SURYA R. KALIDINDI

Department of Materials Engineering
Drexel University
Philadelphia, PA, USA.

E-mail: skalidin@coe.drexel.edu
Web: www.materials.drexel.edu/faculty/surya/sk.html

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Professor Kalidindi's research interests cut across the interdisciplinary fields of mechanical behavior of materials and materials science and engineering. He is currently focusing his research efforts in the following areas.

Materials by Design
The goal of this effort is to develop rigorous mathematical tools capable of designing materials for specified (targeted) performance (combination of properties) in highly constrained design applications. The central focus of Materials Science and Engineering as a field of study has been to seek and understand the important connections in materials between properties, microstructure, and the processing steps involved, and to exploit these in the design of engineering components.  In practice, the information flow between these distinct but related components of the overall design process is quite limited and mostly in a single direction (processing®microstructure®properties®design).  Recently, in collaboration with Professors Brent Adams (Brigham Young University) and  Hamid Garmestani (FSU), Professor Kalidindi has formulated and developed a new paradigm in materials design and coined it Microstructure Sensitive Design (MSD). Note that the term microstructure here encompasses all relevant details of the material structure over several hierarchal length scales (ranging from atomic scale to macroscale). MSD provides a rigorous mathematical framework for design and development of new materials by finding the best possible microstructures that yield the best (feasible) performance characteristics for the targeted application. Microstructure Sensitive Design (MSD) exploits the fact that all aspects of materials design can be carried out efficiently in a common Fourier space.  In this novel approach, the design objectives and constraints are represented as iso-property planes in Fourier space.  The universe of all possible microstructures is represented as a material hull in the same Fourier space.  The intersection of iso-property planes and the material hull then represent the complete family of preferred microstructures that are predicted to satisfy the design problem.  Processing options to realize the preferred microstructures are also explored in the same Fourier space. MSD enables efficient communication in the design team, speeds up the design process, allows consideration of a rich family of materials and microstructures, offers tremendous savings in time and effort, and results in superior design solutions.

Bioimplants
Over the past decade, Professor Kalidindi's research has addressed a several applications in the biomedical field, especially in development of new bioimplantable materials and devices to aid in treatment of injury and/or disease to the human body, using the Materials by Design approach. In these studies, performance targets were first established firmly for specific applications. New materials or processing techniques were then developed using the available empirical knowledge (the rigorous mathematical  framework of MSD was developed only during the past six months). Specifically, the following were accomplished: (i) design, development, and fabrication of a new class of swelling-type bone anchors for applications requiring fixation in bone, especially cancellous bone, (ii) design, development, and fabrication of a new class of intravascular stents for treatment of aneurysms in cerebral and femoral arteries. Major collaborators for this effort are Prof. A. Wakhloo (School of Medicine, University of Miami), Prof. Riad Gobran (Drexel University), Prof. Frank K. Ko (Drexel University) and Prof. Sorin Siegler (Drexel University).

Microstructure Evolution During Large Plastic Strains in Metal Forming
This effort has been the most dominant and recognized aspect of Professor Kalidindi's past research activity. The focus of this effort has been to develop an improved understanding of the micromechanics involved in the evolution of microstructure during large plastic strains typical of metal forming operations, and to develop numerical (finite element) simulation tools capable of predicting the deformed microstructure (and properties) in arbitrary deformation processing operations. This has led to successful development of a family of crystal plasticity codes that are now being used by about ten different research groups internationally. More recent effort has been focused on: (i) evolution of grain-scale microstructure in aluminum using Orientation Imaging Microscopy and numerical simulations with crystal plasticity models, (ii) formation of deformation twins in low stacking fault energy fcc metals and in hcp metals and its influence on the evolution of crystallographic texture in the material, (iii) development of a crystal plasticity model capable of incorporating the multi-axial loading effects in deformation path-change experiments in both fcc and bcc metals. Major collaborators for this work are Prof. Paul Van Houtte (Katholieke Universitiet, Belgium), Prof. Hamid Garmestani (FSU) and Prof. Roger Doherty (Drexel University).

Copied from http://www.materials.drexel.edu/faculty/surya/sk.html, 2001