MSE Undergraduate Student Receives Grant to Research Titanium Metallurgy on the Moon
By Samantha Bertolino
MSE undergraduate student Sarah Myrick
Sarah Myrick has just received a $5,000 NASA Connecticut Space Grant Consortium (CTSGC) Award for research she is conducting in MSE. Though she has been pursuing an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering since spring 2018, she works alongside MSE graduate student Sharon Uwanyuze in Professor Schaffoener’s research group, which studies the corrosion and thermomechanical properties of high temperature ceramics for advanced alloy manufacturing.
The work in Schaffoener’s lab has synergy with Sarah’s research, which seeks to investigate the processing of titanium on the Moon, where NASA has found an abundance of titanium ore deposits. Titanium and its alloys are important in aerospace applications, primarily as materials used in structural components. However, current techniques for producing titanium alloys are very cost-intensive and could not effectively utilize the abundant titanium ores found on the Moon. Melts containing titanium and its alloys are very reactive, and the purpose of Sarah’s research is to identify novel ceramic materials that are suitable for use as crucible materials. Limiting the corrosion of the ceramic crucibles may eventually enable NASA to produce titanium cost efficiently on the Moon.
Published: December 22, 2020
Categories: awards, grants, news, research, undergraduate students
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