Dr. Mark C. Messner is the Group Leader of the Thermal and Structural Materials Modeling and Simulations Group in the Applied Materials Division at Argonne where he works on modeling, simulating, and designing high temperature materials and structures. His research areas include mesostructural and engineering-scale material modeling, structural and material design and optimization, development of simulation methods, and engineering design method development. He has a particular interest in the design and safe operation of high temperature nuclear reactors, concentrating solar power facilities, and thermal energy storage systems.

Dr. Messner develops and maintains simulation and calibration tools for  material simulations, including the NEML, NEML2, and pyoptmat tools developed by Argonne. He also develops and maintains a simulation tool for the crystal plasticity finite element method (CPFEM) that is integrated into the open-source Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) simulation framework as well as a computational tool for optimizing the reliability of concentrating solar power components, srlife.

He holds leadership roles in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Boiler & Pressure Vessel Code committees, particularly in Section III, Section I, and Section VIII committees developing methods for the mechanical design and life assessment of components in high temperature systems and is also a member of the American Nuclear Society.

Education

• Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering — University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2014
• M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering — University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2011
• B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering — University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2010

Select Honors

• Doug Scarth Early Career Leadership Award for Outstanding Service to the PVP Division as an Early Career Engineer
• Member and chair of several American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Section III Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code working groups responsible for high temperature design methods
• Co-chair of the Generation IV Forum Advanced Manufacturing and Materials Engineering Task Force
• Cohort 6 Selectee of Argonne’s Launchpad Program, 2021
• Recipient of National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, 2012–2014

Select Publications

Messner has published more than 70 peer-reviewed articles and more than 60 additional publications and reports. He holds two patents. A few recent publications are listed below.

• Mengiste, Ezra, et al. ​“Effect of irradiation-induced strength anisotropy on the reorientation trajectories and fragmentation behavior of grains in BCC polycrystals under tensile loading.” Acta Materialia 263 (2024): 119503.
• Hu, Tianchen, et al. ​“A Three-Dimensional, Thermodynamically and Variationally Consistent, Fully Coupled, Electro-Chemo-Thermo-Mechanical Model of Solid-State Batteries.” Journal of The Electrochemical Society 170.12 (2023): 123501.
• Messner, Mark C., Tianchen Hu, and Tianju Chen. ​“Time-vectorized numerical integration for systems of ODEs.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.08649 (2023).
• Chen, Tianju, and Mark C. Messner. ​“Training material models using gradient descent algorithms.” International Journal of Plasticity 165 (2023): 103605.
• Messner, Mark C., et al. ​“Designing Cladded Components for High Temperature Nuclear Service: Part I—Analysis Methods.” Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology 145.2 (2023): 021301.
• Barua, Bipul, et al. ​“Designing Cladded Components for High Temperature Nuclear Service: Part II—Design Rules.” Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology 145.2 (2023): 021302.
• Barua, Bipul, and Mark C. Messner. ​“Structural design challenges and implications for high temperature concentrating solar power receivers.” Solar Energy 251 (2023): 119-133.
• Messner, Mark C., Guosheng Ye, and T-L. Sham. ​“A Structural Design Approach Tailored for the Rapid Preliminary Design of Microreactor Components.” Nuclear Technology 209.sup1 (2023): S60-S72.