People

About me

I completed my BSc and MSc studies in Materials Science in 2004. In my PhD, I spent a lot of time behind the microscope studying the effects of dynamic loading on the microstructures of advanced multiphase steels. For me the most interesting part of dynamic material behavior is to explain why the material behavior is what we observe in our experiments. I am very much interested in solving practical problems, but I find great satisfaction when I can focus my attention on a challenging problem dealing with dislocation dynamics, stacking fault energy, or phase transformations. I have been at Tampere University since 2000, and since then I have designed and built numerous testing equipment for the testing of industrial material processes and for academic basic research. For quite some time, the work done in our group has focused in digital image analysis and infrared imaging. These methods allow careful evaluation of the thermomechanical response of the material, and meticulous studies of, for example, the effects of adiabatic heating on metal plasticity and fracture. Previously I have worked at The Ohio State University (Go Buckeyes!) with professor Amos Gilat, and also visited also Purdue University for a short period of time in the lab of professor Wayne Chen. In 2016, I was elected to the Governing Board of the DYMAT association. At the same year I also started a two year period as an Associate Technical Editor of the Journal of Dynamic Behavior of Materials. In the near future, we hope to focus our attention to the utilization of our unique possibility to carry out dynamic experiments at different length scales, and perhaps, be able to bridge the gap in our understanding of how the microscopic material behavior connects with the larger macroscopic behavior. Our goal is to do less experiments, but to analyze the results more carefully.

Picture courtesy of Sinikka Makkonen.

About me

Gaurav Mohanty joined as an assistant professor at Tampere University in 2018. He completed his bachelors in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from National Institute of Technology Karnataka (India) in 2007 and obtained his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Iowa State University (USA) in 2011. Subsequently, he worked in Empa – Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Engineering (Switzerland) as a post-doctoral researcher and scientist. His research interests are in the field of in-situ micromechanics, small scale plasticity, high temperature and high strain rate deformation behavior, transient time dependent plasticity, deformation mechanisms and combinatorial materials science.

About me

Professor Veli-Tapani Kuokkala focused on high strain rate material behavior in the late 90’s. In the past twenty years, he has supervised numerous PhD and Master degrees in dynamic material behavior, and designed and built numerous testing devices for material characterization. He was a member in the DYMAT governing board for 2006 to 2016. His pioneering work on the dynamic material material behavior focusing especially on the effects of microstructure on the dynamic response of materials has build a solid foundation for the IMPACT research group to continue the multiscale mechanics of materials research focusing on dynamic material characterization.

About me

Aloshious Lambai is a doctoral researcher at Tampere University. He received his degree of Master of Technology in Metallurgical engineering and materials science from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay in 2018, where his primary research interest was on fracture mechanics of brittle composites. His current research focuses on understanding the deformation mechanisms involved in materials at the micro-and nano-scale using different in situ micro-mechanical and materials characterization techniques.

About me

Nazanin Pournoori received her M.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Shiraz University of Technology (2015). She is currently pursuing Ph.D. studies and research at Tampere University with a  topic of simultaneous experimental and numerical analysis of the dynamic behavior of carbon fiber reinforced polymers. Her research areas include both numerical and experimental characterization of the effects of the structure of the composite, strain rate, and adiabatic heating on the mechanical properties and behavior of these materials in high speed impact events.

About me

I completed my master’s in Materials science and engineering from Tampere University in 2019. My current research deals with the plasticity and strain-induced phase transformations in metastable austenitic steel alloys. I will be working on the development of in-situ mesoscale characterization techniques combining optical microscopy, high strain rate testing, and use of synchrotron X-ray diffraction for the in-situ investigations of material behavior. My hobbies include traveling and playing basketball, volleyball, and badminton.

About me

Suprit Bhusare joined as a PhD Student at Tampere University in 2020. He completed his Master of Technology in Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science in the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay in 2018, where his primary research was on focused deformation and fracture behavior of cold drawn pearlitic steel wires after different stages of annealing and the correlation of mechanical behavior with the evolving microstructures. His current research aims at better understanding of fundamental deformation behavior in metals over wide range of temperatures and strain rates using small scale mechanical testing.

About me

Rahul Cherukuri completed his MSc in Materials Science and Simulation from Ruhr University Bochum, Germany in 2018. He worked as a student assistant at Interdisciplinary Centre for Advanced Materials Simulation (ICAMS) during his masters in the department of Scale Bridging Thermodynamic and Kinetic simulations. His research was focused on multiscale approaches based on computational methods and experiments to determine the material properties. During his masters, he used Computational methods namely CALPHAD, Density functional theory (DFT) approaches to predict the accuracy of phase stabilities for alloys used in high temperature applications especially (Ni/Co) based Superalloys. He also worked in the department of Micromechanics for large deformations, where his research work was mainly focused on the prediction of mechanical properties using crystal plasticity finite element models with respect to the experiments. His doctoral thesis mainly aims to understand and develop a detailed analysis of deformation microstructure in metals at small length scales (micrometer scales) using advanced characterization methods over a wide range of temperatures, strain rates using mechanical testing.

About me

I graduated with a double master’s degree in Materials science and engineering from Tampere University and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in October 2020, and I started my PhD studies in January 2021. Currently I am studying the stability of austenite in modern multiphase steels, and the main research interest is to create new techniques for the experimental methods for evaluating the stability of austenite during mechanical loading. For this, both high and low strain rate testing are combined with optical and electron microscopy, digital image correlation and X-ray diffraction. The aim is also to perform in-situ experiments with a synchrotron X-ray diffraction.

About me

I earned my Master’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Tehran, Iran, in 2020. My prior research focused on the welding of High Entropy Alloys (HEAs), and I am currently investigating the mechanical behavior of advanced metals with complex microstructures using in-situ high-speed imaging techniques. I have a strong interest in studying material mechanics and microstructures through an integrated approach, combining physics-based models with data-driven methods, including machine learning.

About me

I received my master’s degree in Materials science and engineering from Tampere University in 2022. The focus of my master thesis was fatigue of cast steels and I continue the research in my PhD studies that I started in 2024. The focus in my PhD is on larger scale fatigue testing of cast steels and better prediction of fatigue life of heavy machinery components. The aim is to develop a unified fatigue framework that is able to combine the effects of microstructure, residual stresses, defects and surface roughness.

About me

Dr. Matti Isakov obtained his doctoral degree at Tampere University of Technology in 2012 (title of the doctoral thesis: Strain Rate History Effects in a Metastable Austenitic Stainless Steel). He has over 10 years of experience in the field of material behavior at high rates of loading. During his career Isakov has been working both in Finland and internationally in a wide range of topics covering virtually every material class. Isakov’s current research concentrates on the development of component level high loading rate measurements and related numerical modelling techniques. Currently Dr. Isakov works in the faculty as Staff Scientist and is not strictly a member of this research group, but he helps and advises both experimental and numerical work carried out in this group.

About me

Dr. Saksala is a renowned scientist focusing his attention especially on rock mechanics, numerical and phenomenological modeling of material behavior, and simulations of various high rate events. Besides taking an active part on various research projects with IMPACT, he is also an adjunct professor and advices and supervises students and postdocs whose work involves modeling and simulations. Dr. Saksala is part of the solid mechanics research group at the faculty of Built Environment at Tampere University.

About me

Dr. Ramakrishnan was a postdoctoral scientist at IMPACT for one and a half years in 2017-2018. He was working on metal-composite laminate structures focusing on the medium to high velocity impact and fracture behavior of the laminates. His project included both experimental and numerical methods. Later Dr. Ramakrishnan works was offered a Postdoc position at University of Oxford and he moved to UK. While still at TAU he applied for the H2020 Marie Curie Individual Fellowship which was granted to him in 2019. Currently Ram works at University of Bristol.

About me

Dr. Mardoukhi first completed his M.Sc. at Tampere University of Technology, and then stayed to complete his PhD (2013-2017) in high strain rate rock mechanics. After his PhD he stayed as a postdoctoral research funded by the PostDocs-in-Companies program for one more year. Dr. Mardoukhi developed several new testing and analysis methods for evaluating the effects of pre-existing cracks on the dynamic fracture behavior of granitic rocks. These exerpements can be used for, for example, validation methods for simulations of several consecutive impacts of a drill bit on the rock surface in percussive drilling. Currently Dr. Mardoukhi continues his work on materials engineering at Metso Inc.

About me

Dr. Vazquez graduated in 2020. Here thesis can be found here. The thesis was accepted with honors and also received the best PhD degree award from Pentti Kettunen säätiö.

About me

Guilherme finnished his PhD in 2022 and is now working at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland in Espoo.

About me

While at TAU/IMPACT, Arturo’s research focused on the integration of experimental results into numerical models to simulate fatigue and damage evolution in rocks with electromagnetic actuation of piezoelectric phases dispersed in the structure. He finished his PhD in 2024 and currently works at Wärtsilä Inc. as an Expert, Structural Analyst.