The creation of ceramics and composites to withstand extreme environments is crucial for various applications, from concentrated solar power to hypersonic flight and nuclear fusion. These environments impose stresses beyond the capabilities of current materials, resulting in the need for the development of new materials and combinations to meet these criteria. For instance, hypersonic flight requires materials that can operate at temperatures above 2000°C, requiring creative ways of producing and developing such materials.
Interested in discussing the research we are working on or learning more? Please contact:
Curators' Distinguished Professor
(573) 341-6343 | billf@mst.edu |
130 Straumanis-James Hall
Ultra-high temperature ceramics, traditional ceramic processing, solution and colloidal sol-gel processing of bulk and thin-film ceramics, reactive processing, ceramic-metal composites by reactive metal penetration and reactive hot pressing, reactions at ceramic-metal interfaces, wetting of ceramics, low p(oxygen) atmospheres, thermodynamics.
Curators' Distinguished Professor
(573) 341-6102 | ghilmas@mst.edu |
B39 McNutt Hall
Processing-microstructure-mechanical property relationships in ultra-high temperature ceramics, in particular transition metal carbides, nitrides and diborides, novel processing techniques for the fabrication of fibrous monolithic ceramics, multilayered ceramics, hierarchically structured ceramics, and ceramic composites.
Associate Professor
Associate Chair for Academic Affairs
(573) 341-6165 | lipked@mst.edu |
224 McNutt Hall
Materials compatibility in extreme environments (e.g., high temperatures and reactive atmospheres), microstructure development via high temperature gas-solid and liquid-solid interactions, and applications of reaction processing for composite materials synthesis.
Associate Research Professor
(573) 341-6386 | jwatts@mst.edu |
322 McNutt Hall
Ultra-high temperature ceramics, microstructure-property relationships in ultra-high temperature and structural ceramics, manipulation of microstructures and properties through novel processing techniques, ceramic matrix composites, reactive processing.
Associate Professor
Associate Chair for Research
(573) 341-6167 | wenha@mst.edu |
B45 McNutt Hall
Development and fabrication of advanced materials such as bulk nanostructured alloys, high entropy alloys and bulk metallic glasses; Microstructure characterization of materials using transmission electron microscopy and atom probe tomography; Mechanical behavior and deformation mechanisms of materials; Nuclear fuels and structural materials designed for current and next generation nuclear reactors.
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