David P. Pope
Professor
Materials Science and Engineering (MSE)
Honors and Awards: S. Reid Warren Award for Distinguished Teaching - 2000
Research Expertise: Mechanics of Materials | Nanostructured Materials | Material Interfaces
Dave's research projects include study of deformation and fracture of intermetallic compounds. The ductility of most intermetallics is quite low due either to grain boundary or cleavage failure. His lab is investigating the deformation and fracture mechanisms in a number of singlecrystalline intermetallics, including V2Hf, Cr3Si, and Al3Ti. The strength of metal-ceramic interfaces is very important in many material systems, such as electronic packages, composite materials, and high temperature fracture of metals (in which creep voids usually nucleate on second-phase ceramic particles). In this area he is studying the strength of Fe-Al2O3 interfaces as controlled by impurities which segregate to the interface, such as S, C, P, and B. The fracture path in many polycrystalline materials follows the grain boundaries, i.e. in Ni3Al and in certain iron-base alloys with impurities. Since the structure of these boundaries varies with crystallographic misorientation across the boundary and with the orientation of the boundary plane, the strengths of the boundaries are also expected to vary. His group is studying the relative strengths of boundaries using the coincidence site lattice model to describe the boundaries. They have found that high coincidence boundaries (low sigma) are not stronger than random boundaries, but twin boundaries and low angle boundaries are substantially stronger.
Member of:
Education:
PhD Materials Science 1967 - California Institute of Technology
MS Materials Science 1962 - California Institute of Technology
BS Applied Science 1961 - University of Pennsylvania
Recent Publications 
- AFM study of the plastic deformation of polysynthetically-twinned (PST) TiAl crystals in soft orientation, Chen, Y. | Pope, D.P., Microscopy Research and Technique, 2006
- Rationalization of the plastic flow behavior of Polysynthetically-twinned (PST) TiAl crystals based on slip mode observation using AFM and Schmid's law, Chen, Y. | Pope, D.P., Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings, 2005
- Abnormal deformation behavior in Polysynthetically-twinned TiAl crystals with A and N orientations - An AFM study, Chen, Y. | Pope, D.P., Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings, 2005
- Dislocation/Twin/Interface Interactions during Deformation of PST TiAl Single Crystals, an AFM Study, Chen, Y. | Pope, D.P. | Vitek, V., Materials Research Society Symposium - Proceedings, 2003
- Room temperature deformation behavior of the Hf-V-Ta C15 Laves phase, Kim, W.-Y. | Luzzi, D.E. | Pope, D.P., Intermetallics, 2003