Publications by Michael Frederick Francis

Mechanical Stress Combined with Alloying May Allow Continuous Control Over Reactivity: Strain Effects on CO Dissociation and Subsequent Methanation Catalysis over Ni(211), Ni3Fe(211), and NiFe(112)

William Curtin, Michael Frederick Francis

Mechanical stress combined with alloying as controlled by CO dissociation is investigated for the control of methanation activity. CO dissociation over strained Ni(211), Ni3Fe(211), and NiFe(112) is investigated. A continuous 0.62 eV range of CO reaction e ...

Amer Chemical Soc2017

Elastic Effects in Adsorbate-Adsorbate Interactions of C and S on a Stepped Ru Surface

William Curtin, Michael Frederick Francis

We examine strain modification of adsorbate adsorbate inter- action in the (C*+S*)/fcc-Ru(211) system for relevance to biomass to hydrocarbon catalysis and the broader case of interaction changes under strain. Applied biaxial strains from -3% to +3% shift ...

Amer Chemical Soc2017

Microalloying for the controllable delay of precipitate formation in metal alloys

William Curtin, Michael Frederick Francis

A model is presented to predict the effectiveness of dilute solutes in delaying precipitate formation, with application to natural and artificial aging in metal alloys. Control of aging is achieved via the binding, at natural aging temperatures, and releas ...

Elsevier2016

Magnesium interatomic potential for simulating plasticity and fracture phenomena

William Curtin, Michael Frederick Francis

Magnesium has multiple dislocation and twinning systems with starkly different properties, which make its plastic deformation strongly anisotropic and highly complex. Existing empirical interatomic potentials fail to capture the full scope of these propert ...

Institute of Physics2015

Mechanical work makes important contributions to surface chemistry at steps

William Curtin, Michael Frederick Francis

The effect of mechanical strain on the binding energy of adsorbates to late transition metals is believed to be entirely controlled by electronic factors, with tensile stress inducing stronger binding. Here we show, via computation, that mechanical strain ...

Nature Publishing Group2015

Diffusion on Demand to Control Precipitation Aging: Application to Al-Mg-Si Alloys

William Curtin, Michael Frederick Francis

We demonstrate experimentally that a part-per-million addition of Sn solutes in Al-Mg-Si alloys can inhibit natural aging and enhance artificial aging. The mechanism controlling the aging is argued to be vacancy diffusion, with solutes trapping vacancies a ...

American Physical Society2014

Stress controlled chemisorption and catalysis

William Curtin, Michael Frederick Francis

Amer Chemical Soc2013