Professor Pettit's current areas of research are concerned with the degradation of materials at elevated temperatures by oxidation hot corrosion and erosion and the use of coatings for protection Special emphasis is placed upon high performance-high temperature materials such as superalloys intermetallics composites and coatings to be used in advanced combustion systems The experimental approaches involve detailed characterization of materials before and after attack using optical scanning and transmission electron microscopy The data are evaluated by performing thermodynamic and kinetic analyses The research is directed towards applied problems with emphasis on mechanism development