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HRL Laboratories: R&D Intern

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  • Extreme Environment Materials Intern

  • Malibu, CA​

  • July-Dec 2023

Background: During my time at HRL Labs, I had the opportunity to work in the Extreme Environment Materials Group where I worked on two main projects. The first project dealt with the development of high strength, low density syntactic foams for submarine applications. The second project dealt with additively manufactured metal as a replacement for hot structures on high velocity vehicles. 

Skills Learned/Used: Laboratory mechanical testing, data analysis, test system augmentation, high pressure liquid system design and operation, experimental design, materials science experiment execution, metallographic polishing, optical microscopy, torch testing/hot work, spectropyrometry, vacuum furnace operation, oral presentation of technical results, internal technical consulting, time management.​

Syntactic Foam Testing

For this project, I was the sole Mechanical Engineer put in charge of testing novel foams. The testing set-up used was unique in design and I had to learn a majority of its inner workings through testing and experience. Over the course of my internship, I did the following for this project:

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  • Improve hardware of testing equipment and expand capabilities

  • Add software backups in Python to avoid reliance on MATLAB

  • Create documentation for future employees that needed to run the system which included troubleshooting steps

  • Perform routine testing of novel foams by bringing them up to extreme pressures that mimic ocean depths

Additively Manufactured Metals

For this project, I worked on various aspects that pertained to the development and testing of additively manufactured metals for high temperature environments. More specifically, I designed an experiment to create a coating to decrease the oxidation of a Niobium Alloy in a high heat, oxygenated environment. Over the course of my internship, I did the following for this project:

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  • DOE for coating development

  • Sputtering, Hot work, and pyrospectrometry for testing and analysis of metal substrates

  • Metal 3D printing, potting, and polishing 

  • Work with outside vendors to get various materials, tools, and services

Due to non-disclosure agreements, much of what I did at HRL cannot be talked about openly. However, I can ellaborate on most of the information on this page face to face. If you have any questions or are intersted in this work, feel free to reach out using the contact page

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