Can You See Cy? 

Students discover likeness of the Iowa State Cyclones cardinal mascot in a microstructure of a copper-nickel-tin alloy. 

The December issue of The Journal of the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society contains an article titled   “Mentoring Students Is a Cardinal Rule for Materion Engineers.”  Dr. Fritz Grensing , Vice President, Alloy Technology and Dr. Carole Trybus, Principal Scientist, Performance Alloys are members of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) and were featured in the article that highlighted the work they did with an Iowa State University (ISU) senior project team working with ToughtMet®.

According to the article, “Finding Cy was an unexpected bonus. He first appeared while members of the ISU team were preparing micrographs of a copper-nickel-tin alloy that they were investigating for microstructural and hardness changes after long-term solution annealing. As if to let the students know that their work was on the right track, the outline of Cy — the cranky cardinal mascot of ISU— emerged in one of the images, created by precipitates forming on the grain boundary. “ 

Grensing, an active TMS member since 1990, provided mentoring and direction to the ISU student team as a means of expanding Materion’s on-site engineering co-op program to include materials science and engineering. Carole L. Trybus, Principal Engineer at Materion and a TMS member since 1999, joined him in the effort, using her ties as an ISU graduate to help set up the project. “We have witnessed first-hand the synergy that occurs with co-op students embedded in the workplace and wanted to see if we could offer that to materials science and engineering students,” said Grensing. “Our program with Iowa State University was a perfect first step.” 

Besides gaining “some good and useful information on one of our key alloys,” Grensing said that Materion benefitted from the project by “getting the next generation of engineers and scientists enthusiastic about the field of materials engineering.” 

Grensing said that he and Trybus found “that the energy and enthusiasm of the students are contagious” and are looking forward to building on the success of the ISU project in developing future student mentoring opportunities. “I would encourage all TMS members to participate in such programs,” he said. “We all need to support and help train our future engineers.”

Read the full article here.