Research

Dr. Ma's research Areas:

Dr. Ma's first research area is computational solid mechanics. This includes the extension of his Meshless Integral Method (MIM), which has the potential to overcome the limitations of the widely used traditional Finite Element Method (FEM), developing in-house FEM programs, and applications of peridynamics in crack propagation modeling.

Dr. Ma's second research area is experimental investigation and multi-scale modeling of advanced manufacturing processes. This includes experimental and numerical investigation of machinability of hard-to-machine materials; micro-machining and nano-machining of brittle materials and metallic materials; experimental and numerical investigation of the machining performance of laser textured cutting tools with and without lubrication to optimize the cutting tools in order to minimize the friction along tool-chip interface to minimize the energy consumption; laser-assisted/laser machining of advanced materials; numerical and experimental investigation of laser peening processes of advanced materials; experimental and numerical investigation of femtosecond laser ablation mechanisms of solar thin films to get best solar energy harvest efficiency; numerical modeling of non-conventional machining (EDM and welding), monitoring and testing of manufacturing processes.

Dr. Ma's third research area is Robotics/Mechatronics and Automation of manufacturing and other processes using Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and Industrial Robots (IR) and designing and fabricating of electromechanical systems.

Research Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources

The manufacturing system lab includes MDH Machine Shop and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) machine shop in Oliver Hall. MDH machine shop has five (5) Jet lathes (model GHP 1340), one (1) Enco lathe, and five Jet Vertical Mills (model JM2). CAM machine shop in Oliver Hall has one (1) HAAS CNC machine center (model VF4), one (1) South Bend lathe, one water jet machine, and one (1) Bridgeport vertical mill.

Dr. Ma has nanosecond laser machining/peening machine for conducting experimental investigation of laser machining and laser peening of advanced engineering materials.

Dr. Ma's lab has four PCs to conduct multi-scale modeling and simulations. Additionally, an 80-node linux Cluster built in 2009 is available for high-speed parallel processing with software packages including:

• ABAQUS finite element analysis,

• AdvantEdge FEM for machining simulation,

• LAMMPS for molecular dynamics simulations (MDS),

• MATLAB, PROEngineer,

• SolidWorks,

• Mathematica,

• Visual Studio.Net for C++ and other programming languages.

In addition, Dr. Ma has full access to the following machines/equipment for characterizing machined surfaces after experiments:

• High-speed Infrared camera

• Optical microscope

• X-Ray diffraction equipment (XRD)

• Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS)

• A Bruker BioScope Catalyst Atomic Force Microscope (AFM)

• A EVO LS Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM)

• Zygo Newview profilometer

• Renishaw Invia Raman Microscope