Rahul Kumar Agrawal

Assistant Professor
Department of Fuel, Minerals and Metallurgical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) Dhanbad
Mobile: 8127057003
Mail: rahulagrawal@iitism.ac.in

Education
Examination Specialization Institute Year CPI
Doctor of Philosophy Metallurgical Engineering IIT Bombay 2022 9.56
and Materials Science
Master of Technology Metallurgical Engineering IIT BHU 2016 9.53
Varanasi
Bachelor of Technology Metallurgical Engineering NIT Raipur 2013 9.05

Doctoral work
 Study of the plastic deformation of AA7004 in 3.5 wt. % NaCl solution to understand its
environmentally assisted cracking behavior.
Supervisor – Prof. V. S. Raja, IIT Bombay
Overview - Environmentally assisted cracking (EAC) is conjoint action of load and a
susceptible environment on a material, resulting in premature failure of components. It is
well known that a material’s response to load and corrosive environment is largely
governed by its microstructure. It brings us to an interesting conjecture. That is, “for the
conditions when a material might not show EAC susceptibility, can the deformation
behavior be thought to be unaffected by environment”. The objective of my doctoral work
was thus to find some evidences which can help validate or invalidate above conjecture.
For this an EAC resistant Al-Zn-Mg alloy (AA7004) was chosen. The work hardening
response, activation volume and, strain distribution around dislocations using high
resolution lattice imaging was investigated.

Masters Project
 Effect of surface modification on corrosion and biological cell growth of cp-Titanium
Supervisor – Prof. Vakil Singh and Prof. K. Chattopadhyay, IIT BHU

Research Interests
 Corrosion – microstructure correlation with a focus on environmentally assisted cracking
 Tensile and fatigue behavior of metallic materials

Experimental and analytical skills

 Slow strain rate tensile testing system
 Electrochemical workstation
 Transmission electron microscope
 X-ray diffractometer
 Fatigue testing system
 Surface modification system

Contributions as academic support staff

 Teaching assistant for heat treatment lab, corrosion teaching lab and x-ray diffraction lab
as a part of doctoral workload.
 Teaching assistant for characterization of materials for corrosion. Topics covered –
electrochemical testing (like potnetiostatic testing, polarization experiments etc.), and
post corrosion characterization.

Contributions to peer-group
 Providing active experimental and analytical support for in-house research works, leading
to doctoral thesis of one, and master’s thesis of couple of lab mates of Aqueous Corrosion
Lab.
 Member of a commissioning team for the Central Transmission Electron Microscopy
facility at Department of MEMS, IIT Bombay, under supervision of Prof. I. Samajdar.
 Member of a four-member team tasked with designing of training protocols and training
of aspiring transmission electron microscope users at the Department of MEMS. A total
of 4 members trained over a period of two years.
 Scheduling and supervising usage of mechanical testing loops in Aqueous Corrosion Lab,
Department of MEMS.
 Procurement of new electrochemical and other testing units, repair and upgradation of
existing units, and overseeing other necessary non-core activities in Aqueous Corrosion
Lab.

Other training, workshops and certification courses

 Participated in continuing education program on Electron Microscopy and Microanalysis
of Materials at IIT (BHU) between 12th Feb. 2018 to 17th Feb. 2018.
 NPTEL online certification in Advanced Metallurgical Thermodynamics.
 4-week project-based training at Steel Melting Shop, Bhilai Steel Plant, SAIL, project
titled “Study of decarburization and dephosphorization during refining of steel at SMS-I”
in May 2012.
 Vocational training at Bhilai Steel Plant between 20th June 2011 to 9th July 2011.