What if steel could be preheated to a lower temperature for welding, creating a safer working environment, cutting costs and emissions, and improving efficiency?
The University of California, San Diego’s Machel Morrison, PhD aims to find out--and the American Institute of Steel Construction is helping him do so with a four-year, $300,000 Milek Fellowship.
“This research may lead to lower preheat requirements for some of the most common steel shapes and plate--which would have huge benefits,” said AISC Director of Research Devin Huber, PE, PhD. “This is precisely the kind of forward-thinking research that keeps structural steel at the forefront of efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability.”
In the project, titled “Improving Efficiency and Sustainability of Steel Construction via Reductions in Preheat Temperatures for Welding,” Morrison and his team will create a validated model to identify ideal temperature reduction conditions for a substantial number of weld joints that are routinely used for structural steel fabrication in the U.S. They will use small- and large-scale testing to verify the accuracy of that model.
As the 2025 Milek Fellow, Morrison will receive $75,000 in annual funding (at least half of which is intended to support a promising doctoral candidate), as well as free registration to the Steel Conference during the Fellowship.
About the Milek Fellowship
AISC introduced its Faculty Fellowship Award in 2004 and in 2011 renamed it the Milek Fellowship after William A. Milek Jr., former AISC Vice President of Engineering and Research, to recognize his invaluable contributions to AISC and the structural steel industry.
2024 Milek Fellow Mohannad Zeyad (M.Z.) Naser, PE, PhD, of Clemson University, is currently working to develop an AI design assistant, dubbed “SteelGPT,” that will flag potential improper designs or assumptions and offer engineers and fabricators suggestions to improve their designs. It’s intended as a resource to help design engineers develop an optimized and safe design while speeding up the overall process.