Roonak Khamooshian

I am an industrial PhD student at Materials Science and Engineering department.

Low-pressure carburizing (LPC) at high temperature is regarded as a more sustainable technology compared to others to produce case-hardened steel parts for powertrains. Despite being a rather mature technology, the full potential of the LPC technology is not yet utilized. The reason is a limited understanding of the microstructure evolution at elevated temperatures in the LPC process and ability of controlling it, particularly with respect to grain growth.

The goal of my research is to develop an approach where the alloy composition and the process conditions are optimized simultaneously to enable microstructural control during LPC while maintaining the material properties required for powertrain parts. The foci are on grain growth mechanisms and how they are affected by the temperature-time evolution and chemistry.