Dr. Kimberley’s research group will be participating in a recently awarded program “Systematic
Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) Approach Linking Feedstocks to Additive Manufacturing Sciences” to investigate additive manufactured materials for US Army applications. The interdisciplinary program is led by Dr. Majumdar of Materials Engineering and involves faculty from Materials Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Chemical Engineering at NMT. Overall, the project focuses on a materials-by-design approaches to develop new precursor materials and processing pathways for additively manufactured materials.

Dr. Kimberley and students in his Dynamic Deformation and Failure Laboratory play a role in two aspects of this project. The first is conducting high strain rate experiments to evaluate the response of the AM materials produced from the feedstocks developed elsewhere in this program.  These experiments seek characterize deformation mechanisms that are active under high-rate loading and typically employ ultra-high-speed imaging to assist in identifying the active mechanisms.  These mechanisms ultimately manifest as some global property (e.g. strength), and provide a pathway to control the properties of interest. Identification and understanding these deformation mechanisms are critical components of the ICME approach because it allows for targeted control of mechanism-property relations and “closes the loop”, verifying that the predicted changes occur as feedstocks are modified.  The second area of impact is the mechanical/functional evaluation of additively manufactured “hybrid” electronics systems. These multi-material components are expected to be subjected to high-acceleration service conditions. A series of experiments designed to evaluate both the constituent materials and the manufactured devices will be conducted to ensure their mechanical and functional integrity during and after high-acceleration loading. 

As part of the grant Dr. Kimberley will be establishing a laser driven shock facility to expand
experimental capabilities in to the ultra-high rate loading regime where shock propagation and spall failure are critical physics of interest. This new facility will be sued to evaluate the shock/spall strength of AM metals, as well as measure the adhesion strength of AM films for electronic components. These new capabilities will further enrich learning opportunities for students at NMT and prepare them for careers in areas of interest to the DOD and DOE.