Dr. Popelar's primary area of interest is in the field of applied mechanics with particular interests in viscoelasticity, fracture mechanics, and structural life assessment and prediction methodologies. He has a broad background in mechanical characterization and analysis of materials including metals, polymers and structural adhesives, with over 15 years of experience in characterizing and numerical modeling of the mechanical behavior of polymeric materials for use in structural reliability assessments.
Dr. Popelar has more than seven years of experience in the cardiovascular and cardiac rhythm management industries. At CarboMedics Inc., a prosthetic heart valve manufacturer, he managed the Materials Technology group and the Reliability Engineering Department, and was responsible for performing mechanical and materials characterization for lifetime assessments of prosthetic valves and associated heart repair devices. He developed and validated a temperature-accelerated fatigue characterization methodology for polymeric materials to quantify their fatigue performance at one billion cycles. Dr. Popelar managed the Numerical Modeling department at Medtronic Inc., Cardiac Rhythm Management, performing structural integrity analyses of pacemakers, defibrillators, and heart leads.
Dr. Popelar's graduate work at The University of Texas at Austin involved characterizing and modeling the nonlinear viscoelastic behavior of structural adhesives using a combined experimental and analytical approach. This effort included the development of constitutive models capable of describing the nonlinear, time-dependent response of the adhesives subjected to a wide range of multiaxial loadings under various temperature and moisture conditions. The nonlinear constitutive relations were incorporated in the ABAQUSÔ finite element code for use in performing fracture mechanics assessments and structural evaluations of bonded composite joints.
Earlier in his career at Southwest Research Institute, Dr. Popelar was an integral part of a wide variety of projects involving applied and fundamental research in the areas of viscoelasticity, fracture mechanics and structural lifetime prediction. These included developing advanced life prediction methodologies for use in life assessments of polyethylene gas pipe materials due to creep crack growth as well as performing life assessments of damaged and corroded steel gas transmission pipelines. He has been an integral part of assessing the structural integrity and damage tolerance analyses of military aircraft through combined experimental, analytical and computational approaches. He initiated programs to investigate and assess the viability and life of viscoelastic (polymers and tissue) materials for use in artificial heart valve and heart repair applications. In addition, Dr. Popelar was involved in fatigue crack growth assessments of integrated circuit interconnect wires, and fatigue and wear of elastomeric bearings used in the offshore industry.
While at The Ohio State University, Dr. Popelar worked on a research project in conjunction with Southwest Research Institute involving the lifetime predictions of several polyethylene gas pipe materials. His primary involvement in this project was to characterize the viscoelastic behavior of these PE materials, leading to the development of a time-temperature superposition principle for use in an accelerated lifetime prediction methodology for creep crack growth.
Dr. Popelar has served on a number of professional society committees, including the SEM Executive Board, Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretary of the SEM Time Dependent Materials Technical Division. He has organized and chaired numerous conference tracks and sessions.
Professional Chronology
Southwest Research Institute: engineer, 1989; research engineer, 1989-91, 1997-8; CarboMedics Inc.: 1998-2005 (Materials Technology: group leader, 1998-2003; Reliability Engineering: manager, 2003-5); Medtronic Inc.: manager, numerical modeling, 2005-6; Southwest Research Institute: 2006-[senior research engineer, 2006; manager, 2006-present].
Honors & Awards
Raymond and Lucy Cruce Scholarship in Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin (1996-97), David and Doris Lybarger Endowed Scholarship in Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin (1996-97), Alpha Sigma Mu, Metallurgical Engineering Honorary Society, The Ohio State University (1986).
Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®), headquartered
in San Antonio, Texas, is a multidisciplinary, independent, nonprofit, applied
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