NAMRI/SME Founder’s Lecture 2025

Abstract: Composite materials are increasingly used in aerospace, automotive, marine, and defense industries. Recent aerospace trends focus on reducing emissions, weight, and the buy-to-fly ratio, leading to the use of high-strength hybrid materials like metal-composite stacks and fiber metal laminates. Fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) composites, metal-composites, and fiber metal laminates are popular for their strength, low weight, and corrosion resistance. Machining is necessary for tolerance and surface finish, with edge trimming by milling or drilling for assembly are commonly used. These materials are stronger and lighter but require challenging machining processes, which can cause tool wear, friction, and other issues, increasing production time and cost. This presentation will clarify how to machine different composite materials in terms of operating conditions, cutting tools, and the appropriate machines. It also presents typical damage patterns caused by both traditional and nontraditional machining operations and strategies to reduce induced damage. Current practices and requirements for producing high quality critical composite components in the aerospace industry are also presented after review of the state of the art in both traditional and nontraditional methods of machining processes for composites and hybrid materials systems, discussing damage and modeling considering the factors like cutting forces, tool wear, and surface finish and most importantly the surface integrity. Some challenging issues will also be discussed for future research directions.

Biography: Ramulu Mamidala is the Boeing-Pennell Professor of Engineering, Professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering, Adjunctive Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Industrial and Systems Engineering at University of Washington. Engaged heavily both in teaching and research for the past 43 years at the University of Washington. He was a leader of two interdisciplinary engineering programs, namely Co-director for the Program in Engineering and Manufacturing Management, and Director of the MSE Program in Manufacturing Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, USA. He received his B.E (Mech Eng)) from Osmania University, MTech (Production Eng) from IIT New Delhi, India and PhD from University of Washington.

Dr. Mamidala was named Outstanding Teacher by the College of Engineering in 1985-86 and was ranked among the top ten professors at the University of Washington by graduating students in 1986. He received several prestigious awards, including the University of Washington’s Faculty Excellence Award, the SAE Ralph R. Teetor Award, ASEE's AT&T Foundation Award and the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1989. In 1994, he earned the R1edu award for outstanding contributions to online learning. He has also received the Distinguished Alumnus in Academics award from Osmania University, India, and the Distinguished Contributions to Lifelong Learning Award from the University of Washington in 2012.

His other accolades include the ASEE’s Isadore T. Davis Award, Academic Engineer of the Year from the Puget Sound Engineering Council, and the WJTA’s Technology Award. He was honored with the SME’s Jud Hall Composites Manufacturing Award in 2014. He is a member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of ASME, SEM, ASM International, and SME. He has won several best research paper awards from organizations such as the US waterjet Association, International Waterjet Society, International Conference on Super Plastic Forming, and ASME. He has edited five ASME Symposium Proceedings and co-edited a book on machining ceramics and composites published in 1999. He is one of the founding members of the Machining Science and Technology Journal, also serving/served as an Associate Editor on five other Journals.

Dr. Mamidala’s research interests reflect the multidisciplinary nature of materials, mechanics and manufacturing engineering, and primarily focus on aircraft materials and structures. He also has successful research programs in machining, drilling and surface integrity of composite materials and structures, fracture mechanics, fatigue and metal additive manufacturing. His research program has graduated 40 PhD and more than 250 MS degree students since 1986. Professor Mamidala has published more than 400 technical papers in these fields in refereed journals and conference proceedings.