RSSEL’s graduate student Trevor Marchhart presented the poster titled Stress Distribution of Disk Geometry Under Three-Point Bending Tests to Evaluate Mechanical Properties of Neutron-Irradiated Tungsten For Future Fusion Devices at the 2022 TMS (The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society) meeting in Anaheim, CA.

Congratulations to Nathan Reid, RSSEL’s graduate student, who was one of four students to receive best paper award at the 2020 ANS TOFE Student Paper Competition for the paper “Design and analysis of an advanced three-point bend test approach for miniature irradiated disk specimens”.

High flux test reactors, such as the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, are used to extrapolate the understanding of radiation damage and property change to fusion neutron irradiation. Current fission reactor-based irradiation data and future fusion neutron testbeds such as the Fusion Prototypic Neutron Source (FPNS) will require low-volume specimens to be mechanically tested under a multitude of material microstructures, alloys, composites, and irradiation conditions. Nathan’s design for a three-point bend test approach and fixture allows for analysis of irradiated microscopy disk specimens (3 mm in diameter) under conditions of flexural stress states in a bulk material or composite. This test will allow us to record and analyze fracture from non-uniform stress conditions that lead to failure in fusion candidate materials and develop an understanding of laminate composite bond properties of dissimilar metals.”

Congratulations to Eric Lang for starting last month in his new role as a postdoctoral researcher at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, NM.  Eric successfully defended his thesis titled “Deciphering the role of dispersoids in dispersion-strengthened tungsten alloys on the mechanical properties and irradiation-driven response under nuclear fusion reactor-relevant conditions” in September 2020.  Eric’s work will be published in several peer-reviewed papers that highlight his work in recrystallization and PMI properties of dispersion-strengthened tungsten materials developed for future fusion reactors in RSSEL in collaboration with Prof. Jessica Krogstad of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Illinois.

Congratulations to RSSEL’s graduate student Andrea Mesa Restrepo, awarded the 2020 Julie D. Erdley Graduate Scholarship in the College of Engineering for her service to the College’s Graduate Equity program. This award goes to graduate students in the college who show leadership and service to the Women in Engineering program. Andrea is a PhD student in Penn State’s Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Congratulations to former RSSEL student Felipe Bedoya who recently joined Intel Corporation’s Components Research Division as Components Research Engineer. He is the second student from RSSEL working at Intel, joining Brandon Holybee who joined Intel’s nanolithography group within Components Research in 2018. Felipe will join the atomic layer etch group focusing on unique, enabling capabilities across all aspects of Intel’s semiconductor processing roadmap.

As of January former RSSEL graduate student, Sandra Arias, joined Prof. Brito’s lab at Cornell University as a postdoctoral research associate.  Sandra joined Cornell after successfully defending her thesis “Self-organized nanostructures for the design of bioinspired anti-biofouling interfaces” on December 2019.  Sandra recently published a journal paper from her thesis in the ACS Publication – Langmuir, titled “Escherichia coli Adhesion and Biofilm Formation on Polydimethylsiloxane are Independent of Substrate Stiffness“, where she elucidated the thermo-elastic properties of nanopatterned polymer structures and their anti-bacterial properties.

RSSEL’s graduate student, Nathan Reid, is conducting part of his Ph.D. research at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).  Nathan works under the supervision of Dr. Lauren Garrison and Dr. Juergen Rapp.  Nathan’s work with Dr. Garrison is focused on advanced fusion materials testing, and the work with Dr. Rapp is helping implement, test and run the Materials Analysis Particle Probe (MAPP) on the Proto-MPEX linear plasma device. Learn more in the ORNL news article.

Welcome to RSSEL’s webpage at Penn State! On July 1st, 2019 Prof. Allain moved to Penn State University where he leads the Ken and Mary Alice Lindquist Department of Nuclear Engineering and the Radiation Surface Science and Engineering Lab (RSSEL). Prof. Allain maintains an appointment at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an Adjunct Professor.