Pentti Arffman Email & Phone Number

I am a materials scientist in the Nuclear Safety department at VTT, working on destructive mechanical and fracture mechanical testing of metallic materials, both in irradiated and un-irradiated state. My tasks include project management, analysis, reporting and scientific writing, method development, tool design, quality control as well as occasional hands-on testing. I have been working in international and national projects, customer assignments as well as internal development projects.Currently, I create new computational tools in Python, but I have also utilized MATLAB, C/C++, FORTRAN and R in my previous assignments. I have knowledge of COMSOL and AUTOCAD, and I design new tools using Inventor. While my toolbox includes computational methodology, working with skillful experts has given me insight on the metallurgy and fractographical investigations of materials previously familiar to me only on macroscopic and atomic level.I graduated from University of Helsinki as a Master of Science, majoring in computational materials physics with minors in methodological sciences and theoretical physics. My Masters' thesis, titled "Fracture mechanical and mechanical characterisation of Alloy 52 dissimilar metal welds" investigated the hardness, strength, fracture toughness (brittle and ductile) and crack propagation around a weldment fusion line.During my exchange studies in University of Göttingen, I had the opportunity for broaden my understanding on international research and study materials outside my home university, such as granular media. Before becoming a research scientist, I was a research assistant at VTT for several years, partially full-time. I have previously worked as a research assistant at Finnish Meteorological Institute FMI, analyzing greenhouse gas emission and absorption from drained wetlands. The work also included weekly hands-on maintenance of measurement stations at said wetlands.I took a short detour studying Finnish language at University of Helsinki, during 2013-2014. While I returned to my passion in physics, I got an improved outlook on how different research can be outside the natural sciences.