STEM Faculty

Professional biography

Dr Salih Güngör is a senior lecturer in Materials Engineering in the School of Engineering and Innovation. After receiving his BSc and MSc in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at METU, he obtained his PhD at The Open University with his work on small fatigue cracks. After working on several post-doctoral projects at the Universities of Sheffield and Oxford, he joined The Open University in 2002 as a lecturer.

Research interests

Salih has over 25 years of research experience in applying optically-based experimental methods for characterizing in-situ behaviour of materials and structures. His recent interests include the application of Digital Image Correlation for strain measurement in high temperature tests, in particular for the characterisation of creep behaviour of weldments. He is the Open University lead in EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Nuclear Energy Futures, which is a postgraduate training consortium comprising, Imperial College London, Cambridge University, The Open University, University of Bristol and Bangor University. He is a past chairman of the British Society for Strain Measurement (http://www.bssm.org/).

Research projects that he has been involved in include:

• Accelerated fatigue testing of carburized steels (METU, Turkey)
• Characterisation of small fatigue crack behaviour in aluminium alloys (The Open University, GKN)
• Characterisation of fatigue and fracture behaviour in materials using the optical method of caustics (The Open University, SERC)
• Characterisation of fracture mechanics parameters in materials using photoelasticity (University of Sheffield, Airbus, DERA)
• Design with Metal Matrix Composites (Oxford University, EPSRC)
• Application of micro-moiré for detailed stress analysis of aircraft structures (Oxford University, Brite-Euram, Airbus)
• Development of a moiré interferometer for fatigue studies (Oxford University, Rolls Royce)
• Analysis of fastened spar-to-skin joint in carbon-composite wings (Oxford University, Airbus, DERA)
• Strain localization during high strain rate testing of materials (Oxford University, DERA)
• High rate material testing of damping materials (Oxford University, Rolls-Royce)
• Measurement of residual stresses in Ti-SiC composites using moiré interferometry (Oxford University, Rolls-Royce)
• Strain measurement techniques applied to solder joints (The Open University)
• Constitutive modelling of the structural integrity of lead-free solder joints (The Open University)
• Microstructure evolution during thermo-mechanical processing of two phase titanium alloys (The Open University, Qinetiq)
• Effects of plastic strain and heat treatment on microstructure and mechanical properties of 316 stainless steel tubing (The Open University, EDF)
• Measurement of creep behaviour of structural materials and welds using DIC (The open University, EDF)
• Characterisation of Microscale Stresses and Strains Resulting from Martensitic Phase Transformations (The Open University)
• Transferability Of Small-Specimen Data To Large-Scale Component Fracture Assessment (The Open University, EPSRC)
• DMW-Creep: Influence of Inhomogeneity on Creep of Dissimilar Metal Welds (The Open University, EPSRC)

Teaching interests

Salih’s teaching activities are varied and include structural integrity, fracture mechanics, structural mechanics and dynamics, materials behaviour, forensic engineering and personal development. He is a member of the following module teams at The Open University:

• T174       Engineering the future
• T176       Engineering: professions, practice and skills 1
• T198       Engineering at work
• T207       Engineering: mechanics, materials, design
• T272       Core Engineering B
• T276       Engineering: professions, practice and skills 2
• T357       Structural integrity: designing against failure (Module team chair)
• T452       BEng project
• T460       The MEng individual project (Production chair)
• T839       Forensic engineering (Module team chair)
• TXR120   Engineering: an active introduction
• TXR220   Engineer in action
• T367       Structural integrity: predicting and assessing performance (Production chair)
• T808       Finite element analysis: principles and applications