Research
Research
Prof. Kelly's present work includes studies of the electrochemical and chemical conditions inside localized corrosion sites in various alloy systems, corrosion in aging aircraft, atomistic and continuum modeling of electrochemical processes, development of embeddable corrosion micro-instruments, as well as the use of microfabrication methods to probe the fundamentals of localized corrosion. Below are some of the current projects in the group.
Corrosion of Selective Laser Melted Stainless Steel
The recent growth in additive manufacturing (AM) has fueled the motivation to understand the properties and performance of conventional alloys that have been synthesized through these methods. Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is a form of AM that uses high energy lasers to construct bulk materials from the melting and rapid solidification of powder on a layer-by-layer basis. While there has been considerable work done to optimize LPBF processing parameters for various metallic alloys and characterize the resulting microstructure and mechanical...
Localized Corrosion Corrosion and Stress Corrosion Cracking in Marine Environments
Used Nuclear Fuel (UNF) is currently stored in welded stainless steel (SS) dry storage canisters (DSC) at independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSI). At near-marine ISFSI, the cooling air drawn from the outside leads to ingress of aerosols into the concrete overpack that will deposit on the steel. These aerosols will contain aggressive ions, including chloride ions, as well as oxidizing species. They can also develop very low surface pH values which can cause localized corrosion, namely pitting corrosion. The goal of the project is to predict the...
Exploring Galvanic coupling of SS/Al in fastener configurations with Finite Element Modeling (FEM)
The overall goals of this project are to develop a quantitative scientific understanding of the effects of important external variables on the electrochemical potential and current distributions that develop in fastener hole configurations involving a realistic thin film/galvanic couple configuration between a 7050- T7451 component and a CRES 316 fastener, and investigate how these potential and current distributions correlate potential local damages on the metal surfaces in the galvanic coupling. A combination of experimental and modeling approaches...