by Jenn Donovan, public relations director
Mercury Marine, a longtime corporate partner of Michigan Tech, has donated a laser interferometer to Michigan Tech’s Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics. The piece of equipment, valued at approximately $125,000 when new, uses a laser to produce digital images of the amount of strain that parts undergo as they are stressed in various ways.
Two Mercury Marine employees who are also Tech alumni are on campus for the Career Fair today. Their company is a corporate sponsor of Tech’s Career Center. Randy Poirier ’83, director of drives and propulsion engineering, and Jeff Etapa ’03, technical lead for noise, vibration and harshness dynamics, met yesterday with representatives of the GLRC and mechanical engineering.
The company recently donated a 150 horsepower, 4-stroke boat engine to the GLRC as well. Mercury Marine has designated the GLRC as a test site. They plan to track the performance of the boat engine there.
“There is nothing more important than safe, reliable and environmentally conscious ‘access to the sea’ here on Lake Superior, and that is exactly what Mercury Marine delivered in making Michigan Tech a Mercury Marine Test Center,” said Guy Meadows, director of the GLRC Great Lakes Research Initiative. “Outfitting our Survey Vessel Polar with a new Mercury, 4-stroke outboard now gives us the confidence to conduct research operations anywhere in the big lake.
“This field season, which begins in April, the SV Polar is already scheduled to deploy environmental monitoring buoys off both North and South Entry, to conduct precision hydrographic surveys off Gay, to participate in a rip current experiment along Highway 2 and possibly to conduct Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) testing in the Straits of Mackinac,” Meadows went on to say. “Mercury Marine and Michigan Tech are great partners in creating the future.”
Mercury Marine also is a sponsor of Mind Trekkers, a hands-on science education program run by Tech’s Center for Precollege Outreach.