Vision & Mission

iMdc's vision and mission are to define, disseminate, and implement a new design paradigm and supporting methodologies for failure prevention and increased performance, reliability, and recyclability. Design is based on material-process-component integration for common and seamless utilization in high-integrity applications across all manufacturing sectors. Successful design integration is achieved through:

The overarching objective of iMdc’s research portfolio is to prevent failure and increase performance and reliability of high-integrity structures through:

Materials and processes are developed and optimized for enhanced fatigue, fatigue crack growth, fracture resistance including thermal and thermo-mechanical fatigue, wear, stress-corrosion and corrosion fatigue for high-integrity and fatigue critical applications. These include structural applications for transportation and other manufacturing sectors. Failure prevention by early and accurate in-situ damage detection before crack formation and subsequent crack monitoring using advanced NDE techniques (eddy current, resonant, etc.) are critically assessed and adapted for implementation in industrial settings. The research has significant emphasis on life-cycle engineering, green processing, and recycling. Regarding green materials and processing the interests are four-fold:

The experimental track of all the research projects is complemented by a computational/modeling track. The research is multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, and it integrates traditional and emerging research areas with great impact on the Future of Materials Science and Engineering and Sustainable Manufacturing.

iMdc’s research program includes three types of research projects:

iMdc’s research programs are carried out by M.S./Ph.D. students, Post-Doctoral Fellows, or Research Associates and the developments are presented to the consortium members at two annual meetings, one in Spring and one in Winter. The meetings provide a technical forum while facilitating permanent interaction and communication between various participating members/industries. The center’s vision is further disseminated through presentations at technical conferences, panel discussions, invited lectures, workshops, professional association meetings, and internal corporate meetings.

iMdc faculty and research staff have interdisciplinary interests and expertise facilitating collaboration between various departments and programs at WPI. iMdc has also established liaisons and research relationships with other universities in the U.S. and Canada.

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Last modified: Feb 04, 2019, 21:14 UTC