University Affiliates

Major research interests center on radiation materials science and environmental effects on metals, including stress corrosion cracking, high temperature corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement. Current work in the area of stress corrosion cracking focuses on the determination of the mechanism of intergranular cracking in austenitic alloys in high temperature aqueous solutions with emphasis on the role of grain boundary structure, chemistry and deformation. Ion irradiation and stress corrosion cracking are linked through an investigation of the mechanism of irradiation in the assisted stress corrosion cracking of core components in nuclear reactors, by using proton irradiation to study the effects of neutron irradiation. Other current projects are on stress corrosion cracking in supercritical water, oxidtion of nickel-base alloys in very high temperature, impure He gas and irradiation creep of pyrolytic carbon.