Undergraduate MSE Students Attend Frontiers Poster Session

By Amanda Campanaro

(Left to right:) Amanda Giroux and Hetal Patel, MSE undergraduates, pose with Assistant Professor Seok-Woo Lee, whose lab they work in, at the Frontiers in Undergraduate Research poster session. Amanda’s poster, titled “Superelasticity of ThCr2Si2-type Intermetallic compounds,” is visible to the left.

Three Materials Science and Engineering undergraduates attended Frontiers in Undergraduate Research April 7-8 to present their research on posters to peers, professionals and visitors.

Frontiers in Undergraduate Research is the annual poster exhibition of student research, scholarship, and creative projects, where students can share their work with the UConn community and visitors to campus.

Amanda Giroux of Assistant Professor Seok-Woo Lee’s lab presented her poster titled “Superelasticity of ThCr2Si2-type intermetallic compounds,” for which she collected additional information to assist graduate students John Sypek and Keith Dusoe with their publication of the same title. Amanda worked last summer semester as an NSF-REU student (National Science Foundation – Research Experiences for Undergraduates). 

Drew Cietek in front of his poster entitled "titled “Optimizing YAG Thermal Barrier Coatings Synthesized with Solution Precursor Plasma Spray with Taguchi Design of Experiment.” A Taguchi design of experiment was utilized on the Sinplex plasma gun to discover a set of process variables that would result in a dense and uniform yttria aluminum garnet (YAG) coating synthesized with solution precursor plasma spray.

Drew Cietek in front of his poster entitled “titled “Optimizing YAG Thermal Barrier Coatings Synthesized with Solution Precursor Plasma Spray with Taguchi Design of Experiment.” A Taguchi design of experiment was utilized on the Sinplex plasma gun to discover a set of process variables that would result in a dense and uniform yttria aluminum garnet (YAG) coating synthesized with solution precursor plasma spray.

Hetal Patel, also of Dr. Lee’s lab, presented her poster titled “Measurement of Theoretical Strength of a Single-crystal Metal Using Spherical Indentation.” Hetal is measuring the maximum possible strength of metal by using spherical nano-indentation technique. She is looking at how mechanical damages on the surface affects her measurement. She has worked in Dr. Lee’s lab for a year and a half.

Some of both Amanda and Hetal’s results contributed to John Sypek’s work, which was recently submitted to a journal for review. Amanda and Hetal are co-authors of this manuscript. 

Finally, Drew Cietek presented his poster titled “Optimizing YAG Thermal Barrier Coatings Synthesized with Solution Precursor Plasma Spray with Taguchi Design of Experiment,” in collaboration with Dr. Mauric Gell’s group and Emeritus UT Professor of Advanced Materials Processing Eric Jordan of Mechanical Engineering.

Published: April 19, 2017

Categories: awards, news, research, undergraduate students

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