Students of Professor Pradeep Rohatgi, materials science & engineering, put their achievement on display at the annual American Foundry Society’s Regional Conference Feb. 5 in Brookfield. The lab members won both graduate scholarships and undergraduate Alec Buhler took the top prize in the event’s Regional Invitational Casting Competition.
Swaroop Kumar Behera and Dave Palmer, both PhD candidates, have been selected as recipients of the George J. Barker Memorial Research Scholarship. This national award supports graduate-level education in fields beneficial to the cast metals industry, with a particular emphasis on students associated with American Foundry Society chapters in Wisconsin.
Behera and Palmer were two of the ten scholarships awarded nationwide.
Undergraduate Alec Buhler, competed in the Open Category of the competition. He developed a low-cost method for preparing high-temperature tensile testing samples, using computer simulation, 3D printing, and investment casting. The technique creates a mold capable of producing ready-to-test samples with minimal finishing operations.
The judging panel was unanimous in its choice for the top award. David Weiss (CEO, Vision Materials), Mike Kamin (Vice President, Carpenter Brothers), and several other industry professionals praised UWM’s efforts, highlighting the project’s potential to contribute to the future standardization of investment-cast tensile test bars.
The prize money benefited the UWM AFS student organization chapter.