ASTM Committees E08 on Fatigue and Fracture and F04 on Medical and Surgical Materials and Devices recognized the following students for their technical papers:

Kevin K. Liu, a graduate student at the University of California, Davis, Calif., won the 2005 student paper competition sponsored by ASTM Committee E08 on Fatigue and Fracture. Liu’s paper, "The Effects of Laser Peening on the Fatigue Performance of Aerospace Structural Alloys," focuses on how this surface treatment enhances failure resistance. The results include data from programs conducted with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Metal Improvement Co. about residual stress and fatigue performance of laser-peened materials.

Liu lives in Newark, Calif.

The E08 student paper competition award is given to encourage students to develop, present, and publish high quality research papers in the field of fracture and subcritical crack growth. Papers must be presented at a program sponsored or co-sponsored by the committee.

Currently working on his M.S. in mechanical engineering, with his research advised by Dr. Michael R. Hill, Liu is also a researcher in the material performance laboratory of the Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering Dept. of the university. He is now investigating the effects of laser peening on the fretting fatigue behavior of Ti-6Al-4V. The research again involves collaboration with the Metal Improvement Co. and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Liu’s technical interests include mechanical design using fatigue, fracture, stress and materials analysis, and combine aspects of both mechanical engineering and material science engineering, his undergraduate majors. He received his B.S. in 2003 from the University of California, Davis. Liu is a student member of ASTM International.

Dong Zhao, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Fla., has won the student paper competition sponsored by ASTM International Committee F04 on Medical and Surgical Materials and Devices. The paper, "Computational Wear Prediction of UHMWPE in Knee Replacements," focuses on multibody dynamic contact model to predict the damage sustained by two tibial inserts tested under different conditions on an AMTI knee simulator machine. The paper’s two coauthors are W. Gregory Sawyer and Dr. Benjamin J. Fregly.

The award is coordinated with the topic of a symposium sponsored by Committee F04 every fall, and the competition is open to any students. The winning manuscript is considered for publication along with the other papers presented at the symposium.

Zhao, a native of Anshan, China, is currently working on dynamic contact model and damage model development, in vivo human knee joint load distribution analyses, and computer simulations of knee simulator machines. The in vivo study being conducted will help people understand the development of osteoarthritis in the knee, and the computational wear predictions, which are more inexpensive and faster than simulator machine studies, have potential for improving implant designs.

In 1999, Zhao earned his B.S. mechanical engineering from the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and his M.S. in robotics in 2002. His exposure to bioengineering-oriented robot projects interested him in a long-term goal of designing medical and orthopaedic devices for patients, and in computer simulations to improve the design process of mechanical and electronic systems.

 

Release #7289