The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah is excited to announce the arrival of Dr. Owen Kingstedt as our newest tenure-track faculty member.
Undergrad Wins SURF Speaking Competition
Pasadena Calif. – Caltech Material science undergraduate student Moriah Bischann, mentored by aerospace postdoctoral scholar, Dr. Owen Kingstedt, is the winner of the Doris S. Perpall Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) Speaking Competition. She was recognized as the best speakers-out of the 200 students who presented their SURF research.
Kingstedt Presents at SEM International Congress Conference
Dr. Kingstedt presents his work on the thermal signatures of deformation mechanisms and the localization evolution prior to failure in Mg Alloy AZ31B at the Society of Experimental Mechanics International Congress in Orlando, FL, June 2016.
The Society for Experimental Mechanics is composed of international members from academia, government, and industry who are committed to interdisciplinary application, research and development, education, and active promotion of experimental methods to: (a) increase the knowledge of physical phenomena; (b) further the understanding of the behavior of materials, structures and systems; and (c) provide the necessary physical basis and verification for analytical and computational approaches to the development of engineering solutions.
Kingstedt Shares Research at MACH Conference
Dr. Kingstedt shares his work on the conversion of plastic work to heat at the MACH Conference in Baltimore, MD, April 2016.
The fundamental approach of the Mach Conference is derived in part from the work of Ernst Mach, a scholar and philosopher who made fundamental contributions to mechanics and wave propagation. The Mach Conference showcases the state of the art of multiscale research in materials, with an emphasis on advancing the fundamental science and engineering of materials and structures in extreme environments.
Deformation Twinning
Because of the low symmetry hexagonal close packed atomic structure of Mg there are a limited number of deformation mechanisms to accommodate deformation along the crystallographic c-axis. Only one dislocation slip based mechanism can accommodate deformation along the c-axis. Therefore, deformation twinning plays a dominant role in the accommodation of deformation along the c-axis. To date there have been a number of studies to examine twinning but there are still a number of critical details that need to be addressed to properly inform modeling efforts. Shown below are the first in-situ images of twin propagation of single crystal magnesium, images captured by Vignesh Kannan at Johns Hopkins University. From these images insight is gained towards the kinetics of twinning and nucleation sites during strain accommodation. Corresponding microstructural analysis elucidates the formation of secondary twins (twins within twins) at small scales that not previously been observed.
Strain Localization Evolution and Failure
High speed imaging is combined with high strain rate loading to probe the evolution of strain localization leading up to failure in Mg alloys. From this study pathways for deformation are identified which lead to undesired shear band formation and crack formation. Show below is a comparison of the strain localization that occurs at a machined defect for three different loading orientations. The left two strain maps demonstrate the ability of two loading orientations to accommodate deformation in regions away from the specimen through hole. The strain map on the right shows strong localization near the machined defect which leads to the formation of undesirable cracking.
