Richard Cairncross

Associate Professor

Degrees

PhD, Chemical Engineering, University of Minnesota, 1994
BS, Chemical Engineering, University of Rochester, 1989

Honors and Awards

• L.E. Scriven Young Investigator Award at the 13th International Coating Science and Technology Symposium, 2006
• Carl Dahlquist Award for Best Paper at the Pressure Sensitive Tape Council Tech XXV Meeting, 2002
• 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award, 1996, 1998, & 1999
• Sandia National Laboratories Award for Excellence, 1998
• Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) 1996
• U.S. Department of Energy Defense Programs Young Scientist and Engineer Award, 1996
  
• U.S. Department of Energy Basic Engineering Sciences Award for Sustained Outstanding Research in Metallurgy and Ceramics, 1995
  
• Marcel Dekker, Inc. Best Paper Award (Drying Technology: An International Journal), 1994
  
• Dissertation Fellowship (University of Minnesota), Fall 1993 to Spring 1994
  
• OSSP summer research program at Sandia National Laboratories, Summer 1993
  
• American Chemical Society Chemistry Achievement Award, 1989
  
• Shelby A. Miller Prize in Design (Best Design Project), AIChE, Rochester Section, 1989
  Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society, initiated 1988

Research Interests

• Moisture transport and hydrolytic degradation of bio-based and biodegradable polymers.
• Biofuels and Bioenergy, Integrated Biorefining of Biomass into a variety of products.
• Transport Phenomena (fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, mass transfer, and heat transfer) in materials processing of polymers, ceramics, and composites.
• Fundamentals of coating and drying processes. The interactions between processing conditions, microstructure development and coating properties.
• Finite element methods for multi-phase, multiphysics, and multi-scale free-surface problems in complex geometries and three dimensions.
• Thermal Spray productions of coatings from polymer powders and polymer/ceramic composite powders.
• Moisture transport in paper and swelling and collapse of paper fibers during moisturization and drying.

Recent Publications

Cairncross, R. A.; Jackson, L.; Vosevic, M.; Knight, R.; et al. Sliding wear properties of HVOF thermally sprayed nylon-11 and nylon-11/ceramic composites on steel. J Thermal Spray Techn 2007, 16(5-6), 927-932.

Ivosevic, M.; Cairncross, R. A.; Knight, R. Melting and degradation of nylon-11 particles during HVOF combustion spraying. J Appl Polym Sci 2007, 105(2), 827-837.

Cairncross, R. A.; Ramaswamy, S.; O'Connor, R. Moisture sorption and transport in polylactide. Int Polym Proc 2007, 22(1), 33-37