Michael Kirka

Dr. Michael Kirka is a Senior Research Staff and Group Leader at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), specializing in additive manufacturing and high-temperature materials. His work focuses on overcoming non-weldability challenges and enabling materials with enhanced operational capabilities, such as Ni-base superalloys and refractory metals, for extreme environments.

Research interests include

• Additive manufacturing of high-temperature alloys
• Microstructural engineering for mechanical behavior
• Modeling and simulation of fatigue and thermal processes
• Hydrogen embrittlement resistance in materials
• Texture evolution in 3D-printed metals

Recent publications highlight trends in

• Cycle-jump acceleration methods for fatigue simulation
• Data-driven alloy design
• Microstructure heterogeneity analysis
• Repair techniques for gas turbine components
• Origami-inspired metallic structures

Kirka earned a B.S. in Materials Science (2007) from the University of Michigan and M.S. (2010) and Ph.D. (2014) in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. He leads interdisciplinary teams integrating metallurgy, data science, and computational modeling.