CMC Processing• Led global teams and solved complex CMC raw material issues that minimized the process variabilities across organizational boundaries. • Drove multi-disciplinary teams of process engineers, quality engineers and supply chain vendors to execute APQP and associated FMEAs to deliver and document robust CMC raw material process control strategies• Led Root Cause Corrective Action (RCCA) to understand root cause of a quality issue that helped passing the CMC property specification limits by implementing the corrective actions• Exhibited greater confidence and determined solutions when interfacing with suppliers and vendors under extreme challenging situations.EBC Processing • Managed and led the development of protective coating systems on Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMCs) for commercial as well as military jet engine applications. Executed technical and program leadership that significantly impacted the success of coatings and CMC company funded projects• Drove cost effective coating solution for the military hardware applications. Was responsible for interacting with internal and external customers

• Office of Naval Research sponsored program: • Assess room and high temperature mechanical performance of SiCf/SiC single tow minicomposites that have different fiber types such as Hi-Nic, Hi-NicS, ZMI and fiber/matrix interfaces (BN and C) and woven fiber architecture macro composites• Perform non destructive damage determining and health monitoring techniques (acoustic emission and electrical resistivity) on SiCf/SiC composites in order to assess stress/strain state for damage initiation and growth• The benefits of Environmental Barrier Coatings (EBCs) on SiC/SiC composites are analyzed for Navy Aero applications.• Infiltrate slurry based EBCs onto porous SiCf/SiC composite preforms to have high temperature internal environmental resistance• Provide R&D support to companies that have testing/research agreements with our group by mechanical testing and analyzing the results of various SiCf/SiC composites and write summary reports• Write proposals to external funding agencies

• Processing of slurry based Environmental Barrier Coatings (EBCs) onto porous SiC/SiC composite performs • Performing acoustic emission and electrical resistivity techniques on various SiC/SiC composites in order to assess stress/strain behavior and damage initiation/accumulation

• NASA Glenn sponsored research program• A noteworthy research collaborated with NASA Glenn Research Center and Rolls-Royce Corporation was performed on in-expensive and versatile slurry based mullite/rare-earth silicate EBCs for coating complex shaped advanced gas turbine engine non-oxide ceramic components (silicon carbide (SiC), silicon nitride, MI and CVI based SiC fiber reinforced SiC matrix composites) • Developed and optimized constituents for mullite/rare-earth silicate slurries utilized in this work• Assessed the environmental durability of coated EBCs through severe thermal cycling at high temperature range 1300o – 1375oC for up to 400 cycles under simulated combustion environment• Established that mullite/Gd2SiO5 EBCs provided excellent protection from water vapor and salt containing environments with negligible oxidation in substrate/coating interface• Developed mullite/Lu2SiO5 EBCs for CVI-SiCf/SiC composite materials.• Demonstrated that mullite/Lu2SiO5 EBCs were more durable and had increased temperature capabilities compared to mullite/Gd2SiO5 EBCs when tested under extreme combustion environments

Worked at Center for Advanced Research of Energy Conversion Materials (CAREM)• Synthesis of beta-sialon ceramic powder was demonstrated by Mechanically-Activated Combustion Synthesis (MA-CS) from Si, Al and SiO2/Al2O3 materials in a low nitrogen atmosphere of 1 MPa.• Developed sialon powder synthesis with waste Si as one of the starting material that reduced enormous energy and cost of the product• Improvised the processing parameters to commercialize synthesized sialon powders to ball bearings that had better properties than available Si3N4 ball bearings• Measured thermal properties of rapid sintered (Spark Plasma Sintering technique) sialon compacts

• Measured the mechanical, thermal and electrical properties of silica by incorporating 10 vol.% multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) as it is well known that silica has low fracture toughness as well is an thermal and electrical insulator.• Uncovered that attrition milling of colloidal silica and MWCNT slurry had homogeneous MWCNT dispersion in silica without MWCNT damage/coagulations even after 6 months• Succeeded in densifying silica-MWCNT nano-composites to theoretical densities for the first time by Spark Plasma Sintering technique.• The fracture toughness and thermal conductivity of silica-MWCNT nano-composites was increased by a factor of twice than silica monolithic ceramics.• Achieved in converting electrically insulating silica into metallically conductive nano-composites with addition of only 10 vol.% of MWCNTs

• Investigated the mechanical response of SiAlON ceramics by scratch testing in order to interpret their severe wear behavior• Established successful correlation between scratch testing and severe wear in SiAlONs by comparing grain dislodgement in severe wear and subsurface damage in scratch tests• Demonstrated that the work required to produce damage and groove formation during scratch testing follows the reverse order of worm volume• Evaluated the extent of damages formed by indentations and was evaluated quantitatively by an image analysis.• Optimized reactive ion etching time for better visualization of damages caused by Knoop Indentations• Established that the damage phase ratio was almost constant and material removal ceased from a particular etching time.

• Underwent training and managed production unit of silicon carbide (SiC) and alumina (Al2O3) ceramics.