Rate My Professor Garrett Pataky

Garrett J. Pataky is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Clemson University in the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences. He joined the faculty in 2015 after earning his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2015, M.S. from the same institution in 2011, and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida in 2009. As director of the Fracture Mechanics and Materials Experimental (FRAME) Lab, Pataky's research centers on experimental solid mechanics, material behavior, fatigue, and fracture. His group employs multiscale experiments, including high-resolution digital image correlation to capture microstructural information and grain-level strain fields, linking meso-scale phenomena to continuum-level deformations. This work advances physics-based modeling by connecting dislocation-level mechanisms to component failure. Key research areas include microstructural effects on fracture and fatigue, deformation mechanisms in additively manufactured materials, deformation twinning, creep in titanium alloys, fatigue crack growth, and tribology of high-entropy alloys.

Pataky received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2021, funded at $555,634, to investigate metal fatigue in aluminum-copper alloys and the role of twin boundaries in enhancing fatigue resistance, with applications to nickel-based superalloys and stainless steels. He has earned the J. W. Dally Young Investigator Award from the Society for Experimental Mechanics and CECAS faculty awards. Notable publications include "Elastocaloric cooling potential of NiTi, Ni₂FeGa, and CoNiAl" in Acta Materialia (2015), "High temperature fatigue crack growth of Haynes 230" in Materials Characterization (2013), and "Full field measurements of anisotropic stress intensity factor ranges in fatigue" in Engineering Fracture Mechanics (2012). A member of TMS and SEM, he serves as a reviewer for several journals, Chair of the SEM Fracture and Fatigue Technical Division, and faculty advisor for the Clemson University Rocket Engineering team. His contributions bridge materials science and mechanical engineering through innovative experimental techniques.