Armand Beaudoin, University of Illinois Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has accepted the position of InSitμ Industrial Program Director. Armand will spend several months per year at CHESS with industrial users developing and implementing experimental and computational solutions to their most demanding structural materials challenges. Together with InSitμ Director, Matt Miller, Armand visited current InSitμ partners, Caterpillar and Boeing this fall to discuss the first project each company will bring to the beamline.
In December, Armand, along with F2 beamline scientist Darren Dale, research associate Peter Ko and graduate students Darren Pagan and Mark Obstalecki worked with Justin Mach from Caterpillar to make lattice strain measurements on a welded steel sample for the determination of residual stress. Quantifying fabrication-induced stress is one of the methods Caterpillar is exploring to continually improve the performance and durability of their world-class earthmoving equipment. Armand recently spent several days at Caterpillar's Global R&D Headquarters in Mossville, Illinois, working with Justin on the data reduction and comparing to process modeling results. We anticipate more experiments during the spring run cycle.