Category: Research Features

Solar Energy in Cold Climates: Ana Dyreson

This single-axis solar photovoltaic system is located at a Michigan Tech’s APS Labs site near Calumet, Michigan.
Ana Dyreson

Ana Dyreson is an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics at Michigan Tech. Her work centers on solar and alternative energy—and the impacts of climate change on those systems in the U.S. Great Lakes region through her Great Lakes Energy Group.

“In the last few decades, solar photovoltaics (PV) have become extremely cost-competitive,” she says. “This economic reality, combined with a push for decarbonization of the electric power sector in general, means that large-scale solar PV is growing—not only in traditional southern climates but also in the north where significant snow can reduce power output.”

Dyreson’s students at Michigan Tech, Ayush Chutani and Shelbie Davis are both involved in doctoral research on how to better understand just how solar PV systems shed snow, in particular, single-axis tracking systems, including modeling tto explore how widespread snow events might impact future power system operations.

“We are energy engineers who work in the context of a changing environment.”

Dr. Ana Dyreson’s Great Lakes Energy Group
Ayush Chutani

Dyreson and her team use energy analysis and grid-scale modeling to study the performance of renewable technologies.

“Our research links power plant-level thermodynamic models, climate models, hydrology models, and electricity grid operation models—all to understand how weather and climate change impact future power systems,” she explains.

In August 2022 Dyreson began conducting research at the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Regional Test Center (RTC), a newly built Michigan Tech facility operated by the Advanced Power Systems Laboratory (APS LABS) at Michigan Tech. Her research on single-axis tracking systems is supported by Array Technologies, Inc., who supplied a ten-row, single-axis tracking solar system and continues to partner on research.

Under the technical oversight of Sandia National Labs, the RTC program represents a consortium of five outdoor solar research sites across the U.S. that evaluate the performance and reliability of emerging PV technologies. 

To learn more about earning a degree or graduate certificate online, Michigan Tech Global Campus is a good place to start. 
Shelbie Davis

The RTC program gives U.S. solar companies access to these sites and to the technical expertise of Sandia and its academic partners, to drive both product innovation and commercialization of new high-efficiency solar products.

Dyreson earned her PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and her MS in Mechanical Engineering at Northern Arizona University. She conducted post-doctoral research in electricity grid modeling at the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). She earned her BS in Engineering Mechanics from University of Wisconsin–Madison. She’s a registered Professional Engineer in Wisconsin.

Shelbie took this photo at Michigan Tech’s new solar energy DOE Regional Test Center.

“I am lucky to work with talented PhD students including Ayush and Shelbie,” says Dyreson. “They each have unique professional backgrounds and personal interests in the work that they do, and it’s fun to see their work unfold.”

“Although we had never met, I sought Ana out as my faculty advisor before I even started at Michigan Tech,” says Davis. “I was fascinated by her work with alternative energy systems, specifically solar power. And Ayush has been a great PhD colleague and resource, as he is further in his PhD process and is also focusing on solar energy generation.”

Davis is earning her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Tech remotely, while working as a laboratory manager and instructor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Saint Martin’s University in Lacey, Washington, near Olympia, the state capitol. At Michigan Tech, students can earn a PhD remotely in either Mechanical Engineering or Civil Engineering

Chutani took part in the 26th United Nations climate change summit, COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland with the Michigan Tech delegation led by Chemistry Professor Sarah Green. Chutani traveled to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt in 2022 to attend COP27, again with the delegation from Michigan Tech.

Ayush Chutani takes part in a discussion panel at COP27 (Ayush is third from the right).

“Energy is something you cannot taste, see, or touch, yet it powers our lives—what magic!” 

Ana Dyreson

Last December, Dyreson was awarded a grant just shy of $500,000 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for a project called “Electrification and Climate Resilience in the Rural North: Challenges and Opportunities.” She’ll be identifying social and technological challenges to resilient and equitable low-carbon electrification. That includes seeking answers on how to best electrify the energy sector, while at the same time adapting electric power systems to climate change. One primary question she plans to address: Which are the most technically feasible and socially acceptable system pathways?

Dr. Dyreson is passionate about teaching and improving the diversity of Mechanical Engineering as a discipline.

Prof. Dyreson, how did you first get into engineering? What sparked your interest?

From a young age I have been interested in how society manages energy. Following one of my older sisters into engineering was an obvious way to explore this passion, and lead me to mechanical engineering and work on renewable energy and electric power systems.

Hometown, family?

I am from Portage, Wisconsin. I grew up on a south central Wisconsin farm with my parents and three sisters.

Any hobbies? Pets? What do you like to do in your spare time?

I enjoy spending time with my family, especially biking and camping together. I love to run in all weather conditions, by myself or in a group, on road or trail, for fun or for competition—I love to run!

Research note:

Dyreson’s research on single-axis tracking systems is part of a project led by Sandia National Laboratories and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies office Award Number 38527.

Read more:

MTU, Sandia to Cut Ribbon on New DOE Regional Test Center for Emerging Solar Technologies

Watch:

During Husky Bites, Dr Dyreson explains the impacts of snow on high solar-share power systems of the future, from the solar module to the power grid.

Check out the full session of Dr. Ana Dyreson’s Husky Bites webinar.

How to Mend a Broken Heart? Flow Dynamics.

Brennan Vogl and Dr. Hoda Hatoum test heart valves for overall performance and energetics, turbulence generated, sinus hemodynamics, plus ventricular, atrial, pulmonic, and aortic flows.
Brennan Vogl

Assistant Professor Hoda Hatoum conducts cardiovascular research with a team of students in her Biofluids Lab at Michigan Tech. One of those students, Brennan Vogl, first started at Michigan Tech as an undergraduate student studying biomedical engineering. Brennan is now pursuing his PhD, with Dr. Hatoum serving as his advisor. Brennan’s research focus is cardiovascular hemodynamics, the study of how blood flows through the cardiovascular system.

Prof. Hatoum, Brennan and her research team—six students in all—research complex structural heart biomechanics, develop prosthetic heart valves and examine structure-function relationships of the heart in both health and disease.

Dr. Hoda Hatoum

To do this, they integrate principles of fluid mechanics, design and manufacturing with clinical expertise. They also work with collaborators nationwide, including Mayo Clinic, Ohio State, Vanderbilt, Piedmont Hospital and St. Paul’s Hospital Vancouver.

“It is a great pleasure to work with Brennan,” says Dr. Hatoum. “He handles multiple projects, both experimental and computational, and excels in all aspects of them. I am proud of the tremendous improvement he keeps showing, and also his constant motivation to do even better.”

“When a student first joins our lab, they do not have any idea about any of the problems we are working on. As they get exposed to the problems, they begin to add their own valuable perspective. The student experience is an amazing one, and also rewarding,” she says.

“One of my goals is to evaluate and provide answers to clinicians so they know what therapy suits their patients best.”

Hoda Hatoum

Prof. Hatoum earned her BS in Mechanical Engineering from the American University of Beirut and her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Ohio State University. She was awarded an American Heart Association postdoctoral fellowship, and completed her postdoctoral training at the Ohio State University and at Georgia Institute of Technology before joining the faculty at Michigan Tech in 2020. Brennan was the first student to begin working with Dr. Hatoum in her lab.

One important focus for the team: studying how AFib ablation impacts the heart’s left atrial flow. Hatoum designed and built her own pulse duplicator system—a heart simulator—that emulates the left heart side of a cardiovascular system. She also uses a particle image velocimetry system in her lab, to characterize the flow field in vessels and organs.

AFib, or Atrial fibrillation is when the heart beats in an irregular way. It affects up to 6 million individuals in the US, a number expected to double by 2030. More than 454,000 hospitalizations with AFib as the primary diagnosis happen each year.

Another focus for Dr. Hatoum and her team: developing patient-specific cardiovascular models. The team conducts in vitro tests to assess the performance and flow characteristics of prosthetic heart valves. “We test multiple commercially-available prosthetic heart valves, and our in-house made prosthetic valves, too,” says Hatoum.

From the Biofluids Lab website: a wide array of current commercial bioprosthetic transcatheter mitral valves.

“Transcatheter bioprosthetic heart valves are made of biological materials, including pig or cow valves, but these are prone to degeneration. This can lead to compromised valve performance, and ultimately necessitate another valve replacement,” she notes.

To solve this problem, Hatoum collaborates with material science experts from different universities in the US and around the world to use novel biomaterials that are biocompatible, durable and suitable for cardiovascular applications. 

Look closely at this photo to see the closed leaflets of an aortic valve.

“Every patient is very different, which makes the problem exciting and challenging at the same time.”

Hoda Hatoum

The treatment of congenital heart defects in children is yet another strong focus for Hatoum. She works to devise alternative treatments for the highly-invasive surgeries currently required for pulmonary atresia and Kawasaki disease, collaborating with multiple institutions to acquire patient data. Then, using experimental and computational fluid dynamics, Hatoum and her team examine the different scenarios of various surgical design approaches in the lab.

“One very important goal is to develop predictive models that will help clinicians anticipate adverse outcomes,” she says.

“In some centers in the US and the world, the heart team won’t operate without engineers modeling for them—to visualize the problem, design a solution better, improve therapeutic outcomes, and avoid as much as possible any adverse outcomes.”

Hoda Hatoum

Dr. Hatoum, which area of research pulls your heartstrings the most?

Transcatheter aortic heart valves. With the rise of minimally-invasive surgeries, the clinical field is moving towards transcatheter approaches to replace heart valves, rather than open heart surgery. I believe this is an urgent field to look into, so we can minimize as much as possible any adverse outcomes, improve valve designs and promote longevity of the device.

How did you first get into engineering? What sparked your interest?

As a high-school student, I got the chance to go on a school trip to several universities and I was fascinated by the projects that mechanical engineering students did. That was what determined my major and what sparked my interest.

Hometown, family?

I was raised in Kab Elias, Bekaa, Lebanon. It’s about 45 kilometers (28 miles) from the Lebanese capital, Beirut. The majority of my family still lives there.

‘My niece took this image from the balcony of our house in Lebanon, located in Kab Elias. It shows the broad landscape and the mountains, and the Lebanese coffee cup that’s basically iconic.”

Brennan, how did you first get into engineering? What sparked your interest?

I first got into engineering when I participated in Michigan Tech’s Summer Youth Program (SYP) in high school. At SYP I got to explore all of the different engineering fields and participate in various projects for each field. Having this hands-on experience really sparked my interest in engineering.

Hometown, family?

I grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. My family now lives in Florida, so I get to escape the Upper Peninsula cold and visit them in the warm Florida weather. I have two Boston Terriers—Milo and Poppy. They live with my parents in Florida. I don’t think they would be able to handle the cold here in Houghton, as much as I would enjoy them living with me.

External Research Awards More Than Triple for MTU Chemical Engineering

Negative-stained (false-colored) transmission electron micrograph (TEM) depicts the ultrastructural details of an influenza virus particle, or “virion”. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Using a three-year, $1.5 million R01 grant from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Michigan Technological University and Johns Hopkins University will create an “Integrated and Continuous Manufacturing of an Influenza Vaccine.” Michigan Tech Chemical Engineering Professor Caryn Heldt is PI on the project.

Professor Caryn Heldt

Current influenza vaccines are matched to strains circulating in the Southern hemisphere about 8 months prior to the North American flu season. “The approach we plan to take will allow the vaccine to better match the circulating strains in the US and be adaptable to change quickly, as needed,” Heldt explains. “The vaccine will also be safer, as it will not be made in eggs and could be taken by people with egg allergies.”

Professor David Shonnard

Heldt is a co-PI on another $ 1.4 million collaborative project with the University of Massachusetts and Clemson University, funded by NSF:DMREF, the National Science Foundation: Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future. The project, “A Computationally-driven Predictive Framework for Stabilizing Viral Therapies,” will provide insight into how to stabilize vaccines and reduce the need to store and transport vaccines at cold temperatures. Heldt is the James and Lorna Mack Endowed Chair of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering at Michigan Tech.

Chemical Engineering Professor David Shonnard was recently awarded funding in the amount of $917,000 by the US Department of Energy’s Reducing EMbodied-Energy and Decreasing Emissions (REMADE) Manufacturing Institute. Shonnard is the Robbins Chair in Sustainable Use of Materials at Michigan Tech. The project, “Dynamic Systems Analysis of PET and Olefin Polymers in a Circular Economy” provides funding through the Sustainable Manufacturing Innovation Alliance.

“The total funding amount is cost-shared between REMADE and Michigan Tech, along with partners Idaho National Laboratory, Yale University, Chemstations Inc., and Resource Recycling Systems,” Shonnard explains. The project is expected to result in multiple positive impacts, including:

  • New process models and datasets for systems analysis of a circular economy for plastics
  • Optimized plastics circular economy designs to minimize emissions and costs
  • Case study applications to plastics circular economy designs for the state of Michigan
Dr. Pradeep Agrawal

“Along with my Michigan Tech colleagues, Robert Handler, Utkarsh Chaudhari, and David Watkins, and our external partners, we are excited to receive this award from REMADE,” adds Shonnard.

Janet Callahan, Dean, College of Engineering at Michigan Tech

“Michigan Tech’s Chemical engineering program has external funding through a number of federal agencies, including DARPA, ARPA-E, DOE, NSF, NIH/FDA, EPA, and NASA,” says Pradeep Agrawal, chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering. “Our research facilities, including equipment and support staff, are on par with top-tier research universities across the country. Michigan Tech provides the flexibility needed to engage in collaborative research both internally as well as externally,” notes Agrawal. “A combination of individual PI grants and multi-PI grants has put the chemical engineering program on a strong research trajectory.”

“The Chemical Engineering department has more than tripled their external research awards over the past four years, and is actively hiring faculty at all levels,” says Janet Callahan, Dean of the College of Engineering at Michigan Tech. “We are building a culturally-diverse faculty committed to teaching and scholarship in a multicultural and inclusive environment, and we seek faculty members and academic leadership who share these values.”

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, the campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.

Challenging Structure: $15M US-COMP Now in Year Five

Professor Greg Odegard is the John O. Hallquist Endowed Chair in Computational Mechanics, Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Tech

Leading the charge in developing a new lighter, stronger, tougher polymer composite for human deep space exploration, the Ultra-Strong Composites by Computational Design (US-COMP) institute under the direction of Dr. Greg Odegard has pivoted with agility during their final year of a five-year project. 

The NASA-funded research project brings together academia and industry partners with a range of expertise in molecular modeling,manufacturing, material synthesis, and testing.

“When we began developing these ultra-strong composites, we weren’t sure of the best starting fibers and polymers, but over time we started to realize certain nanotubes and resins consistently outperformed others,” says Odegard. “Through this period of development, we realized what our critical path to maximize performance would be, and decided to focus only on that, rather than explore the full range of possibilities.”

US-COMP PARTNERS

  • Florida A&M University
  • Florida State University
  • Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Pennsylvania State University
  • University of Colorado
  • University of Minnesota
  • University of Utah
  • Virginia Commonwealth University
  • Nanocomp Technologies
  • Solvay
  • US Air Force Research Lab

For the past 21 years, scientists around the world have invested time, money, and effort to understand carbon nanotubes. But the islands of knowledge remain isolated in a vast sea of unknown behavior.

“When we started the project, we were confident we were going to put effort into getting the polymers to work well. The last thing we expected was the need to focus so much on the carbon nanotubes—but we’re putting effort there, too, using modeling and experimental methods,” Odegard notes.

The challenge when working with carbon nanotubes is their structure. “Under the most powerful optical microscope you see a certain structure, but when you look under an SEM microscope you see a completely different structure,” Odegard explains. “In order to understand how to build the best composite panel, we have to understand everything at each length scale.” 

The US COMP Institute has created dedicated experiments and computational models for the chosen carbon nanotube material at each length scale. “We can all see the different parts in our sub-groups and then we communicate that to the rest of the team, building a more complete picture from the little pictures at the individual scales,” he says. “We found the hierarchical modeling approach is hard to make work and what works best is a concurrent approach. We each answer questions at our own length scales, feed our findings to manufacturing, and then see how they in turn tweak the processing parameters.”

“We’ve achieved a remarkable workflow and a new model for collaboration.”

—Michigan Tech ME-EM Professor Greg Odegard

Achieving their Year Four goal to understand the internal structure of the carbon nanotube material, the institute has shifted focus to surface behaviors. As part of the project, they are tasked with bringing the carbon nanotube material together with the final selected polymer.

“We are looking at the surface treatment and how to get it to best work with the polymer of choice. We are excited to expand our scope of machine learning methods to better understand the carbon nanotube material. This accelerates our understanding of how processing parameters impact the structure, and how that ultimately impacts the bulk material properties.”

While machine learning has been part of the project scope from the beginning, the computational team is using their collected data to build a series of training sets. “The training sets will allow us to perfect our algorithms, learn from them, and hopefully influence product performance—potentially illuminating patterns we didn’t even see,” Odegard explains.

As the project draws to a close this year, the team continues to analyze their objectives set by NASA, which focus on producing a material that offers triple the strength and stiffness of the current state-of-the-art. As Odegard puts it, “The objectives set on this project are difficult to achieve. We knew that when we started. Regardless of whether we meet the numbers, as a group we have been able to push the envelope way beyond where we started in 2017—expanding the performance in a very short time period. This was made possible through remarkable collaboration across the institute.”

Tiny Nanoindentations Make a Big Difference for Prasad Soman

microphoto of nanoindentations seen near the grain boundary of iron, seen at 20 microns
Nanoindentations performed near or away from the grain boundary of iron, made to study their effect on deformation. Photo credit: Prasad Soman

Prasad Soman will graduate soon with his MSE PhD. But instead of walking down the aisle and tossing his cap in Michigan Tech’s Dee Stadium, this year he’ll take part in Michigan Tech’s first-ever outdoor graduation walk.

“My PhD research goal was to better understand how the addition of carbon affects the strengthening mechanism of iron—by looking to see what happens at the nanoscale,” he explains.

Soman studied the mechanisms of grain boundary strengthening by using an advanced and challenging technique known as nanoindentation to get “up close and personal” to the interfaces between individual crystals within a material. Just last week Soman successfully defended his PhD dissertation: “Study of Effects of Chemistry and Grain Boundary Geometry on Materials Failure.” The research was sponsored by the US Department of Energy.

photo of Prasad Soman
“My experience at Tech has been exciting and fulfilling: study, teaching, and research amidst the beauty of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan,” says Prasad Soman, who will graduate from Michigan Tech on April 30 with a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering.

He’ll soon be moving to California to take a position with Amazon, the culmination of many years of hard work. “My journey into the field of metallurgy and materials science began in India, way back in high school, when I was thinking of choosing a major for my undergraduate studies in engineering. I had developed a great interest in Physics and Chemistry, then discovered I could pursue my interest even further by choosing metallurgical engineering as my major,” he says. Though his new position will not utilize his metallurgical expertise in a direct way, Amazon was drawn to Prasad’s ability to independently carry out and complete a detailed research project that required a high level of attention to detail, data collection, and advanced analysis and physical modeling.

“I attended College of Engineering Pune, one of the top tier schools for metallurgy in India. Upon graduation, I went on to work in the steel industry for a while, and then decided to pursue higher education in the US.

Soman arrived at Michigan Tech with the intention of earning a Master’s in MSE. Professor Yun Hang Hu advised Soman towards that degree, involving him in research focused on the fabrication and characterization of Molybdenum Disulfide (MoS2)-based electrodes (aka Moly) for supercapacitor applications. The experience prompted Soman to continue on in his studies and earn a PhD.

For his MS degree, Soman worked with Yun Hang Hu, Charles and Carroll McArthur Professor of MSE at Michigan Tech

Two MSE faculty members, Assistant Professor Erik Herbert and Professor Stephen Hackney, served as Soman’s PhD co-advisors. “Prasad analyzed the effect of grain boundary segregation on the strengthening and deformation mechanism in metals and alloys,” says Herbert. “To do this Prasad intensively used small-scale mechanical testing, including nanoindentation and in-situ TEM experiments.”

“The most exciting part of this work involved utilizing various material characterization techniques,” says Soman. “The Advanced Chemical and Morphological Analysis Laboratory (ACMAL) facility, located in the Michigan Tech M&M building near the MSE department, is one of the best materials characterization facilities in the world. Characterization of the materials response to mechanical indentation was essential for my PhD work, so having access to the many techniques available in ACMAL was both revealing and fulfilling.”

‘The work was painstaking, but thanks to Prasad’s incredible hard work, skill, and dedication, he was able to make significant inroads to improve our understanding.” 

Dr. Erik Herbert, Assistant Professor, Materials Science & Engineering

Soman used a variety of characterization methods in his research, including nanoindentation, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and electron backscatter diffraction spectroscopy (EBSD). “All help examine materials behavior at the nanometer scale,” he adds.

In particular, Soman used nanoindentation to study local grain boundary deformation in metals and alloys. “Using nanoindentation we can measure hardness at a very small length scale. The indentation impression size is on the order of a couple of microns—smaller than the width of a human hair,” Soman explains.

Two MSE faculty members, Professor Stephen Hackney (l) and Assistant Professor Erik Herbert (r) served as Soman’s PhD co-advisors.

“Performing a nanoindentation was challenging at first. The goal is to get the indentation very close to the grain boundary. The task is done using a simple optical microscope, yet accuracy on the order of a couple of microns must be achieved. That kind of accuracy is essential for the proper positioning of the indent relative to the boundary. But just as for any other thing, the more you practice (and learn from mistakes) the better you perform. It’s been a great achievement for me to consistently get the indentation accurately placed.”

PhD Candidate Prasad Soman hard at work in Michigan Tech’s ACMAL Lab

“Instrumented indentation experiments allow us to measure materials properties—including hardness and elastic modulus—as a function of depth,” says Soman. “We also examine how different microstructural features—grain boundary vs. grain interior—respond to a very localized deformation at nanometers length scale.”

Soman says he decided to join Michigan Tech’s MSE program due to its strong emphasis on metallurgical engineering. “While here at Tech, however, I was exposed to a variety of domains within materials science—energy storage materials, semiconductors, polymers, and more. So, while I focused on my passion for fundamental science in metallurgy, I also developed understanding and skills in these different domains,” he explains.

“That has come to fruition, as I will now be going to work in the consumer electronics industry, which requires a multidisciplinary approach.”

The large building on the far left of this campus photo is Michigan Tech’s Mineral and Materials Engineering Building (aka the “M&M”)—home to the MSE Department and the Advanced Chemical and Morphological Analysis Laboratory (ACMAL).

Soman will soon pack up and move to Sunnyvale, California. He’ll be working as a hardware development engineer at Amazon. “The team is a cool group of engineers/scientists with diverse backgrounds—mechanical, chemical, design and other disciplines, as well. We’ll develop health and wellness electronic devices, such as smart watches, smart AR/VR glasses, and more. This job will allow me to utilize some of the key skills I developed at Michigan Tech in the field of metallurgy and mechanics. More than anything, I am eager to learn from the best of the best—all the folks in my team.”

One last thing, adds Soman: “I will terribly miss Houghton. I call it my home away from home.”

Paleomagnetism: Deciphering the Early History of the Earth

Rock samples in Smirnov’s lab are 2-3 billion years old.

Although it makes up about seven-eighths of the Earth’s history, the Precambrian time period is far from figured out. Key questions remain unanswered.

The Precambrian—the first four billion years of Earth history—was a time of many critical transitions in Earth systems, including oxygenation of the atmosphere and emergence of life. But many of these processes, and the links between them, are poorly understood.

Data can be obtained from fossil magnetism—some rocks record the Earth’s magnetic field that existed at the time of their formation. However, for very old rocks (billions of years old) the conventional methods of obtaining fossil magnetism do not work well.

Professor Aleksey Smirnov, Chair of the Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences

Michigan Tech Professor of Geophysics, Aleksey Smirnov, seeks to substantially increase the amount of reliable data on the Precambrian field. Smirnov investigates the fossil magnetism of well-dated igneous rocks from around the globe using new and experimental processes to help fill in the blanks. His work on the early magnetic field history is supported by several National Science Foundation grants including a National Science Foundation CAREER award.

“Deciphering the early history of our planet, the early history of its geomagnetic field, represents one of the great challenges in Earth science,” says Smirnov. “Available data are scarce, and key questions remain unanswered. For instance we still don’t know how and when the Earth’s geomagnetic field began.”

Smirnov and former student Danford Moore
drill rock samples in the Zebra Hill region, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia.

“How did the geomagnetic field evolve at early stages? How did it interact with the biosphere, and other Earth system components—these are all largely unanswered questions. There is also disagreement on the age of the solid inner core, ranging between 0.5 and 2.5 billion years,” note Smirnov.

Scientists largely believe the Earth’s intrinsic magnetic field is generated and maintained by convective flow in the Earth’s fluid outer core, called the geodynamo.

Smirnov’s research has broad implications for Earth science including a better understanding of the workings and age of the geodynamo.

“Crystallization of the inner core may have resulted in a dramatic increase of the geomagnetic field strength preceded by a period of an unusually weak and unstable field,” he explains. “If we observe this behavior in the paleomagnetic record, we will have a much better estimate of the inner core age and hence a better constrained thermal history of our planet.”

Knowing the strength and stability of the early geomagnetic field is also crucial to understanding the causative links between the magnetic field and modulating the evolution of atmosphere and biosphere,” notes Smirnov.

An illustration of the Earth’s magnetic field. Credit NASA.

Today, the Earth’s magnetic field protects the atmosphere and life from solar and cosmic radiation. “Before the inner core formation, the geodynamo could have produced a much weaker and less stable magnetic field. An attendant weaker magnetic shielding would allow a much stronger effect of solar radiation on life evolution and atmospheric chemistry.”

Both graduate and undergraduate students work with Smirnov to conduct research, logging hours in his Earth and Environmental Magnetism Lab, traveling the world to collect specimens.

The Earth and Environmental Magnetism Lab at Michigan Tech: If you drop a metal object on the floor there, the shielding properties of the room can be lost.

“The primary (useful) magnetizations recorded by ancient rocks are usually very weak and are often superimposed by later (parasitic, secondary) magnetizations,” Smirnov explains. “In order to get to the primary magnetization, we have to remove the secondary magnetizations by incremental heatings of the samples in our specialized paleomagnetic furnaces. The heatings must be done in a zero magnetic field environment. This is one reason why we have the shielded room, which was specially built for our paleomagnetic lab. There are other shielded rooms around the country, but ours is the only one at Michigan Tech,” he notes.

“The second reason for having our instruments in the shielded room is that the magnetizations we measure are weak and our instruments are so sensitive that the Earth’s magnetic field can interfere with our measurements. In fact, in addition to the shielded room, each instrument inside has an additional magnetic shielding.”

Note that the shielded room was built before I came, by my predecessors Profs Jimmy Diehl and Sue Beske-Diehl.

Students in this photo (some now graduates) are performing liquid helium transfer into one of our cryogenic magnetometers. “We need to constantly keep the sensors at a very cold temperature (only a very few degrees above the absolute zero temperature) to provide their ultra-sensitivity,” says GMES professor and chair, Aleksey Smirnov. “It is based on the principle of superconductivity.”

On one month-long trip to the Pilbara Craton in northwest Western Australia, Smirnov and a student gathered 900 samples of well preserved, 2.7 to 3.5 billion year old Precambrian rocks. 

Smirnov stepped into the role of chair of the Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences last fall, but that won’t keep him too far from his research. “Any interested student should feel free to get in touch to learn more about research positions,” he says.

Investigations in Smirnov’s lab are not limited to the ancient field. Other interests include the application of magnetic methods for hydrocarbon exploration, magnetic mineralogy, magnetism of meteorites, biomagnetism, and plate tectonics.

Learn more

Aleksey Smirnov is the new Chair of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences

Clues To Earth’s Ancient Core

Sarah Sun: Nice shirt! Embroidered Electronics and Motion-Powered Devices

A prototype of a flexible electronic circuit. Stitch schematics such as this one can be used to create health-monitoring fabrics.

Sarah Sun and George Ochieze generously shared their knowledge on Husky Bites, a free, interactive Zoom webinar hosted by Dean Janet Callahan. Here’s the link to watch a recording of her session on YouTube. Get the full scoop, including a listing of all the (60+) sessions at mtu.edu/huskybites.

What if your medical heart monitor was embroidered right on your shirt, in your favorite design? And what if it was powered by your own movements (no battery required)? And what if you could even design and order it yourself, right on the internet? Get ready to learn all about this, and more.

Join Dean Janet Callahan for supper along with Sarah Sun, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, and George Ochieze, a graduate student researcher in Dr. Sun’s Human-Centered Monitoring Lab at Michigan Tech.

Associate Professor Sarah Sun

Sun is the lead investigator of three National Science Foundation research grants totaling $1 million focused on wearable electronics. She is also the director of the Center for Cyber-Physical Systems within Michigan Tech’s Institute of Computing and Cybersytems ICC.

“I am passionate about using engineering solutions to solve health problems,” she says. “We’re trying to solve long-existing technical challenges to improve medical devices, and we’re developing new technologies, too, in order to enable more diagnosis solutions.”

One of Sun’s large research projects involves developing new human interfaces for monitoring medical vital signs.

Their goal: to provide a reliable, personalized monitoring system that won’t disturb a patient’s life, whether at home, while driving, or at work. “Right now for patients there’s a real trade-off between comfort and signal accuracy. This tradeoff can interfere with patient care and outcomes, too,” she explains.

Sun hopes to use electrophysiological sensing and motion sensing to help prevent automobile crashes, especially those that occur when drivers accidentally fall asleep at the wheel. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, while the precise number can be hard to nail down, drowsy driving is a factor in more than 100,000 crashes in the U.S each year, resulting in nearly 1,000 deaths and 50,000 injuries.

First, though, Sun and her team needed to figure out how to overcome a major challenge in monitoring vital signs: motion artifacts, or glitches caused by the slightest patient movement, even shivering, or tremors.

Motion artifacts appear in an ECG when the patient moves.

“ECG, a physiological signal, is the gold standard for diagnosis and treatment of heart disease, but it is a weak signal,” Sun explains. “Especially when monitoring a weak signal, motion artifacts arise.”

Sun and her team first set out to discover the mechanism underlying the phenomenon of motion artifacts. Then, they realized they were able to tap into it. 

“We not only reduce the influence of motion artifacts but also use it as a power resource,” she says. The result: a sensing device that harvests energy from patient movements.

Sun cites recent progress in the development and manufacturing of smart fabrics, textiles, and garments. “This has opened the door for next-generation wearable electronics—fully flexible systems that can be embroidered directly onto cloth,” she says.

“Feel free to download our .exp files for your own wearable system on cloth manufacturing. The code can be processed by regular sewing machines. Just go online to WEF, our new Wearable Electronics Factory.

Sarah Sun, Mechanical Engineering Assoc. Professor at Michigan Tech

By using conductive thread and passive electronics—tiny semiconductors, resistors and capacitors—Sun is able to turn logos into wearable electronics. The stitches themselves become the electronic circuit. Sun and her team can embroider on just about anything flexible, including cloth, foam, and other materials. 

Sun is also building a manufacturing network and cloud-based website where stitch generation orders can be made. “In the future, a person can upload their embroidery design to generate stitches, or download certain stitches as needed,” she says. The lab provides coding for the electronics and stitch generation to embroiderers. “Soon any embroidery company will have the potential to manufacture embroidered health monitors,” she says.

These wearable, embroidered ”E-logos” can monitor multiple vital signals. They’re customizable, too. 

Sun hopes flexible, wearable electronics will interest a new generation of engineers by appealing to their artistic sides. “This type of embroidery circuit really brings together together craft and functional design.” 

Mechanical Engineering PhD student George Ochieze arrived on campus at Michigan Tech in 2019. He grew up in Abia, Nigeria and earned his bachelor of engineering at Federal University of Technology Owerri in 2017.

George Ochieze is pursuing a master’s degree in Mechatronics and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. He took Sun’s Introduction to Mechatronics and Robotics course at Michigan Tech last spring. That’s when he discovered his own passion: working with machines and control devices. He joined her research group last summer.

Mechatronics uses electromechanical systems automated for the design of products and processes,” Ochieze explains. “I picked up my research interest after modeling an RRR manipulator using CAD software. That’s a robot manipulator set up with 3 revolute joints. I had some challenges in controlling the joints, and Dr. Sun gave me some tips. She was very helpful in guiding me through the process, and our mentor/mentee relationship in soft robotics was formed,” says Ochieze.

Soft Robotics involves the design and construction of robots from flexible, compliant materials, drawing from the movements and adaptations of living organisms. Soft robots offer new capabilities, as well as improved safety when working around humans, with potential use in medicine and manufacturing.

Ochieze plans to share a demo on soft robotics during Husky Bites.

“Throughout my growth in the engineering field, I have been surrounded by people who are generous enough to share their knowledge. I look forward to mentoring others like me within this field.”


Professor Sun, when did you first get into engineering? What sparked your interest?

My dad liked to play with old electronics when I was young. I built my first radio receiver in middle school with him although I did not know how those electronics work at that time. This experience really inspired my interest in pursuing an engineering degree. I earned my bachelor’s degree at Tianjin University. It’s located near Beijing, in Tianjin, China, on the Bohai Sea. About six year ago, I earned my PhD in electrical engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. My doctoral research was on wearable electronics.

Sarah Sun's hands hold electronic embroidery showing the stitches that function as circuits

Family and Hobbies?

I grew up in Northern China, in a town with a very cold winter climate, but dry. My husband came to Michigan Tech first. He liked the U.P. a lot and told me lots of great things about Tech.  It was challenging for me to balance work and life at first, especially with two little kids. My son, Brent, is almost 8 now, and my daughter, Leah, is two. My husband and I both like to design and build stuff, so we enjoy it with our kids, too. 

George, how did you first get into engineering? What sparked your interest?

I grew up in Aba, in Abia, Nigeria. Working in my Dad’s fabrication company fostered my interest in the engineering field. At a young age I became familiar with machine operations. I was fascinated with the sequence operation of machines to achieve a desired goal. I started developing cars and movable structures with available materials, leading my fellow students in the design of mechanical components.

Graduate student George Ochieze in the Human-Centered Monitoring Lab at Michigan Tech. His passion and research focus: soft robotics.


Do you do any mentoring or teaching on campus?

I am one of two instructors in Michigan Tech’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) Mechatronics program for local high school juniors and seniors. Even in difficult times during the pandemic, these young scholars show overwhelming potential to conquer the mechatronics field—a glimpse into a welcoming future in engineering. They will go on to find degree pathways at Michigan Tech, and excellent careers in smart manufacturing.

Read and View More

Vital signs—Powering Heart Monitors with Motion Artifacts

Ye Sun Wins CAREER Award

Human Centered Monitoring Laboratory (HCML)

Stitches into Circuits (check out the video, below)

Play video
Preview image for  video


Chad Deering: Predicting Volcanic Unrest Via Plant Life Stress

Vegetative stress at the foot of the Kīlauea Volcano in Hawaii

After a volcanic eruption, it can take years for vegetation to recover, and landscapes are often forever changed. But well before any eruption takes place, the assemblage of plant species on and around the volcano show signs of stress, or even die off. 

Chad Deering

Chad Deering, a volcanologist in the Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences at Michigan Technological University uses hyperspectral remote sensing data, acquired during an airborne campaign over Hawaii, to predict future volcanic eruptions on the Big Island. Deering and his team of graduate students from Michigan Tech are collaborating with scientists from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the University of New Mexico. 

“The replenishment of a shallow magma reservoir can signal the onset of an eruption at a dormant volcanic system, such as at Mauna Loa. It can also indicate significant changes in eruptive behavior at an already active volcano, as in what occurred at Kīlauea,” Deering says. 

“Rising magma ultimately results in a flux of volatiles through the ground, including carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Active vent plumes of those same gases include particulate matter, even thermal energy, and those often enter the atmosphere, as well. “

By detecting and characterizing those fluxes and their effects on the health and extent of local vegetation, Deering is able to recognize significant changes in a volcano’s behavior. The result: a new, cost-effective way to forecast volcanic hazards and events.

“Monitoring vegetative stress on a volcano can potentially provide a much-needed early warning system for those living near and around volcanoes,” adds Deering. An estimated 500 million people are living in danger zones around the world.

“Our preliminary results indicate a strong correlation between emissions of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide gas from soil—as well as the thermal anomalies—and different aspects of vegetative stress.” 

Deering’s team uses highly sensitive hyperspectral analysis to distinguish between effects of different gas species and thermal anomalies on variations in vegetative stress. “This is important as CO2 and H2S have different solubilities in magma. That allows us a semi-quantitative measure of the depth of magma as it rises.

With the results of their study, the team developed a remote-sensing automated detection algorithm that can be used in satellite-based platforms to detect volcanic unrest at volcanoes worldwide. 

“In particular, this tool will allow the scientific community to monitor volcanoes that are otherwise inaccessible due to heavy vegetation and/or their remote locations,” adds Deering. “It will also remove technical barriers such as establishing extensive and expensive seismic arrays that are difficult to maintain.”

NASA gathered the hyperspectral data over the course of a year, starting in 2017. Deering and his team are now analyzing more recent data, collected last year. “We want to determine whether we could have predicted the recent volcanic fissure emergence and activity taking place in Hawaii.”

Biofuels and Dry Spells: Switchgrass Changes During a Drought

High yields. A deep root system that prevents soil erosion and allows for minimal irrigation. The ability to pull large amounts of carbon out of the air and sequester it in the soil. Beneficial effects on wildlife, pollination, and water quality. Perennial grasses, such as switchgrass and elephant grass, are wonderful in many ways and especially promising biofuel feedstocks. But that promise, a team of researchers discovered, may evaporate during a drought.

“The characteristics of any living organism are linked to their genetics and the environment they experience during growth,” says Rebecca Ong, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Michigan Technological University. “Bioenergy production is no different. It’s a chain where every link, including the feedstock characteristics, influences the final product—the fuel.”

Ong is both a chemical engineer and a biologist. She holds a unique perspective on how the bioenergy system fits together, which comes in handy, especially now, in light of a recent puzzling discovery.

“Plants have lower biomass yields during a drought. You understand this when you don’t need to mow your lawn after a dry spell,” she explains. “The same is true with switchgrass. Besides the expected effect on crop yields, we were completely unable to produce fuel from switchgrass—using one of our standard biofuel microbes—grown during a major drought year.”

“At the lab scale this is an interesting result. But at the industrial scale, this could potentially be devastating to a biorefinery,” she says.

Ong, her research team, and colleagues within the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), a cross-disciplinary research center led by the University of Wisconsin–Madison, are making efforts to understand, pulling in researchers from across the production chain to study the problem. 

Ong is the only Michigan Tech faculty member in the GLBRC. “Our team was able to identify some of the compounds formed in the plant in response to drought stress, contributing to the inhibition. But plant materials are very complex. We’ve only scratched the surface of what is in there. We have much more to learn.”

The first step, she says, is to understand what inhibits fuel production. “Once we know that, we can engineer solutions: new, tailor-made plants with improved characteristics, as well as modifications to processing, such as the use of different microbes, to overcome these issues.”

Ong points out that in the U.S., gasoline is largely supplemented with E10 ethanol, derived from sugars in corn grain. However renewable fuels can be produced from any source of sugars—including perennial grasses, which if planted on less productive land do not conflict with food production.

“Ultimately, if we are to replace fossil energy in the long term, we need a broad alternative energy portfolio,” says Ong. “We need industry to succeed. We are engaging in highly collaborative research to ensure that happens.”

Seismic Reflections: Siting the Gordie Howe Bridge

The Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan is currently under construction and expected to be complete in 2024 at a cost of $5.7 billion.  The bridge is named in recognition of the legendary hockey player, a Canadian who led the Detroit Red Wings to four Stanley Cup victories.

The construction of any large infrastructure project requires a strong foundation, especially one with the longest main span of any cable-stayed bridge in North America—namely, the Gordie Howe International Bridge over the Detroit River. More than a decade before ground was broken, careful siting of the bridge began to take place. By 2006 the list of possible crossings had been narrowed down to just two options.

Historical records from the early 1900s indicated that solution mining for salt had taken place on both sides of the river close to where the bridge was to be built. On the Michigan side, collapsed salt cavities caused sink holes located on nearby Grosse Isle. It was imperative that any salt cavities in the bridge construction area be found and avoided.

Seismologists Roger Turpening and Carol Asiala at Michigan Technological University

Seismologists Roger Turpening and Carol Asiala at Michigan Technological University were tasked by American and Canadian bridge contractors to select the best seismic method for searching for any cavities in the two proposed crossings—referred to at the time as “Crossing B” and “Crossing C”—and to interpret all resulting seismic images.

“Given the task to image a small target deep in the Earth, a seismologist will quickly ask two important questions: How small is ‘small?’ and How deep is ‘deep’? That’s because these two parameters conflict in seismic imaging,“ Turpening says.

“Seismic waves—vibrations of the Earth—are attenuated severely as they propagate through the Earth,” he explains. “Imaging small targets requires the use of high-frequency, seismic energy. When seismic sources and receivers are confined to the Earth’s surface, which is the usual case, waves must propagate downward through the Earth, reflect off of the target, and return to the surface. Soil, sand, and gravel in the surface layer overwhelmingly cause the greatest harm to image resolution, and the ray paths must pass through this zone twice.”

Turpening was one of the early developers of a technique called vertical seismic profiling, or VSP. “Seismic receivers are placed inside a vertical hole near the target. With the seismic source placed on the surface some distance from the hole, it’s possible to explore a region around the hole with ray paths that need to pass through the surface layer only once,” he says. “If the target is very important, we can drill a second hole and place the seismic source in it. Now we have even higher resolution because all of the ray paths are in the rock formations with low attenuation.”

The downside? “We can only make images of the region between the two holes. But if the target is extremely important in a limited area, we can use many boreholes and many images in the search. Given enough boreholes, a block of earth can be imaged with cross-well seismic reflection techniques.

A cross-well, seismic reflection image between test boreholes. The cavity is sharply seen because the shale stringers in the B-Salt (at the bottom of the image) are abruptly terminated. The cavity is approximately 375 ft. wide.

To site the Gordon Howie bridge, Turpening and Asiala chose a frequency band of 100Hz to 2 KHz—much higher than could be used with surface sources and surface receivers—for surveys on both sides of the river. This yielded high resolution seismic images, crucial for detecting cavities—and indeed they found one—on the Canadian side.

“The high-resolution imaging made it easy for us to spot missing shale stringers in the B-Salt layer in that image,” says Turpening. “This made the final selection of the bridge location simple. We found the cavity between boreholes X11-3 and X11-4, thus forcing the Canadians to chose Crossing B.  Obviously, the Michigan group had to, also, choose Crossing B.”

On the US side of the river geologist Jimmie Diehl, Michigan Tech professor emeritus, provided corroborating borehole gravity data.