Bio
Dr. Gerard M. Ludtka is a Fellow of the ASM International, former National Chair of the Heat Treating Society R&D Committee, recipient of the prestigious Department of Energy (DOE) E. O. Lawrence Memorial Award for Materials Research and the Secretary of Energy Honor Achievement Award, and Distinguished Research Staff Member of the ORNL Materials Science & Technology Division. Dr. Ludtka has over 30 years of applied and basic research experience within the industry: (Boeing-Vertol and General Motors Research), DOE national weapons complex (Y-12 National Nuclear Security Complex), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His extensive expertise in the development and application of heat treatment distortion simulation software such as his QUENCH SIMULATOR for weapons related materials formed the groundwork for the $9.6M DOE R&D program that inevitably developed the commercial DANTE heat treatment simulation software. Dr. Ludtka’s background includes broad materials characterization efforts encompassing micro-characterization techniques (TEM, SEM) and phase transformation kinetic dilatometry, mechanical property characterization, thermomagnetic processing (TMP), and thermomechanical processing and forming of materials. In addition, he currently has 11 U. S. Patents and over 40 technical publications in the refereed literature and conference proceedings. The thermomagnetic processing technology concepts and program at ORNL were pioneered by Dr. Ludtka starting in 2000 which has resulted in 30 invention disclosures/patents in the high magnetic field processing technology area along with approximately 30 papers published in refereed journals and symposium proceedings on various aspects of the initial proof-of-principle experiments conducted on this subject matter. The TMP technology was selected as a 2009 R&D100 Award winner and Dr. Ludtka received the UT-Battelle Distinguished Engineer Award in 2009 for his pioneering efforts in this area.