Dr Jamie Pennington
Position
Graduate Trainee
Funding body
Inductelect Ltd
Dr Jamie Pennington studied Physical Sciences at the Open University before joining Sheffield University in 2012 to undertake an MSc (Eng) in Environmental and Energy Engineering in the Chemical and Biological Engineering department.
His MSc (Eng) research project focused on the development of composite carbon electrodes in electrochemical supercapacitors for energy storage applications. During his research, he became extremely interested in the materials science underpinning the production of large micro-scale surface areas on activated carbon particles to increase energy and power density.
After graduating in 2013 and receiving the departmental prize for the best Masters research project, he joined the Advanced Metallic Systems Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in the Materials Science and Engineering Department to broaden his understanding and appreciation of the fundamental and enabling role materials science plays in engineering applications and technological development.
Past Research Focus
Dr Pennington conducted his PhD research under the supervision of Professor Bradley Wynne and in conjunction with industrial partners NeoNickel Ltd. and Rolled Alloys Inc. The research focused on the thermo-mechanical processing of super duplex stainless steel, aiming to better understand microstructure development during forging and final quality heat treatment of components for extreme environment applications, such as offshore oil and gas subsea pipework systems, water desalination, and phosphoric acid production plants. This multi-scale, multi-faceted project aimed at achieving improved service life, more efficient manufacturing, and extending the performance envelope of this specific class of engineering material.
During his research, finite element analysis was employed to simulate temperature, stress, and strain distributions in components during forging and heat treatment. Experimental replication of the temperature and strain rate in industrial forging was investigated using the University’s Servotest Ltd. Thermo-Mechanical Compression machine. This formed the basis for developing a constitutive flow model to describe the plasticity of super duplex alloys over a range of thermo-mechanical processing conditions.
The electron backscattered detection technique, available through the facilities in the University’s Sorby Centre for Electron Microscopy, was utilized to analyze crystallographic textural developments resulting from thermo-mechanical processing. The research also involved establishing relationships between this crystallographic data and macro-scale mechanical properties, such as impact toughness and hardness, determined through Charpy testing and nanoindentation/Vickers hardness testing, respectively.