Professor Choi Hyun-ju's research team (Nano-Convergence Structural Materials Research Laboratory) at the Department of New Materials Engineering, Kookmin University, has announced that Jeon Seo-yeon, a master's student in the Department of New Materials Engineering (Class of 2023), has won the “Best Top 20 Student of the Year” award at the 2025 Spring Academic Conference of the Korean Society of Metallurgy and Materials (April 23-25, 2025, Jeju International Convention Center).

The title of the presented paper is “High-Speed Screening Study of Precipitates in Al-Cu Alloys Using a Database.” Through this study, the team overcame the limitations of traditional empirical design by predicting the stability and formation potential of new precipitates based on big data, and evaluated the possibility of phase formation through experimental verification.

In this study, the OQMD (The Open Quantum Materials Database), a big data-based database, was utilized to explore and evaluate aluminum alloy precipitates in previously unexplored areas. As a result, the Al-Cu-La ternary phase was derived, and Al-Cu-La alloys with various compositions were produced to analyze mechanical properties and microstructures according to the Cu and La ratios. Through these analyses, it was confirmed that Cu-La balanced alloys can simultaneously achieve excellent hardness and high-temperature stability. Based on this, an optimal alloy design strategy is expected to provide a new direction for the development of high-performance aluminum alloys.