Clyde Briant
Professor:
Engineering
Phone: +1 401 863 7408
Clyde_Briant@brown.edu
Professor Briant's research interests center on mechanical properties of materials and how these properties can be explained by various microstructural elements.
Biography
Clyde L. Briant is Brown University's recently appointed vice president for research. Briant, the Otis E. Randall University Professor at Brown, succeeds Professor Andries van Dam. The vice president for research has senior responsibility for all aspects of research at Brown. Briant will work closely with faculty and the academic administration to foster internal and external academic centers, groupings and relationships which will enhance and extend the University's research efforts. He will oversee the University's intellectual property policies, its efforts to identify transferable intellectual property, and its Office of Sponsored Projects. Professor Briant most recently served as Dean of the Division of Engineering. Prior to joining the Brown faculty in 1994, Briant worked at the GE Research and Development Center (1976-1994). He received his Doctor of Engineering Science degree in materials science from Columbia University in 1974 and was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania from 1974 to 1976. His primary research interest has been in the area of structural materials. At the start of his career he worked extensively with steel and nickel alloys, but more recently he has been involved in research on light weight alloys.
Interests
Professor Briant's research interests center on mechanical properties of materials and how these properties can be explained by various microstructural elements.
Grain boundaries constitute one of the most important features of a microstructure, and one research program examines the structure of grain boundaries at the atomic level, using this structural information to interpret grain boundary fracture, deformation, and sliding.
Another important area of his research is microstructure evolution during deformation. This work examines both single crystals and polycrystals and considers the formation of the initial dislocation structure and the organization of this structure into cells or tangles. This research also considers the texture that can develop in a material after extensive deformation or after recrystallization of a worked material.
Another important factor in the study of the deformation is the strain rate. Equipment is available in Professor Briant's laboratory to test samples at strain rates between 0.1 ms to 3000/s.
Finally, Professor Briant has a keen interest in the environmental cracking of metals. Programs are underway to examine hydrogen embrittlement of titanium and stress corrosion cracking of aluminum alloys. The focus of this work is to change the composition and heat treatment of these materials to improve their resistance to environmental cracking.
Awards
Member of Columbia University Chapter of Tau Beta Pi, Honorary Engineering Society
Winner of the 1977 Robert Lansing Hardy Gold Medal awarded by the
Metallurgical Society of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers. This award is given by TMS-AIME to a metallurgist under 30 years of age who shows exceptional promise
Winner of the 1979 Rossiter W. Raymond Award of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers. This award is given for the best paper written by an author under 33 years of age and published by AIME during a calendar year.
Winner of the 1980 Alfred Noble Prize presented by the American Society of Civil Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers for the best paper published by these societies by a young author
Winner of the 1980 Geisler Award presented by the Eastern New York American Society for Metals to an outstanding young metallurgist
Selected by Science Digest as one of the 100 Most Promising Young Scientists in America, December, 1984
Overseas visiting researcher, AERE Harwell, England, October-December, 1984
Winner of the General Electric Company Coolidge Fellowship, 1985
Overseas Fellow, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge,England, 1987-88
Visiting Scientist, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Technical Physics, Budapest, Hungary, June-August, 1991
Fellow of ASM International, elected 1994
Named Otis E. Randall University Professor at Brown University, 2000
Listed in the Highly Cited Authors in Materials Science
Fellow of TMS, 2006
Affiliations
Member of American Society of Metals, International
Member of American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (AIME)
Member of the Materials Research Society
