After completing his D.Phil. in the Materials Department at the University of Oxford, Ken Mingard spent 15 years in industrial research and development before joining NPL in 2005. His background in microscopy was developed during his D.Phil. and his wide experience of materials gained from working in powder metallurgy to produce aluminium, steel and a range of magnetic materials.
At NPL he leads the work on microstructural characterisation, developing methods for accurate and reproducible measurement of microstructure.
He is a member of the ISO TC202 standards committee which is responsible for scanning electron microscopy and has written and contributed to several standards on Electron Backscatter Diffraction. He is also a member of the Society of Electron Microscope Technology. He has (co)authored over 50 papers from his research work and also numerous reports as part of contract problem solving projects for industries as diverse as food production to nuclear power.
Areas of interest
Ken’s work in microstructural characterisation are particularly geared to the development of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques and in particular electron backscatter diffraction. He has developed robust methods for grain size determination in 2D and is continuing this work into 3D by the use of focused ion beam (FIB)-SEM. He has worked with Strathclyde University in the development of direct electron detectors particularly for use with 3D EBSD.
His interests in microscopy extends to developing understanding of microstructure-property relationships. This work has been applied in particular to hard materials such as WC hardmetals and polycrystalline diamond, and has contributed to many international projects with industrial and academic partners in the Euro HM group of the European Powder Metallurgy Association.
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