Carter Hamilton

By Carole Johnson, University Communications and Marketing

Miami University’s Carter Hamilton received a Fulbright Scholar award to teach and research in Poland. He will study the material behavior of metals and their properties as they relate to welding techniques. 

An associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Hamilton, along with an international team of researchers, will identify the strength of joining magnesium and aluminum alloys through the process of friction stir welding.

Friction stir welding was developed in the early 1990s and has become the new standard in the manufacturing sector. The technique uses frictional heat and forces to plasticize the materials and “stir” them together. You can see the application of this process in items we encounter each day, from the seamless design of Apple’s products to commercial aircraft.

“There has been very little done on studying the structural integrity of joining these new alloys, and we plan to find out more about why they have the properties they do as we look at quality control,” he said.

Hamilton’s research, which began in 2005, includes team members from two universities in Kraków, Poland:  the AGH University of Science and Technology and the Pedagogical University. He also works with researchers from the Polish Welding Centre of Excellence in Gliwice, Poland, and in the United States, Brigham Young University.

A paper on their initial research was published in the fall of 2021 in the Journal of Manufacturing Process. Hamilton is looking forward to taking up the study again, which had been interrupted due to COVID-19. For the paper, Brigham Young performed the friction stir welding, AGH University performed the characterization using Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectroscopy, and Miami created the numerical simulations of the process. 

In 2019, he received a Fulbright Specialist Grant to work with the Pedagogical University during the summer of 2020. That trip was postponed twice due to COVID in 2020 and 2021.  He will travel to Poland this summer and then remain in Poland through the Fall to participate as a Fulbright Scholar. While researching, Hamilton will teach doctoral students in material science and work to formalize a study abroad program.

B. Carter Hamilton

Hamilton joined Miami in 2005 with a research focus on welding. After earning his doctorate in metallurgical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, he worked for the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company. Just before coming to Miami, he worked as the Quality Manager/Plant Metallurgist for Universal Alloy Corporation, a manufacturer of aluminum extrusions.