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Richard Battiste received his B. S. and M. S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Auburn University in 1973 mid 1976, respectively. He has worked in the general field of experimental solid mechanics for 25 years at ORNL.
For the last 15 years, he has been responsible for the operation of the Structural Mechanics Laboratory. As laboratory manager, his main duties are coordinating facilities and equipment between multiple programs and users, facility development and maintenance, and providing input to program development efforts. His expertise lies in the various experimental aspects of solid mechanics for materials and structures. These include: facility, fixture, specimen, and auxiliary equipment design and fabrication; instrumentation and sensor application and operation; data acquisition; test execution; and data reduction and display. Typical test materials include metals, composites, graphite, and ceramics. Test temperatures have ranged from room temperature to temperatures greater than 600 C. Test structures have included beams, plates, cylinders, spheres, large pipe (20 in. dia.), and ceramic engine exhaust valves.
He is currently working on the purchase and installation of a high-force, high-rate (60 kip at 160 ips) servo-hydraulic system for impact studies of automotive type materials. He has also designed and fabricated several fluid (water) flow loops, of which the largest is an 8-inch diameter system for diagnostic studies of pumps and valves. |
