Todd A. Palmer holds a joint appointment as a Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics and Materials Science and Engineering and is the director of the Center for Innovative Sintered Products in the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Penn State. Prior to assuming his current position, he was with the Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State from 2007 to 2017, where he rose to the rank of Senior Scientist. From 2000 to 2007, he was at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, Calif., where he was a metallurgist in the Materials Science and Technology Division.
This faculty member is associated with the Penn State Intercollege Graduate Degree Program (IGDP) in Materials Science and Engineering (MatSE) where a multitude of perspectives and cross-disciplinary collaboration within research is highly valued. Graduate students in the IGDP in MatSE may work with faculty members from across Penn State.
Our research lies at the nexus of materials processing, microstructural characterization, and materials properties and performance critical to the development of advanced manufacturing processes. Specific research areas include high energy density welding and joining, additive manufacturing, and particulate material processing, primarily in metallic material systems. The combination of these different fields underlies many emerging fabrication technologies and allows us to work at the frontiers of metal-based additive manufacturing, particulate materials processing, and computational modeling. Working in these different areas requires a highly interdisciplinary approach and allows us to work in close collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders across academia, government, and industry and take advantage of advanced characterization tools for the in situ study of these complex materials processing operations.
- Characterization of Metallic Powder Feedstocks for Additive Manufacturing
- Role of Interstitial Gas Additions on Heat Treatment Response of Additively Manufactured Precipitation Hardened Stainless Steels
- Nucleation and Growth of Austenite during the Additive Manufacturing of Duplex Stainless Steels
- Effects of Post-Process Heat Treatments on the Precipitation of Complex Phases in Age Hardenable Nickel Base Alloys
- Characterization of Superelasticity and Shape Memory Responses in Shape Memory Alloys
Role of Defects on Fatigue Response of Additively Manufactured Alloys
- A.D. Iams, J.S. Keist, and T.A. Palmer, “Microstructural Features in Additively Manufactured and Post-Processed Duplex Stainless Steel Alloys”, Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 51, 2020, 982-999.
- J.S. Zuback, P. Moradifar, Z. Khayat, N. Alem, and T.A. Palmer, “Impact of Chemical Composition on Precipitate Morphology in an Additively Manufactured Nickel Base Superalloy”, Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 798, 2019, 446-457.
- J.S. Zuback, T.A. Palmer, and T. DebRoy, “Additive Manufacturing of Functionally Graded Transition Joints between Ferritic and Austenitic Alloys”, Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 770, 2019, 995-1003.
- S. Meredith, J.S. Zuback, J.S. Keist, and T.A. Palmer, “Impact of Composition on the Heat Treatment Response of Additively Manufactured 17-4 PH Grade Stainless Steel”, Materials Science and Engineering A, 738, 2018, 44-56.
- Z.R. Khayat and T.A. Palmer, “Impact of Iron Composition on the Properties of an Additively Manufactured Solid Solution Strengthened Nickel Base Alloy”, Materials Science and Engineering A, 718, 2018, 123-134.
- Fellow, American Welding Society (2018)
- McKay-Helm Award, American Welding Society (2010 and 2017)
- Adams Memorial Membership Award, American Welding Society (2015)
- A.F Davis Silver Medal Award, American Welding Society (2007 and 2008)
- Prof. Koichi Masubuchi Award, American Welding Society (2006)
- William Sparagen Memorial Award, American Welding Society (2004)
- Geoffrey Belton Award, The Iron and Steel Society (2000)