​Joe joined ISIS in May 2009 after working in the group of Prof. Philip Withers at the University of Manchester. His background concerns the measurement and modelling of residual stress in engineering components, how this stress can change in service and the mechanisms by which materials eventually fail. Together with Saurabh Kabra and Tung Lik Lee, Joe manages the ENGIN-X neutron diffractometer and its associated sample environments, used for strain mapping and in-situ studies of material deformation. Joe is also involved in the rollout of the IMAT instrument on TS2, which offers full-spectrum imaging and diffraction capabilities on top of the capability already provided by ENGIN-X.

Joe first became involved in the field from his industrially-sponsored PhD work examining residual stress in railway rails, then of recent interest in response to the Hatfield derailment in 2000. Since then, Joe undertook a postdoctoral position managing one side of a Manchester-Bristol collaborative project funded by the UK MoD, looking at the stress states involved in welds, surface peening treatments, fatigue and crack closure, and the deformation mechanics of polycrystals. Joe has an active interest in expanding the application of neutron diffraction to these problems, exploiting the inherent benefits of full spectrum time-of-flight diffraction and working to achieve higher spatial resolutions.

Current Research Projects

• High resolution Bragg edge imaging for combined strain mapping, radiography and texture measurement
• Use of full-spectrum diffraction to study deformation mechanics of polycrystals
• In situ measurement of strain fields around cracks, and mitigation of crack growth through stress treatments (e.g. peening or heat treatment of welds)
• Scientific computing software for diffraction and related experiments
• Complementary stress measurement techniques and modelling, and the use of neutrons to validate their predictions.