AFRL senior scientist receives society’s highest honor

  • Published
  • By Donna Lindner
  • Air Force Research Laboratory
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- A distinguished senior scientist from the Air Force Research Laboratory will receive The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society Fellow Award.

 

Dr. Daniel Miracle, a senior scientist in AFRL’s, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, will receive this prestigious award at the society’s annual awards ceremony on March 14, 2018, in Phoenix, Arizona.

 

The society’s award of Fellow is TMS’s highest honor. For induction, a candidate must be recognized as a leading authority and contributor to the practice of metallurgy, materials science and technology, and a member of TMS for five continuous years.


“Throughout my career, I’ve relied on TMS programming to keep abreast of new advances in my fields of study and to stay connected with my peers,” said Miracle. “Being elected as a TMS Fellow has special significance for me personally as a sign of recognition from the broad TMS membership of technical peers that I respect.”

 

Headquartered in the United States with ties abroad, The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society is a professional organization that encompasses the entire range of materials and engineering, from minerals processing and primary metals production to basic research and the advanced applications of materials.

 

Miracle has made seminal scientific contributions in advanced aerospace metallic materials that include intermetallic compounds for high temperature applications, metal matrix composites, metallic glasses, super-high strength aluminum alloys for use at cryogenic temperatures, low-cost titanium alloys and a new class of ‘high-entropy’ alloys for high temperature structural applications.

 

Other accomplishments include leading programmatic efforts to demonstrate these technologies in advanced Air Force applications, including a successful engine test of a new gas turbine vane that weighs 50% less than current alloys and a sub-scale test of a compressor impeller that can significantly reduce both cost and weight of advanced liquid rocket engines.

 

He also supported early efforts to collect and analyze microstructures in three dimensions that have spun-off to a small business – automated units are now being used in national labs, in an Air Logistics Center, and in universities around the world.

 

Miracle led the initial formation of the Air Force Metals Affordability Initiative, a unique program that teams aerospace industrial competitors to achieve common, pre-competitive goals. This program is still going strong after 17 years with over 85 technology insertions.

 

Miracle led a major technology initiative in Ukraine in the critical timeframe after the fall of the Berlin wall that focused former Soviet scientists on Air Force needs. In recent years, Miracle helped build major technical alliances between the U.S. Department of Defense and the Ministries of Defence in the United Kingdom, Japan and India.

 

Nominating Miracle for the award was Professor Chris Schuh, Chair, Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 

Miracle has been one of the most important thought leaders in structural materials over the past several decades,” said Schuh. “He has not only solved some of the most challenging fundamental scientific problems, but has also transformed this new knowledge into practical benefit. He attacks the most challenging problems and opens new fields of study, producing science and technology advances that improve the world and advance human understanding.”

 

Miracle was selected based on his original and pioneering contributions on a range of structural metallic alloys, and for technical and strategic leadership in the international technical community.

 

"Nothing quite beats recognition by peers who I respect and admire as recognition of a meaningful career,” said Miracle. “I felt extremely honored and more than a little bit humbled by the award."