Dr. Murugaiyan Amirthalingam
Associate Professor
Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600 036
| Office | Room 251, Krishna Chivukula Block (KCB) |
|---|---|
| Phone | +91 44 2257 4784 |
| Click here for email |
My areas of research include metal additive manufacturing, welding process development, welding metallurgy and alloy development for additive manufacturing.
Before joining IIT Madras in 2016, I spent ten years at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, first as a PhD researcher on the welding of TRIP steels (PhD, 2010) and then as a postdoctoral researcher. Earlier, I worked in R&D at Tata Steel, Jamshedpur. My group works closely with industry and with hospitals, and several of the parts we have designed and printed are now in production or in clinical use.
Laboratories I take care of
- Joining and Additive Manufacturing Laboratory: welding, arc-wire and laser directed energy deposition, and laser powder bed fusion of metals.
- Gleeble Thermo-mechanical Simulation Laboratory: thermo-mechanical simulation and testing on the Gleeble 3800, including tests for external agencies.
- Physical Metallurgy Laboratory: the department’s central facility for metallography and microstructural characterisation.
Commercialised innovations in additive manufacturing
Metal parts designed and printed by our group that are now in industrial or clinical use.
Mookara et al., Welding in the World, 2021
Salient achievements
- Cranioplasty implants. Patient-specific cranioplasty implants cut surgery time from 15–20 hours to 2–3 hours, with a 100% success rate. Developed with VHS Hospital, Chennai.
- Facial reconstruction. A complete design-to-print method for patient-specific facial reconstructive implants. More than 335 patients, including black fungus patients, have regained their face and smile.
- 3D-printed forging tooling. Set up a first-in-the-world industrial production line for 3D printing warm forging tooling at Super Auto Forge, Chennai.
- Naval aviation spares. Indigenised critical spare parts for naval aviation.
- New alloys for printing. Five alloy compositions designed for additive manufacturing, developed and commercialised, including aluminium, tool steel and cobalt-based alloys.
- Patents. Four granted patents (three Indian patents and one Indian design registration) and eight further applications filed. See the granted patents.
Recent journal papers
- Singh, V.K., Sahoo, D., Amirthalingam, M., Mishra, S.K., Karagadde, S., Understanding the kinetics of δ-phase formation in additively manufactured Inconel 718 alloy by in situ heat treatment in TEM, (2026) Materialia, 50, art. no. 102955, DOI: 10.1016/j.mtla.2026.102955.
- Maurya, A.K., Kartheesan, S., Thawari, N., Sivakumar, G., Amirthalingam, M., Kamaraj, M., Wear–corrosion synergism and tribocorrosion mechanisms of plasma-sprayed hydroxyapatite coatings on laser powder bed fusion-fabricated CoCrMo alloys, (2026) Wear, 609, art. no. 207158, DOI: 10.1016/j.wear.2026.207158.
- Choudhury, S.S., Amirthalingam, M., Annabattula, R.K., Functionally graded material spreading using slotted recoater for controlled composition gradation in laser powder bed fusion: a discrete element method perspective, (2026) Manufacturing Letters, in press, DOI: 10.1016/j.mfglet.2026.09.004.
- Maurya, A.K., Paruvayakode, S., Sivakumar, G., Ramanathan, S., Amirthalingam, M., Kamaraj, M., Corrosion mechanisms of plasma-sprayed hydroxyapatite coatings on LPBF-fabricated CoCrMo alloys with engineered surface roughness, (2026) Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 1077, art. no. 189611, DOI: 10.1016/j.jallcom.2026.189611.
- Nagpure, D., Ilangovan, R.K., Krishnaswamy, H., Amirthalingam, M., An improved phenomenological description of electroplasticity accounting internal stress evolution, (2026) Mechanics of Materials, art. no. 105801, DOI: 10.1016/j.mechmat.2026.105801.