Ritam Chatterjee

I am a Postdoctoral researcher at the Hultgren Laboratory, where I am involved in the Steel4Fatigue project that aims to improve the fatigue life of Advanced High Strength Steel (AHSS) components used in Heavy trucks and automobiles. In this regard, I am conducting Crystal Plasticity-Finite Element simulations of cyclic loading in complex steels to examine the fatigue behavior of thick plates with punched holes. The findings of this study have strong implications in optimizing the microstructural evolution of complex steels under cyclic loading, which can ultimately lead to the development of plates with reduced thickness for usage in the chassis of heavy vehicles, thereby reducing their weight as well as the carbon footprint.

I completed my Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, where I conducted Mean-Field and Full-Field Crystal Plasticity modelling to examine dynamic recrystallization in various metallic polycrystals. Subsequently, I was a postdoctoral researcher at LEM3, CNRS, Metz, France where I developed Mesoscale Field dislocation mechanics-FFT modelling approaches to estimate the GND density evolution in Inconel718 Nickel superalloys under tensile deformation at RT and compared with in situ EBSD measurements. The effect of local topology on GND hotspots was examined and the statistical GND distributions for polycrystals with different grain size distributions were predicted.

Research Expertise

Crystal Plasticity, Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Continuum Mechanics, Computational Homogenization.

Courses

Materials Properties II, MH2060