Nathan Huft - Department of Mechanical Engineering

Nathan HuftAssistant Professor

1300 West Park Street, Butte, MT 59701
S&E 309
Phone: 406-496-4576
E-mail: nhuft@mtech.edu

Biography

Nathan earned a B.S. degree in metallurgical engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in 2010, an M.S. degree in general engineering from Montana Tech of The University of Montana in 2012, and a Ph.D. in materials science from Montana Technological University in 2019.

From 2011 to 2019, Nathan worked for SeaCast of Montana and Montana Precision Products (MPP), where he started as an intern and transitioned to a full-time foundry engineer in 2012. As a foundry engineer, he performed product engineering for aerospace and commercial products and process engineering for air-melt and vacuum casting, vacuum heat treating, and several other manufacturing processes associated with investment casting. From 2015 to 2019, Nathan worked as a part-time engineer at MPP while pursuing his doctorate at Montana Tech.

Before joining the faculty at Montana Tech, Nathan was a materials engineer with the Energy and Environment Science & Technology (EES&T) directorate at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), where he studied advanced welding techniques and wire and arc additive manufacturing. Nathan is currently an assistant professor in Montana Tech's mechanical engineering department, where he leads mechanical engineering's welding engineering focus area.

Research Interests

  • Welding metallurgy
  • Metal additive manufacturing, especially wire and arc additive manufacturing
  • Welding processes and applications
  • Alloy development
  • Metal solidification

Courses Taught

  • Introduction to Welding Engineering (EWLD 314)
  • Welding Process Applications and Lab (EWLD 340 & EWLD 341)
  • Metallurgy of Welds (EWLD 488)

Selected Publications

K. Sudhakar, L. George, and N.Huft. "Analysis of failure mechanisms in a platetary gear," International Engineering Journal, Vol. 1, No.1, pp. 5-13, January 2013.