My group focuses on understanding and quantifying the degradation of the performance of materials caused by interactions with their environments. These interactions impact the materials’ safety, reliability, and sustainability during the service lifetimes of the engineering structures. By understanding the controlling processes, we can develop predictive models of corrosion performance for real-life applications such as aircraft, ships, civil infrastructure, and biomedical devices.
Standardized corrosion test methods are a required part of the qualification and material design of aluminum alloys used in high-performance aircraft structures. These accelerated tests seek to differentiate the long-term (e.g., 20 years) performance of these alloys as part of a structure in a much shorter time (e.g., 60 days). Although widely used and generally successful, there has been a series of cases in which these test methods have failed to identify materials that are highly susceptible to different forms of corrosion, leading to high costs for repair and low availability of new aircraft. Understanding the “why” of the test method failures is a prerequisite for the design of accurate accelerated corrosion testing. The student project will involve combining electrochemical and morphology assessment tools to isolate the reasons for the non-predictive results. The work will be done in collaboration with Savannah Horowitz, one of my senior graduate students. The student will learn to use electrochemical methods extensively due to their high sensitivity and wide dynamic range in the measurement of reaction rates. The student will also apply advanced measurement methods including optical profilometry, electron microscopy, and multi-physics computational tools to help connect the electrochemical measurements to physical damage (e.g., loss of material, cracking). The results of this work will have a direct impact on the test methodology used to qualify aluminum alloys for service in aircraft structures.
1. Ability to ask questions about what they are being taught when they are unsure
2. Willingness to develop new skills
3. Good note-keeping
4. Ability to work in a team environment
1. The student will be able to determine whether they want to further pursue research as a possible career path.
2. The student will learn a range of materials science skills and concepts.
3. The student will develop a better understanding of the role of materials in the performance of engineering structures.
4. The student will learn how to document their work and manage their time, which will be helpful throughout their career.