Jack Mecholsky

Professor

jmech@mse.ufl.edu

Gainesville FL UNITED STATES
Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering

Jack Mecholsky specializes in failure analysis of materials that fail in a brittle manner and applying fractal geometry to fracture.

Contact

Biography

John J. "Jack" Mecholsky Jr. research interests include fiber fracture, wear and deformation of hybrid bearings and hard materials, particle science and technology, fractal fracture processes in brittle materials, fracture in dental biomaterials, and failure analysis of structural components. He is a professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department. He has served as chair of the Faculty Senate, associate chair of his department, graduate coordinator, and undergraduate coordinator.

Areas of Expertise

Dental Biomaterials Fracture

Natural Biological Materials Fracture

Fractal Geometry

Quantitative Fractography

Fracture

Failure Analysis

Articles

Fracture toughness and fractal analysis of ceramic benchmark materials

Journal of Materials Science

W. B. Key, et. al

2023-09-14

Previous studies have reported various methods of measuring the fracture toughness of brittle ceramics. The purpose of the present research was to use a new method of fractal dimension measurement on benchmark materials (silica glass, Viosil SX, Shin-Etsu, n = 13, and silicon nitride standard reference material, SRM2100, NIST, n = 10), to compare the fracture toughness calculated using different methods, and to study the effect of noise filtering on the fractal dimension and fracture surface...

Improving the damage tolerance of Si3N4 by forming laminate composites with refractory metals

Journal of Composite Materials

David J. Mitchell & John J. Mecholsky, Jr.

2022-05-05

The objective of this research was to demonstrate that the damage tolerance of Si3N4 could be significantly improved by forming laminate composites with refractory metals, providing materials that undergo graceful failure, rather than the fast-fracture mechanism exhibited by monolithic Si3N4. A damage tolerant Si3N4 could be used as a ring material in an all-ceramic bearing, decreasing the chance for catastrophic failure if the ring is stressed in tension during operation.