Milligan Receives Research Award
Professor Walter Milligan
(Materials Science and Engineering) is the recipient of the 2001 Research
Award.
"I'm honored," Milligan
said. "It's a great honor to be selected. There are a lot of deserving
people on this campus."
Milligan, who has been at Michigan
Tech since 1989, researches the fundamental structure of materials and
how that structure affects their behavior. He leads a team taking part
in a multi-million-dollar collaboration among leading universities to
improve the alloys used in jet engines. The five-year project, which is
winding down this year, was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific
Research and included $1.2 million for Milligan's team.
"Walt has done a fantastic
job of building an interdisciplinary, multi-university program,"
said his department chair, Calvin White. "He's teamed with people
at UC Berkeley, MIT, and Harvard to attack some very difficult materials
engineering problems."
"He has worked very diligently,
both in teaching and research," said Professor Elias Aifantis (ME-EM),
who nominated Milligan for the Research Award and has collaborated with
him on a number of projects. "I am here, at least in part, because
Walt is here. It is a pleasure to work with him--the fact that top researchers
seek him out speaks well both for the quality of his research and for
Michigan Tech."
With a $500,000 share of a
new, $15-million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA), Milligan is developing computer modeling techniques that test
how a jet engine's turbine disk will perform under high stress. The turbine
disc is the wheel that holds the blades of the turbine; it weighs a couple
hundred pounds, spins at 10,000 to 15,000 rpm, and can get very, very
hot.
Because a lot is at stake in
the safety of jet engines, it can take more than a dozen years of R&D
before new materials are incorporated in aircraft. But with reliable computer
modeling, the aeronautics industry could shave years off the time it takes
to bring new, high-performance alloys out of labs and into the skies.
Surprisingly little is actually
known about why metals behave the way they do, Milligan notes. "People
have used these alloys for thirty-five years, yet there's not a good model
for predicting a simple value, like strength, based on the material's
microstructure. That will be our first job," he said. "If you
have a better understanding of what controls a material, you can be more
effective than if you just find things out by trial and error, doing thousands
of tests."
Milligan has also gained national
recognition for his research into the mechanical behavior of nanoscale
materials, for which he received a $710,000 grant in 1999 from the National
Science Foundation.
"You can make very fine-grained
materials that are strong, but they're also brittle," he said. "We're
trying to make materials that are not only strong, but tough."
Milligan's colleague Professor
Stephen Hackney supported his nomination for the Research Award. "Walt
has made an impact in the field of materials engineering, not only in
attacking some of the problems at the forefront of academic research,
but also in many of the practical problems which plague industry and national
defense efforts," Hackney said. "His research accomplishments
in nanoscale materials have certainly brought a great deal of national
and international recognition to the Department of Materials Science and
Engineering and Michigan Tech."
Milligan's interest in materials
goes back to his days as an undergraduate, when he had his first co-op
job with the General Electric Aircraft Engine Group studying why jet engine
parts fail. "I've always been interested in why things break,"
he said. "Failure analysis is a lot of fun. It's like playing Sherlock
Holmes; you get some clues, but not everything you need to solve the puzzle."
Milligan is a principal investigator
on three active research programs supported by $2.5 million in federal
funding and has been a principal investigator or co-principal investigator
on six completed research programs totalling $2.3 million. Among his honors,
he received a National Young Investigator Award in 1992 and was named
among the ten "Most Valuable Referees" for the journals Acta
Materialia and Scripta Materialia in 1998 and 1999.
His contributions extend beyond
research. "Walt does all of the jobs of a faculty member extraordinarily
well," White said. "He's a good instructor, good advisor, and
good departmental citizen. He sets an excellent example for new faculty
coming into the University."
"He has been very loyal
to his co-workers and his department, plus he is a strong leader,"
Aifantis said. "Loyalty and leadership are well-balanced in him.
And another thing that has impressed me is his interest in helping young
people."
Hackney agreed. "Walt
also excels in the training aspects of research," he said. "He
never seems to forget that much of the work is carried out by students,
and that research is part of the educational experience."
The Research Award Committee
includes Kurt Pregitzer (SFWP), Cal White (Materials Science and Engineering),
John Sutherland (ME-EM), and David Reed (SFWP/Research Services).
The Research Award, which includes
a $2,500 cash prize, will be presented at President's Convocation on September
19.
