Hunter Rauch
Education
- 2016 B.S. - Materials Science and Engineering, Pennsylvania State University
- 2021 Ph.D. - Materials Science and Engineering, Virginia Tech
Research
Hunter is primarily researching superelastic and shape memory ceramics. These special functional ceramics are promising for shape memory actuators at high temperatures and in extreme environments, have high actuation stress and strain, and have large transformation hysteresis that allows them to dissipate energy as heat. Most of Hunter's work is with granular packings of shape memory ceramics, examining the mechanisms and characteristics of the martensitic phase transformation in ZrO2 in this unique form. In the near future, these ceramics will be integrated into energy absorbing metal matrix composites via AFSD, and fully functional microarchitectures will be 3D printed via a modified stereolithography technique.