Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering News

The ME-EM Graduate Seminar speaker on Thursday, April 24 at 4:00 in 103 EERC will be Dr. Antonio Gauchia from MTU.

The title of his presentation will be ‘Finite Element Modeling of a Real Bus Structure: Effect of Electrified Powertrain’.

Environmental sustainability is driving powertrain design and development towards electrified vehicles. Bus powertrain has evolved from conventional internal combustion engine to hybrid powertrain. However, in terms of lateral vehicle dynamics, this type of vehicle is particularly sensitive to the height of the center of gravity. One of the most severe accidents that involve buses is rollover. Buses are especially prone to rollover due to their high ratio between centre of gravity height and wheel track. Therefore, bus safety must be re-assessed to verify that it still complies with current vehicle standards and regulations, in particular, those related to vehicle lateral dynamics. Bus manufacturers have to overcome these challenges to match standards and provide a reliable, safe and comfortable vehicle. This seminar will present the impact of powertrain design in bus rollover. It will deeply describe how to evaluate this effect from the initial finite element modeling stage of a real bus structure to the final one consisting in the evaluation of powertrain design influence in bus rollover. Two scenarios will be analyzed: a bus structure with conventional internal combustion engine components and a bus structure with hybrid powertrain components. The rollover threshold will be used to evaluate the lateral performance of each powertrain layout.

Dr. Antonio Gauchia finished his studies of General Engineering Degree in 2003 and obtained a PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 2006 at the University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M). He teaches Vehicle Dynamics and Components, Transportation Engineering and Technical Drawing. During his 10 year experience at UC3M Mechanical Engineering Department, he has also collaborated in projects with industry and administration. His
research interests are vehicle experimental testing, vehicle dynamic simulation and bus safety rollover. He has been a Visiting Researcher at the University of Birmingham (U.K.) in collaboration with Ford. He is currently a Visiting Researcher at the ME-EM Department at Michigan Tech.

Department of Mechanical Engineering – Engineering Mechanics Graduate Seminar: Dr. Partha Mukherjee, Texas A&M University; Thursday, Apr. 17, 2014 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. Room 103 EERC Bldg.

Title: Mesoscale Perspective of Electrode Physics in Energy Storage

Recent years have witnessed an enormous interest in energy storage (battery) to enable vehicle electrification, renewable energy utilization as well as accommodating an ever-increasing demand in powering myriad portable electronic devices. In particular, a critical imperative is to accelerate innovation toward improved performance, life and safety of lithium-ion batteries, the primary candidate for electric drive vehicles. Lithium-ion batteries are complex, dynamical systems which include a multitude of coupled physicochemical processes encompassing electronic/ionic/diffusive transport
in solid/electrolyte phases, electrochemical and phase change reactions and diffusion induced stress generation in hierarchical, multi-scale porous electrodes. While innovations in nanomaterials and nanoarchitectures have spurred the recent advancements, fundamental understanding of the underlying thermo-mechano-electrochemical interactions is of paramount interest. In this presentation, a
mesoscale perspective of electrode physics for lithium-ion batteries will be elucidated.

Partha P. Mukherjee is currently an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU). Before joining TAMU in 2012, he worked for 4 years in the U.S. Department of Energy Labs, as a Staff Scientist (2009-2011) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and as a Director’s research fellow (2008-2009) at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. Prior to PhD studies, he worked as a Consulting Engineer for 4 years at Fluent India Pvt. Ltd, a fully-owned subsidiary of Fluent Inc., currently Ansys Inc. His research interests include mesoscale physics and stochastics of transport, materials and manufacturing aspects in energy storage and conversion (batteries and fuel cells).

Mechanical Engineering – Engineering Mechanics Graduate Seminar, 103 EERC, 4 pm
Lucia Gauchia Babe, Michigan Tech

Title: From the Lab to Your Car: Challenges that Batteries Face during Design and Development

Electric and hybrid vehicles are receiving substantial attention due to their high efficiency, low greenhouse emissions and lower/non dependence on petroleum. Most vehicle manufacturers are already designing and even commercializing electric vehicles. However, extensive research and development is needed in battery technology in order to guarantee it presents a long life, safe operation, competitive power and energy densities whilst being cost effective. One of the most critical aspects is the safe operation and long life characteristics, due to the fact that batteries chemistries degrade during its lifetime This seminar will present the design and development process a battery needs to follow in order to develop a battery from a single cell to the battery pack that will finally be used to power and electric or hybrid vehicle. This path is full of challenges that go from the material selection, testing procedures to assess performance and aging, safety policies, testing standards, environmental issues and cost, among others. During the seminar we will present how these challenges affect the battery development and the success of vehicle electrification.

Dr. Lucia Gauchia received her PhD degree in Electrical Engineering in December 2009 from the University Carlos III of Madrid (Spain). She was a Postdoctoral Research Associate during 2012 at McMaster University (Canada), working for the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Hybrid Powertrain in the ECE Dept. as well as in the Green Auto Powertrains Program in the ME Dept. Since Fall 2013 she is the Richard and Elizabeth Henes Assistant Professor on Energy Storage Systems, with a joint appointment between the ECE and MEEM Depts. Her research interests are focused on the testing, modeling and energy management of energy storage systems in both transport and stationary applications.

The Department of Mechanical Engineering – Engineering Mechanics Graduate Seminar:
Thursday, March 26, 2014 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. Room 103 EERC Bldg.
Dr. William de Ojeda, Navistar

Title: Relevant Research Areas in Heavy-Duty Engines

The drivers for technologies in the Heavy Duty truck market are cleaner emission regulations and higher fuel efficiency standards. This presentation will illustrate how increased engine efficiencies have been attained by more capable injection and charge air systems, while at the same time engine designers work to increase the mechanical limits of the engine to allow operation at higher compression ratios and higher peak cylinder pressures. Reduction of parasitic losses and effective designs to recover the heat energy are also active areas of development. Increased efficiency is accompanied by highly integrated emission reduction technologies. Effective operation of these aftertreatment units require strict thermal management and this presentation will provide insight from novel approaches such as provided by variable valve timing over conventional techniques that require excess fuel. Finally, the area of fuels opens new possibilities for advanced combustion modes. The use of natural gas with Diesel pilot ignition, or gasoline like fuels with Diesel, of oxygenated fuels like Dimethyl Ether represent current areas of research and development and will be briefly reviewed here.
Further advances in HD powertrains with these new fuels will require continuous aligning and successful migration of basic research into the applied work of industry.

Dr. de Ojeda is a senior engineer in Powertrain Group at Navistar where he has led several advanced engine development programs. More recently he directed Navistar’s High Efficiency Vehicle-Engine Supertruck DOE Program based on the Navistar MAXXFORCE13 engine. Dr. de Ojeda holds multiple patents and publications in the
area of electro-hydraulics, variable valve train systems, combustion and controls. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The Cooper Union in New York, a M.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from The University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

The ME-EM Graduate Seminar guest speaker on Thursday, March 20 at 4:00 in 103 EERC will be Dr. David Garren from the Naval Postgraduate School.

The title of his presentation will be ‘Signatures of Surface Moving Targets within Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery’.

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) enables accurate collection of imagery data in all weather conditions, day or night. SAR image formation yield well-focused imagery of geophysical scenes, since the radar signal processing uses a filtering process that is matched to the radar echoes from stationary scattering centers within the scene. However, moving targets yield a signal mismatch in the processing and thus appear defocused, wherein the majority of the smearing occurs in the radar cross-range direction. This current investigation presents methods for analytically predicting the detailed shape of the smear signatures for surface targets with arbitrary motion in spotlight SAR imagery. This analysis considers the standard collection geometry in which the radar sensor moves with constant speed and heading on a level flight path, with radar beam-pattern pointed perpendicular to the direction of flight. Examples in which a target moves with constant speed and heading yield smear shapes that are simply curved, as with a parabola. However, complicated smear shapes can be obtained for cases of non-uniform target motion, as with a target that is undergoing a braking maneuver. The current investigation develops accurate equations for predicting the shapes of mover signatures based upon input values for the target motion. This predictive capability offers the potential of providing insight into the details of the target motion based upon mover signatures that are observed within SAR imagery.

Professor Garren is an Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the Naval Postgraduate School – National Capital Region. He has over twenty years of experience in applied research in various disciplines, including radar, image processing, and signal processing. He has over thirty-five research publications in journals and conference proceedings, and he holds seven U.S. Patents. Professor Garren received the Ph.D. degree in 1991 from the College of William and Mary.