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Laboratory Director
Laboratory Director
Dr. Spulak is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He received his B.S. from the University of Notre Dame, and his M.S. and Ph. D. from The Ohio State University. His research has included investigating material strain rate sensitivity, stress-state dependent fracture, adiabatic heating response of materials subjected to dynamic loading, behavior of additive manufactured materials, metal plasticity, fiber reinforced composite materials, coupled mechanical-thermal-electrochemical response of batteries subjected to low rate and dynamic loading, and investigation into the deformation, damage, and ignition response of polymer bonded explosive materials.
Email: nathan.spulak@uah.edu
Graduate Students
Graduate Students
Derryk Daignault
Derryk is pursuing his M.S., and his research involves utilizing the Virtual Fields Method (VFM) to obtain full-field stresses on material specimens during split-Hopkinson bar testing, as well as developing novel high strain rate test techniques to enable material deformation to occur under truly constant strain rates once strain localization has occurred during the experiment.
Abigail Schauer
Abigail is pursuing her M.S. degree, and her research involves the experimental testing and numerical modeling of batteries, to understand the thermal and electrochemical response when they are subjected to mechanical deformation.
Sydney Resnick
Sydney is pursuing an M.S. degree, and her research investigates the strain rate sensitivity of numerous aerospace alloys of interest to NASA for use with spaceflight applications.
Elias Gerstein
Elias Gerstein is part of UAH's Joint Undergraduate Master's Program (JUMP), and is currently pursuing his M.S. degree. His research involves characterizing the strain rate sensitivity of woven fiber reinforced composite materials, for use in the next generation of eVTOL aircraft.
Joel Barnes
Joel is also a JUMP student, and as he pursues his M.S. degree he is developing a novel method for determining the full-field stresses on materials utilizing full-field strain data measured with DIC.
Benjamin Solomon
Benjamin is pursuing his M.S. degree, and his research is centered on investigating the deformation and failure behavior of polymer bonded explosive (PBX) materials when subjected to dynamic loading under a variety of different applied stress states.
Undergraduate Students
Undergraduate Students
Tyler Robertson
Tyler joined the E3M Lab as part of UAH's Summer 2024 Research and Creative Experiences (RCEU) program. He assisted in performing FEA simulations to design novel high rate tests that deform at truly constant true strain rates, as well as performed mechanical testing at low rates of a new shear test design for fiber-reinforced composite materials.
Alumni
Alumni
T. Elias Marler
Elias obtained his M.S. degree in 2024 through the E3M Lab. His research investigated the high strain rate behavior of additively manufactured 316L stainless steel, specifically focusing in the effects that post-build heat treatments have on the material rate sensitivity.
Josiah Hrenyk
Josiah worked in the E3M laboratory through the UAH MATRIX scholarship program as well as through the COE Undergraduate Research Project (URP) program. He helped in designing a novel test method for inducing metal fracture under combinations of tension and hydrostatic compression loading, as well as evaluated methods for temperature sensing and performing tests at elevated temperatures.
Andrew Baumgardner
Andrew obtained his undergraduate Honor's College thesis based upon the research work done in the E3M Lab, as part of the Summer 2023 RCEU program. He designed, fabricated, and performed proof of concept tests on a novel method of inducing pure shear loading on fiber reinforced composites at elevated strain rates.
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