Fellow and Tutor in Engineering Science

Dong (Lilly) Liu

  • I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Science.
  • My research focuses on the deformation and fracture of advanced structural materials used in nuclear fission/fusion, aerospace and hydrogen storage applications.
  • I held various fellowships including 1851 Exhibition Fellow (Brunel), EPSRC Postdoctoral Fellow and previously as a Junior Research Fellow at Mansfield College.
  • Before joining Trinity in January 2024, I was Associate Professor in the University of Bristol where I was lead of Materials and Devices Theme in the School of Physics.

Teaching

As a tutorial fellow in Engineering Science, I give tutorials for a range of courses in Trinity including Statics (P3A&B), Materials and Solid Mechanics (P3C, D&G), Bending and Torsion (P3E&F),  Thermodynamics (P4A-C), Fluid Mechanics (P4D-F), Dimensional Analysis (P4G), Heat and Mass Transfer (P4H&J), Structural Failure (A3A&B), Mechanics of Materials (A3C&D), Elastic Analysis of Structures (A3E).

Research

My expertise lies in the area of real-time, high temperature multiple-scale microstructural and mechanical characterization of advanced materials such as nuclear carbon/graphite composites (e.g., nuclear reactor core component and target materials for large particle accelerators), SiC and oxide-based composites (e.g., fuel cladding for accident tolerant fuel, aeroengine components, solar power tower systems and fusion), TRi-structural ISOtropic particle fuel (TRISO), as well as heterogeneously integrated semiconductor materials such as GaN-on-diamond for high power electronics. In the meantime, my group specialised in characterizing and understanding the mechanical behaviour of medium/high entropy alloys and metallic coatings at extremely low temperatures down to 20K for applications in space and liquid hydrogen conditions.

I have published a co-authored book (Ritchie and Liu, Introduction to Fracture Mechanics, Elsevier, 2021), and more than 50 journal papers including first author papers in Science, Nature Communications and Carbon.

The research in my group is funded by multiple sources such as EPSRC, BEIS/DSIT, STFC, US DoE (Department of Energy), European Commission, and multiple industrial companies/institutes in the UK, EU and USA.

I am a member of several technical committees (e.g., IOM3  Ceramic Science Committee, ASTM Committee C28 (International Standards for Properties and Performance of Advanced Ceramics) and Composite Materials Handbook Testing Standards (CMH-17) Committee) where I have the opportunity to work with international experts to help shape the landscape in engineering materials.

Selected Publications

R. O. Ritchie and D. Liu, Introduction to Fracture Mechanics, Elsevier, 2021

M. Jiang, K. Ammigan, G. Lolov, F. Pellemoine and D. Liu, A novel method for quantifying irradiation damage in nuclear graphite using Raman spectroscopy, Carbon, Vol. 213, 118181, 2023

G. Yuan, J. P. Forna-Kreutzer, P. Xu, S. Gonderman, C. Deck, L. Olson, E. Lahoda, R. O. Ritchie, D. Liu, In situ high-temperature 3D imaging of the damage evolution in a SiC nuclear fuel cladding material, Materials & Design, Vol. 227, 111784, 2023.

A. J. Leide, N. Tzelepi, J. Payne, M. Jordan, S. Knol, J. A. Vreeling, M. Davies, D. T. Goddard, M. J. Pfeifenberger, M. Alfreider, D. Kiener and D. Liu, Measurement of residual stresses in coated fuel particles using ring-core focussed ion beam digital image correlation, Nuclear Materials and Energy, Vol. 36, 101470, 2023

D. Liu, Q. Yu, S. Kabra, M. Jiang, P. Forna-Kreutzer, R. Zhang, M. Payne, F. Walsh, B. Gludovatz, M. Asta, A. M. Minor, E. P. George, R. O. Ritchie, Exceptional fracture toughness of CrCoNi-based medium- and high-entropy alloys at 20 kelvin, Science, Vol. 378, Issue 6623, pp. 978-983, 2022.

J. P. Forna-Kreutzer, J. Ell, H. Barnard, T. J. Pirzada, R. O. Ritchie, D. Liu. Full-field characterisation of oxide-oxide ceramic-matrix composites using X-ray computed micro-tomography and digital volume correlation under load at high temperatures, Vol. 208, 109899, Materials and Design, 2021.

M. Jordan, D. Liu, Ming Jiang and A. Tzelepi, A Review of High-Temperature Characterization of Nuclear Graphites int eh  Graphite Testing for Nuclear Applications: The Validity and Extension of Test Methods for Material Exposed to Operating Reactor Environments (STP1639-EB), Edited by: Athanasia Tzelepi, Martin Metcalfe, 2022.

D. Liu, D. Cherns, S. Johns, Y. Zhou, J. Liu, W. Chen, I. Griffiths, C. Karthik, M Li, M Kuball, J. Kane, W. Widnes. A macro-scale ruck and tuck mechanism for deformation in ion-irradiated polycrystalline graphite, Carbon, vol. 173, 215-231, 2020.

D. Liu, T. Zillhardt, P. Earp, S. Kabra, T. Connolley, T. J. Marrow, In situ measurement of elastic and total strains during ambient and high temperature deformation of a polygranular graphite, Carbon, vol. 163, 308-323, 2020.

D. Liu, S Knol, J Ell, H Barnard, M Davies, JA Vreeling, RO Ritchie, X-ray tomography study on the crushing strength and irradiation behaviour of dedicated tristructural isotropic nuclear fuel particles at 1000°C, Materials & Design, vol. 187, 108382, 2020.

D. Liu, S. Fabes, B. Li, D. Francis, R. O. Ritchie, M. Kuball, On the characterisation of the interfacial toughness in a novel “GaN-on-Diamond” material for high-power RF devices, ACS Applied Electronic Materials, vol. 1, issue 3, 354-369, 2019.

D. Liu, and D. Cherns, Nano-cracks in a synthetic graphite composite for nuclear applications, Philosophical Magazine, vol. 98, issue 14, 1272-1283, 2018.

Dr Liu
dong.liu@trinity.ox.ac.uk

The measure of greatness in a scientific idea is the extent to which it stimulates thought and opens up new lines of research.

Paul Dirac, 1968