Wen Jin Meng

Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Gerald Cire & Lena Grand Williams Endowed Professorship in ME
Smiley and Bernice Romero Raborn Chair in ME

PhD, California Institute of Technology (1988)
Elected to the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) in 2014.

Expertise

Plasticity, failure, and functionality across length and time scales • plasma-assisted vapor deposition of thin films and coatings, micro/nano fabrication • multiscale materials characterization.

Biographical Sketch

Wen Jin Meng received his BS degree in Physics in 1982 and his PhD degree in Applied Physics in 1988, both from Caltech. He was a postdoc at Argonne National Laboratory from 1988 to 1989 and a staff research scientist at the General Motors/Delphi R&D Center from 1989 to 1999. Since 1999, he has been a faculty member with Louisiana State University, where he is currently the Smiley and Bernice Romero Raborn Endowed Chair and Professor of Mechanical Engineering. His research spans topics concerning solid-state phase transformations, vapor phase growth of ceramic and metal thin films, nanostructured coatings and surface engineering, mechanical testing at small length scales, and microfabrication and assembly of metal-based structures and devices. He was elected to the National Academy of Inventors in 2014. From 2015 to 2021, he served as the scientific lead for a U.S. National Science Foundation program awarded to the state of Louisiana to establish the Consortium for Innovation in Manufacturing and Materials, with focus on advanced manufacturing technologies and associated materials research.

Key Publications

B. Zhang, K. L. Nielsen, J. W. Hutchinson, W. J. Meng, “Towards the development of plasticity theories for application to small scale metal structures”, PNAS 120, e2312538120/1-12 (2023).
B. Zhang, A. C. Meng, W. J. Meng, “Deviation of mechanical behavior in microforming from continuum scaling: a geometrically necessary dislocation storage perspective”, International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture 169, 103795/1-13 (2021).
X. Zhang, Y. Mu, M. Dodaran, S. Shao, D. Moldovan, W. J. Meng, “Mechanical failure of CrN/Cu/CrN interfacial regions under tensile loading”, Acta Mater. 160, 1-13 (2018).
X. Zhang, B. Zhang, Y. Mu, S. Shao, C. D. Wick, B. R. Ramachandran, W. J. Meng, “Mechanical failure of metal/ceramic interfacial regions under shear loading”, Acta Mater. 138, 224-236 (2017).
Y. Mu, J. W. Hutchinson, W. J. Meng, “Micro-pillar measurements of plasticity in confined Cu thin films”, Extreme Mechanics Letters 1, 62-69 (2014).
K. Chen, W. J. Meng, F. Mei, J. Hiller, D. J. Miller, “From micro to nano scale molding of metals: size effect during molding of single crystal Al with rectangular strip punches”, Acta Mater. 59, 1112-1120 (2011).
F. Mei, P. R. Parida, J. Jiang, W. J. Meng, S. V. Ekkad, “Fabrication, assembly, and testing of Cu- and Al- based microchannel heat exchangers”, IEEE/ASME JMEMS 17(4), 869-881 (2008).
J. Jiang, W. J. Meng, G. B. Sinclair, E. Lara-Curzio, “Further experiments and modeling for microscale compression molding of metals at elevated temperatures”, J. Mater. Res. 22, 1839-1848 (2007).
D. M. Cao, B. Feng, W. J. Meng, L. E. Rehn, P. M. Baldo, M. M. Khonsari, “Friction and wear characteristics of ceramic nanocomposite coatings: titanium carbide/amorphous hydrocarbon”, Appl. Phys. Lett. 79, 329 (2001).
W. J. Meng, T. J. Curtis, L. E. Rehn, P. M. Baldo, “Temperature dependence of inductively coupled plasma assisted deposition of titanium nitride coatings”, Surf. Coat. Technol. 120/121, 206-212 (1999).