Hello Everyone,

I have a request. Can someone please provide me with a metallurgy research design template? Or even help guide me through designing my research? I'm starting my 5th year (yeah, I know) in a MSE PhD program and for the last 3 years my advisor has instructed me to perform experiments on my alloy without reason. And while I thought this was weird because I should've studied the microstructure before wasting samples on experiments, I trusted his instructions because he's the professor and I'm the student adjusting to a new major. Now, after all of this, he is saying it's not good enough. So, instead of wasting more of my time doing a "1 page dissertation statement" with his very vague requests, I would prefer to clearly design my future research to blend with my current work in a logical manner.

In addition, he himself doesn't know what he wants in this "dissertation statement".

I greatly appreciate any help you can give me. If you need more information, please let me know.

This is quite a specific request and I'm not sure whether anyone on here is working in your area so you may not get many replies.

Hi OkeChi,

I'm not sure if I can be much help but I'm also finishing up my PhD in Materials Engineering at the moment, although my research isn't on metallurgy. It's difficult to provide a template for research design as it will differ depending on your problem.

What is your overall research question for your PhD? You need to have a research question defined rather than just performing experiments without reason. What experimental data do you need to be able to answer this research question? Yo should then design your experiments to collect this data in a structured way. How does the data you have already collected fit in to this?

For preparing a one page dissertation statement, I would probably first introduce what your overall problem/research question is. Then try to split the research question into 3 or 4 smaller objectives, discussing briefly the data you will need to collect for each, and what methods you will use.

I hope this helps in some way?