Wu Ziliang was born in Pujiang County, Zhejiang Province in Dec. 1917. He graduated in 1939 from Beiyang University.
During 1939-1942 he worked in the Engineering Department of Sino-American Aircraft Manufacturing Co. as a junior designer. From 1942 to 1943 he was employed by the Kunming Machinery Works as a junior engineer.
Later, Wu was admitted to Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, USA as a graduate student in the Department of Metallurgy majoring in physical metallurgy. He graduated in 1948 with a D. Sc. degree and joined the research staff of Carnegie Tech. as a Post-Doctorate right after his graduation.
During 1949-1950 he was employed by the Department of Material Science and Engineering, Syracuse University as a project engineer in charge a naval research project concerning with the fundamental studies of damping capacity and fatigue properties in mild steel.
Early in 1951 Wu Ziliang joined the faculty of the Department of Metallurgical Engineering, Northern Jiaotong University, China, as a professor of physical metallurgy. He was transferred to the Shanghai Institute of Metallurgy (SIM), Academia Sinica (later known as Chinese Academy of Sciences) in the fall of 1951 as a research professor, and was promoted to associated director in 1960.
Wu’s work was acknowledged as a modeling example to the establishment of low alloy steel system in China. In the 1950s, he conducted a research project and succeeded in manufacturing the 'A' type membrane used for Uranium isotope separation. This work broke down the barricade of the most important nuclear technology monopolized by the superpowers.
Wu spent most of his career as a researcher at the Shanghai Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In the early 1960s, he began to study the interactive internal friction peak of transitional elements Mn, Cr, Mo, V, Ti and N in steels. He clarified many disputes and falsehood existing in earlier studies. He proved that only titanium had enough nitrogen fixation capability. He later turned to study oxygen diffusion mechanisms in high temperature superconductor YBCO, acquiring exact oxygen diffusivity and diffusion activation energy.
Among his contributions in the area of magnetron sputtered c tropism film, Wu discovered that the oxygenation speed of film relied on quick oxygen transport process provided by dislocation conduit of vertical c-axis monocrystals. He was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980.
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