K. S. Ravi Chandran, PhD

Professor, Metallurgical Engineering

Metallurgical Engineering
William Browning
135 S 1460 East Rm 00412
Salt Lake City, Ut 84112

Office: 409 WBB
Office Phone: (801) 581-7197
Email: ravi.chandran@utah.edu
>> Curriculum Vitae
My Website: www.metallurgy.utah.edu/?&pageId=5392

Degrees:
1988 Ph.D. Metallurgy and Materials Science, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
1985 M. Eng. with Distinction, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
1983 B.Eng. with Honors, PSG Institute of Technology, Coimbatore, India

Research Statement

Dr. Chandran s research is largely in the broad area of materials and mechanics, with particular emphasis on theoretical and experimental investigations on metallic materials, nanostructured ceramics, coatings and novel structural material concepts. His research has been supported by NSF, AFOSR, ARL, ARO, Wright Patterson AFB, UES Inc., DARPA, US Magnesium, Ortho Development Corporation etc. with a cumulative research funding of about 2.5M since joining the University of Utah. The research includes both academic and fundamental explorations as well as industrial problem solving. He also consults for industry on engineering failure analysis of materials, structures, components and devices. He is author or co-author of over 100 publications and over 75 technical presentations and 3 US Patents awarded. Ten of his publications have received citations of over 30 each. His H-Index (Hirsch Index) is 17 (at least 17 publications cited over 17 times). He has been a thesis advisor for and supervised 6 PhD and 10 MS research students and advised 5 undergraduate students in their summer research.

RESEARCH AREAS

Mechanical and physical metallurgy of metallic materials including metals, nanostructured materials, laminates, composites, cermets and coatings
High-capacity anodes for Li batteries
High-cycle fatigue of titanium and nickel-base superalloys
First principles computational mechanical behavior
Development of orthopedic implant devices and armor materials
Synthesis, structure and properties of functionally graded materials
Fracture mechanics, failure analysis

Research Keywords, Regions of Interest and Languages:

Keywords: Biomedical Engineering (5); Computational Mechanics (3); Electron Microscopy (2); Information Science or Systems; Mechanical Metallurgy; Nanomechanics; Physical Metallurgy; Structural Materials
Regions: China (13); Europe (37); India (5); United States (56)
Languages: Tamil (6)

Research Projects

Ab-inito Calculations of elastic constants [details]

We perform first principles computational calculations of aniosotropic elastic constants of hard-to-synthesize compounds by density functional theory based codes such as WIEN2K.

Center of Excellence on Titanium Boride Materials [details]

The State of Utah Center of Excellence on Titanium Boride Materials is a State-University-Industry partnership project to design, develop and evaluate biomedical implant materials, new aerospace bearing and gear materials and armor materials, based on coated or monolithic titanium boride.

Project Grants: Center of Excellence on Titanium Boride Materials: Department of Economic Development 2003

Duality and Competing Failure Modes in Fatigue [details]

Based on our recent discovery of Duality of Fatigue in commercial metallic materials (Nature Materials, April 2005) research is directed toward understanding in detail, both experimentally and theoretically, the competing fatigue failure modes in aircraft engine materials.

Project Grants: Controlling Competing Failure Modes in Fatigue: National Science Foundation 2006

Stress Intensity Factor Solution Development [details]

Research to develop analytical expressions for functionally graded materials and wedge-type specimens is in progress.

Synthesis of Nanostructured Titanium Boride [details]

Nanostructured titanium boride (TiB) having hardness, strength and toughness comparable to commercial silicon nitride, is being developed by optimising the powder packing and sintering paramters.

Wear-Resistant Titnium Boride Coatings [details]

Super-hard titanium boride coatings for titanium orthopedic devices and components are under development.