Kathleen Sevener

My research interests are currently focused on high temperature materials for hypersonic flight, long term durability of ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) for turbine engines, and the performance and durability of ceramics and CMCs for elevated temperature energy applications. Both aerospace and energy applications provide aggressive thermal, mechanical, and chemical environments for materials and the principal focus of my research interests is to develop a fundamental understanding of the physics based response of materials to these aggressive environments through experimental evaluation to relate the thermodynamics and kinetics behind degradation mechanisms to the macroscopic material properties and mechanical/thermal performance of the structure. This experimental work is critical to the validation and verification of existing and new design tools.