MateriAlZ Seminar: Charlie Kuehmann
Friday, February 18, 2022, 11:00 am MST
Dr. Charlie Kuehmann
VP Materials Engineering and NDE for SpaceX and Tesla
"Engineering A Better Planet - And Our Way to New Ones!"
Zoom Link | Passcode: 797605
MateriAlZ Seminar website | YouTube | Twitter
Abstract
Materials challenges abound in the pursuit of interplanetary settlement and the transition to sustainable energy here on Earth. Lightweight structures that reliably operate in the extremes of space for long durations, high-temperature materials for reliable reuse in highly efficient rocket engines, advanced materials for body structure, and advanced energy storage that can be efficiently manufactured in high volumes, represent just a few of the opportunities for materials innovation to drive these ambitious goals. Not only do these materials need to be highly capable, but they also need to be cost-effective and scalable in volume manufacturing. Transitioning to sustainable electric vehicles for transportation will involve replacing a fleet of hundreds of millions of petroleum-fueled vehicles as quickly as possible. In addition, installed renewable electricity production will have to scale similarly to ensure those vehicles are powered by the cleanest energy possible. Technical achievements have also shown we can reach and explore beyond the confines of our planet. Many new technologies will need to be employed and perfected to allow living in the harsh conditions of other worlds and in space. The new materials and manufacturing methods enabling these
goals will need to make greater leaps in capability and in timeframes never achieved. Fortunately, materials engineering has also made great strides in the last decade, embracing the integration of computational methods and advanced systems design into a framework we now call Integrated Computational Materials Engineering. My journey to the leading edge addressing these challenges started at ASU as an undergraduate in Aerospace Engineering in the 1980s and progressed through graduate school in materials engineering, starting two companies, and building engineering teams at Apple, Tesla and SpaceX. While much of my success I attribute to luck, I’ll provide insights I’ve gained along this journey that I hope can be of benefit to those of you at the beginning of your own. It’s a great time to be an engineer.
Bio
Dr. Charlie Kuehmann, VP of Materials Engineering and NDE for SpaceX and Tesla, has been a leader in computational materials design since its inception. In creating the first company dedicated to commercializing computational materials design, he’s innovated the first materials and alloys from this new technology; high-performance steels for race cars, aluminum alloys for aircraft, gear materials for helicopters, high-temperature alloys for turbine engines, and even bubble-gum. As the computational materials design revolution has gained momentum and been embraced by government and private R&D organizations through the Accelerated Insertion of Materials and Materials Genome Initiative, Dr. Kuehmann has brought the technology to the consumer electronics industry and most recently to electric vehicles and spacecraft. He currently leads the materials engineering organizations at both Tesla and SpaceX, driving material solutions to enable the world’s transition to a sustainable future, the commercialization of space and a multi-planetary civilization.