 materials. The division into classes allows pre-selecting representative materials and therefore working only with certain classes of materials. Finally, the selected materials are shown in a 2-dimensional chart, called the Ashby diagram, in order to view those with the highest performance index. These diagrams often contain also nanostructured materials and composites.

In more recent years he has concentrated on materials and the environment and sustainability, writing award-winning textbooks and pioneering teaching methods to get this complex topic across to engineering students. He has been honored by the American Society of Engineering Education by having a teaching prize named after him. [9]

Ashby has achieved a innovative work[ citation needed ] in the areas of materials, design, and sustainability [10] as well as in that of pedagogy. His works on materials are comparable to those of Carrega and Colombié.[ citation needed ] His former doctoral students include Lorna Gibson. [3]

Publications

Honours and awards

Ashby's awards and honours include:

Related Research Articles

The field of strength of materials typically refers to various methods of calculating the stresses and strains in structural members, such as beams, columns, and shafts. The methods employed to predict the response of a structure under loading and its susceptibility to various failure modes takes into account the properties of the materials such as its yield strength, ultimate strength, Young's modulus, and Poisson's ratio. In addition, the mechanical element's macroscopic properties such as its length, width, thickness, boundary constraints and abrupt changes in geometry such as holes are considered.

Solid mechanics is the branch of continuum mechanics that studies the behavior of solid materials, especially their motion and deformation under the action of forces, temperature changes, phase changes, and other external or internal agents.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Material</span> Substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge</span>

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Anon (2017). "Ashby, Prof. Michael Farries" . Who's Who (online Oxford University Press  ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U5816.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. 1 2 3 Anon (1979). "Professor Michael Ashby CBE FREng FRS". Royalsociety. London: Royal Society. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
    “All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies at the Wayback Machine (archived 2016-11-11)
  3. 1 2 Gibson, Lorna Jane (1981). The elastic and plastic behaviour of cellular materials (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. doi:10.17863/CAM.14049. OCLC   276947761. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.257054 . Retrieved 2 November 2018. Lock-green.svg
  4. "List of Fellows of the RAEng". Raeng.org.uk. London: Royal Academy of Engineering.
  5. "Professor Michael F Ashby". Edc.eng.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 16 November 2018.
  6. Michael F. Ashby publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  7. "CES EduPack - Granta Design". Grantadesign.com. Retrieved 16 November 2018.
  8. "CES Selector - Granta Design". Grantadesign.com. Retrieved 16 November 2018.
  9. "Awards » ASEE Materials". Materials.asee.org. Retrieved 16 November 2018.
  10. "TAA announces 2016 Textbook Award winners". Blog.taaonline.net. 22 March 2016. Retrieved 16 November 2018.
  11. "Awards | FEMS - The Federation of European Materials Societies". www.fems.org. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
  12. "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 25 April 2011.

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