Greg Tipton, Ph.D.Sandia National Laboratories
Friday, March 7th, 2025, 3:00 - 4:00 PM
Jett Hall, room 109
Title: Validation of an Ablation Model for Polyethylene Using Pulsed X-ray Exposures
ABSTRACT: This talk will start with some background on Greg and his time as an undergraduate in the Mechanical Engineering Department at NMSU, and a little about his academic pursuits since. This will be followed by some background on the Engineering Sciences Center at Sandia National Laboratories including capabilities and active areas of research. The talk will then cover some current work being performed by the speaker on the response of polyethylene to high-rate heating. Simulations using the multi-physics code, ALEGRA, will be compared to experiments with pulsed heating from Sandia’s Z-Machine. Studies currently underway looking at both the solid material response as well as the ablated material plume will be discussed.
BIO: Dr. Greg Tipton graduated from the Mechanical Engineering Department at New Mexico State University in 1993. He went on to get a Master’s and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of New Mexico. His specialties are in the areas of Computational Mechanics, Experimental Mechanics, and Structural Dynamics. He is currently a Senior Scientist in the Engineering Sciences Center at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In this role, he helps lead the Center in establishing technical capabilities that support all the Laboratories’ mission areas. He is the Chief Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Environments (thermal, mechanical, electromagnetic, radiation, aero, shock physics) at the Laboratories, leading a network of SMEs that support all of Sandia’s programs in these areas. In his spare professional time, he continues to perform research in various areas of mechanics and multi-physics analysis. In his spare-spare time, Greg enjoys mountain biking, craft beer, and time with friends and family.
