Dr. Adam Pilchak is Senior Technical Fellow in the Alloys Group of Pratt & Whitney’s Materials & Processes Engineering organization. In this capacity he performs basic and applied research in support of engine programs and also supports the entire lifecycle of metallic materials for gas turbine engines. He has broad research interests that include quantitative characterization of microstructure and its application to understanding and modeling processing-structure-property relationships in existing and emerging aerospace alloy systems. Dr. Pilchak is internationally recognized for his work on the dwell fatigue response of titanium alloys that includes processing, development of destructive and nondestructive characterization methods, failure analysis, microstructure-informed risk analysis, and probabilistic fatigue lifetime prediction. Dr. Pilchak works closely with collaborators in academia and other parts of the aerospace materials supply chain to improve the performance of materials
Education History
- BS, Materials Science and Engineering, Michigan State University
- MS, Materials Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University
- PhD, Materials Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University
Work Experience
Adjunct Faculty, JHU Whiting School of Engineering, Engineering for Professionals
Publications
Recent publications (see: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ANY-MpEAAAAJ&hl=en for a complete list):
1. V. Venkatesh and A. Pilchak: A summary of Ti-2023: The World Conference on Titanium, AM&P Technical Articles, vol. 182, iss. 2, 2024, p. 20-23.
2. Karthik Shankar, Michelle Harr, Adam Pilchak, Matthew Kasemer: The effect of anisotropic rate dependency on the deformation response of Ti-6242 during dwell fatigue loading, Materialia, vol. 33 (2024) 102014.
3. B Yavas, N Akram, A Frye, V Venkatesh, A Pilchak, D Furrer, I Cernatescu, M Aindow: Evaluating the dislocation structures involved in dwell fatigue crack initiation, Microscopy and Microanalysis, vol. 29, suppl. 1, p. 138-139.
4. A Muth, A Venkatraman, R John, A Pilchak, SR Kalidindi, DL McDowell: Neighborhood spatial correlations and machine learning classification of fatigue hot-spots in Ti–6Al–4V, Mechanics of Materials 182, 104679.
5. A. Pilchak and M. Gram: Cold dwell fatigue of titanium alloys, JOM, vol. 74, no. 10, 3691-3692.
6. M. Pinz, J.T. Benzing, A. Pilchak, and S. Ghosh: A microstructure-based porous crystal plasticity FE model for additively manufactured Ti-6Al-4V alloys, Int J. Plasticity, vol. 153 (2022) 103254.
7. Jonathan Cappola, Jean-Charles Stinville, Marie-Agathe Charpagne, Patrick G Callahan, McLean P Echlin, Tresa M Pollock, Adam Pilchak, Matthew Kasemer: On the localization of plastic strain in microtextured regions of Ti-6Al-4V, Acta Materialia, vol. 204 (2021) 116492.
8. Iftekhar A Riyad, William G Feather, Evgenii Vasilev, Ricardo A Lebensohn, Brandon A McWilliams, Adam L Pilchak, Marko Knezevic: Modeling the role of local crystallographic correlations in microstructures of Ti-6Al-4V using a correlated structure visco-plastic self-consistent polycrystal plasticity formulation, Acta Materialia (2021) 116502.
9. Alexander Zaitzeff, Adam Pilchak, Tracy Berman, John Allison, Selim Esedoglu: A robust algorithm to calculate parent β grain shapes and orientations from α phase electron backscatter diffraction data in α/β-titanium alloys, Scripta Materialia, vol. 191 (2021) 191-195.
10. M.E. Harr, S. Daly, and A.L. Pilchak: The effect of temperature on slip in microtextured Ti-6Al-2Sn-4Zr-2Mo, Int. J. Fatigue, vol. 147 (2021) 106173.
11. D.J. Magagnosc, J.T. Loyd, C.S. Meredith, A.L. Pilchak, and B.E. Schuster: Incipient dynamic recrystallization and adiabatic shear bands in Ti-7Al- studied via in situ X-ray diffraction, Int. J. Plasticity, vol. 141 (2021) 102992.
12. R.G. Petit, P.A. Wawrzynek, B.J. Carter, R. Singh, A.L. Pilchak, A.H. Rosenberger, M. Velez, and T.W. Ward: Local crack growth evaluation in a fully lamellar Ti-6Al-4V alloy using an electrothermal crack-tip marking technique, Engineering Fracture Mechanics, vol. 256 (2021) 107992.
13. J. Rotella, A.L. Pilchak, M.D. Sangid: Examining the pathways for deformation formation at the mesoscale, Materials Characterization, vol. 182 (2021) 111552.
14. S.I. Rokhlin, G. Sha, J. Li, and A.L. Pilchak: Inversion methodology for ultrasonic characterization of polycrystals with clusters of preferentially oriented grains, Ultrasonics, vol. 115 (2021) 106433.
15. A. Muth, R. John, A.L. Pilchak, S.R. Kalidindi, and D.L. McDowell: Analysis of Fatigue Indicator Parameters for Ti-6Al-4V Microstructures Using Extreme Value Statistics in the Transition Fatigue Regime, International Journal of Fatigue, vol. 153 (2021) 106441.
16. N.C. Levkulich, S.L. Semiatin, E.J. Payton, S. Srivatsa, and A.L. Pilchak: An Investigation of the Development of Coarse Grains during Beta Annealing of Hot-Forged Ti-6Al-4V, Metall. Mater. Trans. A, vol. 52A (2021) pp. 1353-1367.
17. N. Millan-Espitia, S. Mohan, A.L. Pilchak, and S.R. Kalidindi: Mechanical Responses of Primary-alpha Ti Grains in Polycrystalline Samples: Part I – Measurements of Spherical Indentation Stress-Strain Curves, Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation, vol. 10 (2021) pp. 82-98.
18. *B.A. Begley, K. Markham, M. Mizak, A.L. Pilchak, and V.M. Miller: Prediction of relative globularization rates in alpha+beta titanium alloys as a function of initial crystal orientation, J. Materials Research (2021), doi: 10.1557/jmr.2020.54
19. *M.E. Harr, A.L. Pilchak, and S.L. Semiatin: Titanium Microtexture 101 – Part II, Advanced Materials and Processes, vol. 179, iss. 6, 2021, pp. 13-17.
20. *M.E. Harr, A.L. Pilchak, and S.L. Semiatin: Titanium Microtexture 101 – Part I, Advanced Materials and Processes, vol. 179, iss. 3, 2021, pp. 14-18.
21. T. Maloth, D. Ozturk, G.M. Hommer, A.L. Pilchak, A.P. Stebner, and S. Ghosh: Multiscale modeling of cruciform dwell tests with the uncertainty-quantified parametrically homogenized constitutive model, Acta Materialia, vol. 200 (2020) pp. 893-907.
22. A.L. Pilchak: Honoring Practical Processing Science at TMS 2020, Journal of Metals, vol. 72 (2020) pp. 3567-3569.
23. Z.D. Brunson, A.L. Pilchak, S. Rao, E.J. Payton, and A.P. Stebner: An Expanded Martensite Variant Selection Theory Accounting for Transofrmation Rotations and Applied Stress Fields: Predictions of Variant Clusters in Titanium, Journal of Metals, vol. 72 (2020) pp. 3594-3607.
Honors and Awards
- Jaap Schijve Award, Delft University of Technology (2019)
- Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) (2017)
- Air Force Early Career Award, AFRL/AFOSR (2015)
Professional Organizations
TMS
ASM International