Our research focus is in the mechanical characterization of solids and structures in challenging environments, and at high temperatures in particular. We are especially interested in the role that environment plays on a material's ability to withstand heterogeneous failure mechanisms such as fracture, fatigue, and creep.

Our lab uses advanced imaging techniques to extract full-field, in situ strain and temperature measurements across multiple length scales. These techniques are applied to a wide variety of advanced high temperature materials (including metals, ceramics, and composites), with applications geared towards the energy, aerospace, and nuclear industries.

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News

Aug 29, 2018: Dr. Berke is awarded $19,845 from the Air Force Research Lab to study Damage Accumulation in a Novel High-Throughput Method to Measure High Cycle Fatigue.

Aug 28, 2018: Dr. Berke is awarded $336,343 from the National Science Foundation to Investigate the Career Development and Professional Trajectories of Disadvantaged Students in Engineering.

June 18, 2018: Dr. Owen Kingstedt at the University of Utah is awarded $776,669 from the US Department of Energy, with Dr. Berke as a Co-PI.

June 5, 2018: Dr. Berke is elected Secretary of the Fracture and Fatigue Technical Division at the Society for Experimental Mechanics.

April 30, 2018: Katherine Burn and Samantha Burton are selected for the 2018-19 Engineering Undergraduate Research Program. Congratulations Katie and Sam!

April 26-27, 2018: Thinh Thai, Robert Hansen, and Ethan Nickerson successfully defend their MS theses.  Congratulations!

April 12, 2018: Ethan's paper, "Ultraviolet Diffraction-Assisted Image Correlation (UV-DAIC) for Single-Camera 3D Strain Measurement at Extreme Temperatures" is available from Experimental Mechanics.

News Archive