Dr. Brian Somerday has 25 years of experience in mechanical metallurgy with a focus on environmental effects on fracture and fatigue of structural alloys. During his career at Sandia National Laboratories (1997-2016), Brian led the Hydrogen Effects on Materials Laboratory (HEML) team comprised of technical staff, technologists, post-docs, and students. The HEML applied research portfolio emphasized characterization of hydrogen-assisted fracture and fatigue in structural alloys with the aim of enabling life prediction and materials selection for components in hydrogen gas service. This portfolio included projects related to hydrogen fuel technology that were designed to provide value to external stakeholders in industry and standards development organizations. The structural alloys featured in these projects were specified for pressure vessels, pipelines, and gas distribution manifolds.
Brian is currently a Materials Engineering Consultant with Somerday Consulting, LLC. Prior to forming his consulting business, Brian was a Principal Engineer at Southwest Research Institute, where his applied research projects focused on characterizing environment-assisted cracking of structural alloys in aqueous and gaseous environments. Brian has published extensively on the topic of hydrogen-assisted fracture and fatigue in structural alloys, including co-authoring the Technical Reference for Hydrogen Compatibility of Materials (www.sandia.gov/matlsTechRef/) and co-editing the two-volume set Gaseous Hydrogen Embrittlement of Materials in Energy Technologies (Woodhead Publishing, 2012).