LMU Mechanical Engineering Students Achieve Third Place for Additive Manufacturing Research

A team of Loyola Marymount University Frank R. Seaver College of Science and Engineeringmechanical engineering students was recently awarded third place by the American Society of Materials (ASM) Los Angeles Chapter for their research presented at the annual student night event at the University of California, Los Angeles. The research titled "Impact of Heat Treated Parameters of the Fatigue Life and Porosity of Additive Manufactured A1Si10Mg Alloy" was led by LMU mechanical engineering graduate student Masoumeh Asghari (M.S.E. '26) and supported by undergraduate students Logan Carter '26, mechanical engineering; Thomas Dean '27, mechanical engineering; Lucas Lee '26, mechanical engineering; and Isaac Sorensen '27, mechanical engineering. The projeect was mentored by faculty advisors Omar Es-Siad and Allen Wilson, who also works at Boeing.

The LMU team collaborated with Boeing, which made and 3-D printed the material samples to ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) standards for the students to use in the investigation. Whether designing novel materials for aircraft, vehicles or a new cutting-edge device, engineers employ materials science, paired with other disciplines including additive manufacturing, to fabricate materials as part of larger designs. Understanding how those materials stand up to physical forces is a key part of the process. The term fatigue life refers to the total number of loading or stress cycles a material/component can endure before it fails.

The team's research investigates the influence of post-process heat treatments on the fatigue performance and porosity of AlSi10Mg produced via additive manufacturing. "AlSi10Mg, an aluminum alloy, is widely used in various industries due to its high strength-to-weight ratio, excellent thermal conductivity, and high corrosion resistance, making it a popular choice in aerospace and automotive applications," said Carter, undergraduate team lead. "Room temperature fatigue of AlSi10Mg is well documented, but the fatigue life of AlSi10Mg exposed to elevated temperatures for long durations is limited."

Working in LMU's lab, samples were subjected to heat treatments in high temperature furnaces at 200 degrees Celsius, 260 C, and 300 C for durations ranging from 15 minutes to 1,000 hours. Rotating Bending Fatigue (RBF) tests - applying force to measure stress - were conducted at 10 ksi and 25 ksi to evaluate fatigue life.

"In engineering, design failure is something engineers are working to avoid," said Carter. "A big part of materials science connects to research of materials used in engineering related to fatigue life, but also to the reliability, robustness, and resilience of a design for successful operation, and ultimately, safety."

Analysis of the fatigue data in this research showed heat treatment at 200 degrees C had little effect on fatigue life. However, at 260 C and especially 300 C under 25 ksi loading, longer heat exposure times increasingly reduced fatigue life, revealing a strong correlation between temperature, exposure duration, and earlier failure. At lower stress levels, many samples reached runout, preventing clear conclusions. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) imaging helped explain these results by showing the interconnected silicon network in the as-printed samples gradually broke down as heat exposure increased. As silicon particles' microstructure changed, dislocation movement became easier, increasing the material's permanent distortion and leading to faster failure. Combined, the fatigue data and SEM images demonstrated how elevated temperatures altered the material's microstructure and reduced fatigue performance.

This collaboration with Boeing came through LMU's Department of Mechanical Engineering and the ongoing research interests in aerospace materials and additive manufacturing," said principal investigator Asghari, who has a passion for materials science and advanced manufacturing. "We aim to better understand the properties and performance of AlSi10Mg and potential improvements for aerospace applications. Boeing's interest in this work is related to the possibility of applying these findings to future lightweight and high-performance components."

Asghari is continuing this research as part of her thesis and the next step is to study the material behavior under different manufacturing and testing conditions, including microstructural analysis and mechanical performance evaluations. The goal is to further optimize the material properties for aerospace applications and expand the research into additional processing techniques.

At ASM Student Night, there were 10 graduate presentations, and the LMU team was one of five undergraduate presentations, with all participants representing three universities: LMU, University of Southern California, and California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.