Dr Catalin Iulian Pruncu PhD, CEng MIMeche, MInstP, MASME

• CEng and Member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (UK), Nov, 2015
• Member of the Institute of Physics (UK), June 5, 2015
• Member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (USA), June 01, 2014
• PhD in Design Mechanics and Biomechanics, Politecnico di Bari, Italy, 2013
• MSc in Mechanics & Materials Engineering, University Paul Verlaine Metz, France, 2009
• BSc in Mechanical Engineering, University Vasile Alecsandri, Bacau, Romania, 2008

Dr Pruncu undertook an MSc in Mechanical Engineering in the University of Paul Verlaine Metz (France) in 2009. In 2013, he received a PhD in Design Mechanics and Biomechanics from Politecnico di Bari (Italy). Dr Catalin Pruncu joined the University of Birmingham in 2014 to become a Research Fellow in the School of Mechanical Engineering.

Projects :

-       Develop a new design for metal seat ball valve assemblies for Nuclear and Marine industries & focus to detect and to improve the problems imposed by the surface engineering submitted to the tribological contacts (i.e. ball, seat, and ball/seat/ body of valves); to identify wear involved in the ball valve mechanisms, further on to conduct testing and failure analysis of existing valve products, undertake measurement of surface characteristics and tribological response for imposed contact combinations.

-       Understand the manufacturing capability of the industrial partner that produce the valves components (i.e. ball-seat-body of valves) to help improve their processes and to increase the performance of ball valves capability.

-       Research activity concerning the tribological behavior of aluminum alloys submitted to cold forging processes. Making hard progress for improving and to optimize technological processes by developing a novel lubrication process through calibration of accurate friction models that include important parameters such as: lubricant viscosity, speed effect, contact pressure, equivalent plastic strain, and interface temperature.

Project dedicated to analysing crack initiation/propagation phenomena in innovative materials such as titanium alloys. Task performed using Acoustic Emission (AE) device and correlated with high speed camera and then checked with optical microscopy (SEM, and optical microscope).