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Dr. Jean-Briac le Graverend
Dr. Jean-Briac le Graverend | Image: Texas A&M Engineering

Dr. Jean-Briac le Graverend, assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, has been awarded the von Humboldt Research Fellowship, one of the most prestigious awards in Germany, from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Le Graverend joined the department in 2014 after receiving a doctoral degree in materials science and engineering/aerospace from the National School of Mechanics and Aeronautics (Poitiers, France)/National Office for Studies and Aerospace Research (Chatillon, France) in 2013 and working as a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech in the aerospace department.

Le Graverend, whose research goals are to predict the mechanical behavior and lifetime of materials at high temperature by means of a multi-scale approach combining experimental, theoretical and computational tools, will spend the next three summers in Bochum, Germany, working with Dr. Gunther Eggeler and studying “Microstructure Degradation and Damage in High-Temperature Materials.” The ultimate goal of this project, combining experimental, theoretical and computational mechanics, is to initiate a new approach in the field of viscoplastic damage in metals, in particular superalloys and precipitation-hardening metals. He will do this by gaining knowledge in how microstructural degradation affects the kinetics of damage and, therefore, the mechanical response and lifetime. To do so, the proposed research will examine the thermo-mechanical response of a Ni-based alloy at multiple length scales.

The Humboldt Foundation was established in 1953 to foster an international network of scientific cooperation and trust. The fellowship enables highly-qualified postdoctoral scientists and scholars from around the world to carry out research projects of their own choice in Germany.