• Question: What other experiments have you been working on?

    Asked by sachat to David, James, Mike, Suze, Will on 23 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: James Marrow

      James Marrow answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Sachat

      I’ve quite a few things going on, in collaboration with others. Some of them are below – there are some pictures in my profile.

      1: How does a fatigue crack grow through the crystal grains in a metal, and what does it do as it meets the boundaries between the grains? We’re studying that in 3D, and would aim to use this to improve fatigue strength.
      2: Can we see how concrete creeps slowly with time and can we use our experiments to make better models that can be used for any concrete? (The creep, or slow deformation with time, reduces the effectivness of the steel reinforcement, so the concrete structure will become weaker with time)
      3: How can small amounts of salt on the surface of stainless steel cause cracking and how quickly does this occur? What can we do to the surface of the steel to resist this? (The salt comes from the atmosphere – sea spray goes for many miles.)

    • Photo: Suze Kundu

      Suze Kundu answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I don’t have any other experiments that mean anything going on besides my research. James is further on in his career, so he gets to play with loads of different things and look into various topics at the same time! I’m just a PhD student, so I have to stick within my field mostly!

    • Photo: William Eborall

      William Eborall answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I don’t have any experiments in progress at the moment that don’t relate to my main research – like Suze says PhD students have a little more focus to their work. But within what I’m doing are lots of experiments trying different things. At this early stage in my work most of what I’m trying to do is make enzymes (molecular machines) that gribble has artificially in the laboratory using bacteria so that I can study them more easily without having to squash any gribble.

    • Photo: Mike Dodd

      Mike Dodd answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      Heya Sachat, I have been working on a new experiment to find out if the enzyme I’m interested in is working harder than normal. I have found some really interesting results using my magnets, but I want to find out how these results are possible. So I am playing with chemicals and proteins to try and find the answer. I hope in the next couple of weeks to finally find the answer and be able to write a research paper about them.
      What experiments have you been doing? 🙂

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