Francisco Manuel Braz Fernandes

Universidade Nova de Lisboa Portugal

Francisco Manuel Braz Fernandes was born in 1951 in Beira, Mozambique. He graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Instituto Superir Técnico (Lisbon, 1976), had the “Diplôme d\'Études Approfondies - Métallurgie Spéciale et Matériaux” from University of Orsay (Paris XI, 1982), the PhD degree from École des Mines de Nancy (Nancy, 1985) and the Habilitation in Physical Metallurgy at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (2008). He is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Materials Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He is also Head of the Structural Materials Research Group from CENIMAT (Centro de Investigação de Materiais). The research activity where he is currently involved is mostly focused on shape memory alloys, from thin film deposition to thermomechanical processing (including severe plastic deformation), laser welding and shape memory/superelasticity applications (medicine, civil engineering and metalworking), using characterization techniques such as X-ray diffraction, namely with synchrotron radiation, thermal analysis (DSC), mechanical testing and electrical resistance. He has more than 100 papers published in international scientific journals, and is responsible for the supervision or co-supervision of 7 PhD thesis and a large number of MSc dissertations already presented. As a hobby, he is a philatelist owning a stamp collection on Materials Science and Engineering.

Francisco Manuel Braz Fernandes

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Latest work with IntechOpen by Francisco Manuel Braz Fernandes

Shape memory alloys have become in the past decades a well established research subject. However, the complex relations between properties and structure have created a continuously growing interest for a deeper insight all this time. The complexity of relationships between structure and properties is mostly related to the fact that strong ?multidimensional? interactions are taking place: from the early studies focusing on the thermal and/or mechanical induced phase transformations to the more recent findings on the magnetically induced structural changes. On the other hand, these singular behavioral characteristics have driven a great industrial interest due to the innovative aspects that the applications of shape memory alloys may provide. This makes this subject a highly attractive source of continuous studies, ranging from basics crystallography and thermodynamics to mechanical analysis and electrical and magnetic properties characterization. In this book, a group of recent studies is compiled focusing on a wide range of topics from processing to the relationship between the structure and properties, as well as new applications.

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