Professor Wei Zhang Becomes American Welding Society Fellow

photo of Wei Zhang accepting American Welding Society Fellow Award 2018 Ohio State

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering congratulates Wei Zhang, PhD., Professor of Welding Engineering for election as an American Welding Society (AWS) Fellow in November 2018.

Dr. Zhang was nominated by members of AWS for his distinguished contributions to the field of welding science and technology. Wei actively promotes an improved, fundamental understanding of welding and additive manufacturing processes and material behaviors through advanced modeling and experimental efforts. He was also recognized for a dedication to advancing materials science and engineering through the education of welding engineers-in-training at The Ohio State University.

Wei Zhang’s designation as Fellow of AWS is a nod to his passionate mentoring of students and young professionals in a discipline that is under-appreciated for its function. Welding impacts more than 50 percent of the products manufactured in the United States and Professor Zhang gives credence to the impact of welding engineering by calling out an example precious yet unrecognized by most Americans,

“a passenger car typically has 4000 resistance spot welds. Sound welds are essential for efficient and reliable operation of airplanes, power plants, medical devices and washer machines. Welding is a broad discipline covering aspects of materials science and metallurgy, lasers, design, inspection and quality assurance, and mechanical, electrical and electronic systems.”

 

Dr. Zhang has established a significant breadth of research activities, including

  1. Additive manufacturing of metals (powder bed and blown-powder)
  2. Light-metal and dissimilar-metal joining for transportation (automotive, shipbuilding etc.)
  3. Creep-resistance steels and alloys for power generation
  4. Inertia and linear friction welding
  5. Modeling of welding and additive manufacturing processes and materials. 

Two notable contributions include the role of heat transfer and fluid flow in molten pools and the development of residual stress and distortion from complex thermal histories arising from welding and joining. His work has led to a much-improved understanding of the interplay between these two phenomena, and he is now leveraging this insight to understand the formation of defects in additive manufacturing. 

Wei Zhang joins Emeritus Professor John Lippold, Professor Dave Farson and Professor Boian Alexandrov who are also AWS Fellows. Congratulations, Wei!

 

 

Zhang's research projects are sponsored by various federal agencies and industry companies

  • NASA
  • Office of Naval Research
  • Department of Energy
  • LIFT
  • NSF
  • Honda R&D Americas
  • AO Smith
  • AREVA
  • EWI
  • Ingalls Shipbuilding
  • Ford Motor Company