Research focus areas

• Corrosion
• Materials performance
• Mechanical properties and responses to deformation

My primary research interests are in environment assisted cracking (EAC) and corrosion of metals and alloys. I have particular interest in advancing laboratory EAC experimental capabilities to enable improved understanding of unique service environments, quantifying and understanding metallurgical and thermo-mechanical processing effects on occluded site electrochemistry in corrosion and EAC of metals, and in inhibition of EAC.  

This research area is important as it dramatically improves the sustainable use of metals utilized in our infrastructure (examples include aluminum used for aircraft, automobiles; and bridges and steels used for ships, automobiles, bridges, and nuclear waste storage).

A major problem when considering the sustainable use of metals is environmental degradation through corrosion processes. In everyday life, corrosion is most easily seen as rust; but in our aging infrastructure, it can go unseen and cause catastrophic failures that severely limit sustainable, long-term use of engineered metal structures.

My research aims to understand the processes that lead to failures promoted by the environment so that one can properly design against it or mitigate the problem.

Professor Locke is active with the Center for Performance and Design of Nuclear Waste Forms and Containers (WastePD) at Ohio State, one of four Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) established by the Department of Energy.

Technical work experience

Alcoa Technical Center

Jen worked for three years in research and development at Alcoa, where she focused on corrosion and environment-assisted cracking of aerospace and automotive Al alloys. Professor Locke also began work in alloy development and thermo-mechanical processing at Alcoa. 

University of Virginia, Center for Electrochemical Science and Engineering

At the University of Virginia, Jen performed research on corrosion fatigue of age-hardenable Al alloys. Specifically, she examined the ability of specific microstructures to self-inhibit the deleterious effects of a corrosive environment or the ability of chemical inhibitors to produce passivity to inhibit the deleterious effects of a corrosive environment. 

Alcoa Technical Center

Air Force Research Laboratory

At AFRL, Jen studied glass formability in Al-Ni-RE (rare earth) bulk metallic glasses.