Tom Quested
Layman's version of Tom Quested's workHi! I'm Tom Quested and completed a Ph.D. entitled Solidification of Inoculated Aluminium Alloys in November 2004 in the MKG group. This work has built upon that of previous members of the group: Alice Bunn, Mike Meredith and Arnaud Tronche.
Since December 2004, I have been working as a post doc, splitting my time between the fields of inoculation of aluminium and solidification of titanium aluminides.
I am grateful to the EPSRC and Alcan International Ltd for the funding of my Ph.D. and the EC integrated project IMPRESS for funding my post-doctoral position. Also, none of this work would be possible without the considerable input from my supervisor, Lindsay Greer.
Solidification of Aluminium Alloys
My work has focused on developing fundamental theory associated with grain refinement of aluminium alloys (or inoculation). This has included work on:
- athermal nucleation (also referred to as the free-growth model), used to determine which inoculant particles are capable of supporting a grain;
- investigation of the effectiveness of different inoculant particle-size distributions;
- thermodynamic modelling determining the effect on solid-growth rates of the interaction between solute elements;
- thermodynamic modelling of inoculant-poisoning mechanisms in the Al-Si-Ti system.
Cellular-automaton, finite-element modelling of small-scale casting processes has also been performed to 'draw together' these developments in grain-refinement theory. Experimental verification has been performed using the Bridgman technique & single-pan calorimetry.
My thesis is appended below (downloadable as a series of pdf files), as are references to relevant articles.
Publications
Refereed journals
- Day, A.P., Quested, T.E. (1999): A comparison of grain imaging and measurement using horizontal orientation and colour orientation contrast imagin, electron backscatter pattern and optical methods, J. Microsc. 195: 186-196.
- Singh, C., Quested, T., et al. (2002): Synthesis and characterization of carbon nanofibres produced by the floating catalyst method, J. Phys. Chem. B 106: 10915.
- Quested, T.E., Greer, A.L. (2004): The effect of the size distribution of inoculant particles on as-cast grain size in aluminium alloys, Acta Mater. 52: 3859.
- Quested, T.E. (2004): Understanding the mechanisms of grain refinement of aluminium alloys by inoculation, Mater. Sci. Technol. 20: 1357. Awarded 2004 Literature Review Prize by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.
- Quested, T.E., Dinsdale, A.T., Greer, A.L. (2005): Thermodynamic modelling of growth-restriction effects in aluminum alloys, Acta Mater. 53: 1323-1334.
- Quested, T.E., Greer, A.L. (2005): Athermal heterogeneous nucleation of solidification, Acta Mater. 53: 2683-2692.
- Greer, A.L., Quested, T.E. (2005): Heterogeneous Grain Initiation in Solidification, Phil. Mag.: Accepted for publication.
- Quested, T.E., Greer, A.L. (2005): Analytical model linking growth restriction to solute interaction in model Al-based ternary systems, Mater. Sci. Tech.: Submitted.
- Quested, T.E., Greer, A.L. (2005): Grain refinement of Al alloys: Mechanisms determining as-cast grain size in directional solidification, Acta Mater.: Submitted.
Conference proceedings
- Greer, A.L., Quested, T.E., Spalding, J.E. (2002): Modelling of grain refinement in directional solidification, in Light Metals 2002, ed. W.A. Schneider (TMS, Warrendale, PA) p.687.
- Quested, T.E., Greer, A.L., Cooper, P.S. (2002): The variable potency of TiB2 nucleant particles in the grain refinement of aluminium by Al-Ti-B additions, Mater. Sci. Forum. 396-4: 53.
- Krajewski, W., Greer, A.L., Quested, T.E., Wolczynski, W. (2004): Identification of the substrate of heterogeneous nucleation in Zn-Al alloy inoculated with ZnTi-based master alloy, in Solidification and Crystallization, ed. D.M. Herlach (Wiley-VCH, Weinheim) p.137.
- Schneider, W.A., Quested, T.E., Greer, A.L., Cooper, P.S. (2003): A comparison of the family of AlTiB refiners and their ability to achieve a fully equiaxed grain structure in DC castings, in Light Metals 2003, ed. P. Crepeau (TMS, Warrendale, PA) p.953.
- Quested, T.E., Greer, A.L. (2003): Growth-restriction effects in grain refinement of aluminium, in Light Metals 2003, ed. P. Crepeau (TMS, Warrendale, PA) p.945.
- Quested, T.E., Greer, A.L. (2004): Modelling of microstructural evolution in Bridgman specimens, in Solidification of Aluminium Alloys, ed. M.G. Chu, D.A. Granger, Q. Han (TMS, Warrendale, PA) p.43.
Tom's thesis
Quested, T.E. (2004): Solidification of Inoculated Aluminium Alloys, Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge UK.To navigate easily around the thesis, it is best to start by reading the information contained within ‘beginning’, which includes a summary and contents table of the thesis. Following this, the brief introductory chapter (1) details the content of the other chapters.
- Beginning
text - Chapter 1: Introduction
text - Chapter 2: Literature Review
text | tables & figures - Chapter 3: Modelling and Experimental Results
text | tables & figures - Chapter 4: Energetics of Barrier to Free Growth
text | tables & figures - Chapter 5: Influence of Particle Size on As-cast Microstructures
text | tables & figures - Chapter 6: Thermodynamic Modelling of Growth-Restriction and Poisoning Effects
text | tables & figures - Chapter 7: Microstructural and Thermal Modelling of Directional-Solidification Techniques
text | tables & figures - Chapter 8: Conclusions
text - References
text - Appendix 1
text - Appendix 2
text
If you have any comments or suggestions, please contact the webmaster (Rob Cork)



