Day: March 31, 2009

Geology Grad Student Wins National Recognition

Tech Today

by Tom Schneider, student writer

For Alex Guth, being a graduate student is hardly a passive ordeal.

Recently, the Association for Women Geoscientists awarded the Brunton Award to Guth. This award, named for a top manufacturer of high-end compasses, is a prestigious commendation for work in field mapping and data acquisition. The award will include a personally engraved compass from Brunton.

“We are very proud of Alex’s work and are glad to see it recognized by a well respected organization like the Association for Women Geoscientists,” said Professor Wayne Pennington, chair of the geological and mining engineering and sciences department. Guth is pursuing a PhD in Geology.

Guth uses satellite imaging to create innovative geological maps of remote, inaccessible terrain. She has conducted fieldwork in Kenya, studying rifts in the earth. She also teaches an online distance learning course in earth science for teachers (K-12), as well as the lecture section of Structural Geology and a course on mapping of remote terrain.

“Alex is not just another student, she is a critical member of our department,” said Pennington.

Grad Student Draws on 19th Century Findings for 21st Century Research

Tech Today

by Marcia Goodrich, senior writer

Deep in the stacks of the J. R. Van Pelt and Opie Library, Joe Miller stumbled upon a 112-year-old book that gave him a start.

Miller is a civil engineer specializing in heavy-timber roof design. He settled at Michigan Tech to get his PhD and to learn more about keyed beams than anyone in the history of carpentry. Keyed beams, lovely and useful though they may be, are in one sense an also-ran in the world of wood.

Miller explains in the context of the Upper Peninsula, where the old-growth, white-pine forests were ferociously clearcut in the 19th century. “By 1900, all the large trees were forested,” he said. The massive timbers required for constructing large buildings and reinforcing mine tunnels were no more. Builders needed a cheap, local alternative, so they began making big beams out of two smaller ones.

They cut mated notches in the lesser beams, fastened them together, and pounded close-fitting wedges, or keys, into the notches. The technique keeps beams stiff and bound tightly together, which prevents them from slipping (and breaking prematurely) when heavily weighted in the middle.

Keyed beams have been around since the 18th century. More recently, builders have adopted other technologies, but they aren’t always popular. “A lot of my clients had problems with steel beams or glue-laminated timbers,” Miller said. “Aesthetically, they wanted to use a more-natural approach that could be achieved locally, with local materials.”

Now, with keyed beams gaining a new following, Miller is developing the first theoretical model to represent their capacity under load. In other words, how much weight can they take before they break? And what factors determine if a keyed beam will be stiff enough?

Which brings us back to the library and the 112-year-old book. Miller was perusing the library’s offerings on the subject when he stumbled across an 1897 reference volume, buried in the basement, authored by Edward Kidwell of Hancock.

Kidwell, as it turns out, was on the faculty at the Michigan School of Mines. And he was one of the earliest researchers to conduct valid scientific tests on keyed beams and document the results. “It wasn’t until I’d chosen a school and a dissertation topic that I found his book,” Miller said, still struck by the coincidence. On top of this, Miller found Kidwell’s century-old reports to be both reliable and engaging.

“I appreciated his candor,” he said. In the book, Kidwell was critical of earlier keyed beam experts whose assertions did not stand up to scrutiny. “I also tested his methods, and everything he said appears spot on,” Miller said. “And Kidwell provided enough detail so that I could plug his numbers into my model.”

In addition to working with Kidwell’s findings, Miller has been testing his model against experimental evidence gathered in his own lab, where he has been building and testing keyed beams fabricated from solid oak, yellow poplar and wood laminate. “I’ve found that the inclination and shape of the keys can have an incredible effect” on the strength of the beam, he said.

“To be reinvestigating a concept that’s been around 300 years is kind of cool,” he said. It’s also cool to be building on foundational work conducted right here over 100 years ago.

Tech’s Research Expenditures Up 28 Percent

From Tech Today

Michigan Tech’s science and engineering research expenditures increeased more than 28 percent during fiscal year 2007, according to figures just released by the National Science Foundation.

The NSF ranked Michigan Tech 66th in the nation in research spending, among universities without a medical school. The fastest growing disciplines were environmental science and electrical and computer engineering.

For the first time this year, NSF also ranked the research spending of non-science and engineering fields. Two departments at Michigan Tech–humanities and visual and performing arts–ranked in the top 100 nationwide.

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