Advanced Materials Processing

If one considers the number of individual plastic parts in a typical automobile or aircraft, it is clear that manufacturer of precise, high-strength components is an important challenge. Thermoplastic components are manufactured using principles of polymer processing, which includes extrusion and injection molding. High performance components, such as turbine blades that can withstand high temperatures and stresses, involve new techniques of crystal growth during the manufacturing process. Irrespective of the particular type of manufacturing technique, a detailed understanding of the fluid flow, heat transfer and interfacial characteristics is essential. My work is focused on a fundamental theoretical-numerical approach to this class of problems. I continue to interact closely with other leading groups in this area, Robert A. Brown and Robert C. Armstrong at MIT, Gareth H. McKinley at Harvard and Arne J. Pearlstein at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. My links to industrial concerns have provided important practical insight. Intel, Kodak and Sematech all require an understanding of processes in the optoelectronics and electronic industries in order to optimize the manufacture of their semiconductor components. I feel it is important for new students who join my group to have this type of interaction with industry and, furthermore, to present their results at the same meetings that I attend, the American Physical Society, the Society of Rheology, the American Institute of American Engineers, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In turn, these presentations would hopefully be linked to journal articles eventually appearing in the journals where I have published, namely the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, the Journal of Applied Physics, and the Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics.

Professor Alparslan Oztekin

Illustration of the hydrodynamic instability driven by elasticity in a polymer. Photos are taken through a stationary, transparent plate, while the flow is driven by rotation of a cone at a sufficiently high speed. Full development of the instability requires as long as two minutes (after McKinley, Oztekin, Byers and Brown, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 258, 123 (1995)).