Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics News

Category: Research

PSTDL Finalists in NASA Watts on the Moon Challenge

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Assistant Professor Paul van Susante (ME-EM/MARC) and the Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab, aka HuskyWorks, advanced to the “final four” in Phase 2 of NASA’s Watts on the Moon Challenge. Through this challenge, NASA seeks to partner with a broader community of experts to augment its investments in power generation.

The first competition phase started in September 2020 and included 60 eligible teams, from which seven winners were chosen. Winners in each phase receive equal shares of a prize purse, used to fuel the development of ideas for building energy infrastructures on the Moon.

HuskyWorks

“As we tread new ground in exploration, we’ll need to draw on creativity across the nation. The technologies created through Watts on the Moon are one example, with new perspectives helping us address a crucial technology gap.”

Denise Morris, acting program manager for Centennial Challenges at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama

Building on previous success, the team will use the current $400,000 prize to refine their Phase 2, Level 3 prototype and test it under a simulated lunar environment (vacuum chamber) at NASA facilities in 2024. Up to two teams at this level will receive awards: The first-place team will be awarded $1 million, and second place will be awarded $500,000. Winners are expected to be announced in September, 2024.

You can learn more about the challenge by visiting NASA’s Watts on the Moon fact sheet. For more details on Dr. van Susante’s lab capabilities, visit the PSTDL’s  Facilities page.

Play Four Teams Advance to Final Level of NASA’s Watts on the Moon Challenge video
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Four Teams Advance to Final Level of NASA’s Watts on the Moon Challenge

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Greg Odegard Receives NASA Outstanding Public Leadership Medal

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Professor Greg Odegard, recipient of the NASA Outstanding Public Leadership Award

Professor Greg Odegard (ME-EM) is the director of the Ultra-Strong Composites by Computational Design (US-COMP) NASA Space Technology Research Institute (STRI), one of the inaugural STRIs funded by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. And now he has received a NASA Outstanding Public Leadership Medal, awarded to nongovernment employees for “notable leadership accomplishments that have significantly influenced the NASA Mission.”

3 gold medals, small, medium and large, imprinted with the word "NASA" and six connected stars, with a set of three striped ribbons, one for each that are light blue, dark blue and gold.
The NASA Outstanding Public Leadership medal, presented to Professor Gregory Odegard on April 26, 2023.

The five-year US-COMP collaboration brings together 22 professors from 11 universities and two industry partners with a range of expertise in molecular modeling, manufacturing, material synthesis and testing.

Odegard’s nomination letter outlines how he harnessed the group’s talents to successfully overcome challenges and make significant progress:

“Dr. Odegard leads by example, exhibiting the NASA core values for safety, integrity, teamwork, excellence and inclusion. He respected the constraints imposed by safety measures taken to protect students during COVID, while finding ways to continue making progress. He embraced the challenges of working with industry, where open sharing of information is tempered by the need to maintain their competitive edge. He walked the fine balance of demonstrating investment payoff for the funder through publications, while respecting intellectual property concerns by the industry members. Dr. Odegard’s openness to change to more effectively serve NASA’s mission needs is exceptional. He led with the courage and humility of leaders who leave an indelible legacy because they are different. His service to the Agency and to the nation deserves recognition.”

Jenn Gustetic, director of NASA Early Stage Innovations and Partnerships, told Odegard the medal is well deserved. “Leading extensive and complex transdisciplinary research across numerous partners is no small feat — and you did so to great effect,” Gustetic said. “I am delighted that the Agency is recognizing your individual leadership contribution in this way, as institutes do not come together well without exceptional leadership.”

Odegard received the medal at a ceremony held in Washington, D.C., on April 26, 2023. The US-COMP team was also recognized by the agency as a whole for their contributions.

Please join us in congratulating Professor Odegard on this important recognition and achievement.

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Sustainable and Resilient Communities Faculty Research Fellowship for Hassan Masoud

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Hassan Masoud
Hassan Masoud

The Tech Forward Initiative on Sustainability and Resilience (ISR) is excited to announce its awardees for spring 2023! The ISR supports advancements in curriculum development and research through a series of three awards programs: Curriculum Innovation Awards, Early Career and New Directions Award, and:

Sustainable and Resilient Communities Faculty Research Fellowship

Hassan Masoud (ME-EM/AIM) has been awarded a Sustainable and Resilient Communities Faculty Research Fellowship (typical award range: $12,000-$17,000) that will support a one-course buyout for spring 2024 to provide time to develop research collaborations and proposals on wave energy and other forms of renewable energy, in partnership with internal and external collaborators and the Center for Innovation in Sustainability and Resilience.

If you have questions or would like to ask about a potential future proposal, please reach out to ISR lead Chelsea Schelly at cschelly@mtu.edu.

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DoD SMART Scholarship Awardees Noah Baliat and Marcello Guadagno

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F-16 Fighting Falcons at Holloman AFB.

The Graduate School is pleased to announce the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship awardees:

  • Noah Baliat
    Baliat is an undergraduate student in mechanical engineering. Baliat will be at the Holloman Air Force Base (AFB) in New Mexico after graduation next year.
  • Marcello Guadagno
    Guadagno is a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering-engineering mechanics under Paul van Susante (ME-EM/MARC). Guadango will be at the Kirtland AFB in New Mexico.
  • Aaron Wildenborg
    Wildenborg is a Ph.D. candidate in physics under Jae Yong Suh (Physics). Wildenborg will be at the Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic in South Carolina.

Semifinalists:

  • Erican Santiago, a Ph.D. candidate in biomedical engineering under Hyeun Joong Yoon.
  • Kaitlyn Morgenstern, an undergraduate in mathematics.
  • Jonathan Oleson, a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering-engineering mechanics under Susanta Ghosh.
  • Rachel Passeno, an undergraduate in cybersecurity.
  • Trent Betters, an undergraduate in computer science.

The DoD SMART Scholarship is part of the National Defense Education Program and its benefits include full tuition and education-related expenses payment, a stipend of $30,000 to $46,000 per year, summer internships ranging from eight to 12 weeks, health insurance, a miscellaneous allowance of $1,000 per year, mentorship at one of the DoD sponsoring facilities and employment placement at a DoD facility upon degree completion.

The Graduate School is proud of these students for their outstanding scholarship. These awards highlight the quality of students at Michigan Tech, the innovative work they have accomplished, the potential for leadership and impact in science and engineering that the country recognizes in these students, and the incredible role that faculty play in students’ academic success.

If you have students who are interested in receiving writing support for the DoD SMART Scholarship or other graduate funding opportunities, have them contact Sarah Isaacson at sisaacso@mtu.edu.

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Ezra Bar-Ziv on Innovative Plastic Recycling

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Illustration of a process involving plastic processing.
Center for Chemical Upcycling of Waste Plastics – STRAP Video Proposal (2022)

Ezra Bar-Ziv (ME-EM/APSRC) was quoted by WLUK FOX 11 of Green Bay, Wisconsin, in a story on Green Bay’s candidacy for a new plastic recycling system that uses solvents to break down plastic film types. The system prototype is being built at Michigan Tech. The story was picked up by 101.1 WIXX-FM and five other Wisconsin news outlets.

George Huber, a College of Engineering professor at UW-Madison came up with the process called STRAP (Solvent Targeted Recovery and Precipitation). According to Huber, “It uses solvents to selectively solubilize one plastic over another. Then, we precipitate it out, and then we’re left behind with a pure plastic.”

Michigan Tech staff and students are creating the system prototype to breakdown the plastic in a larger scale.

“What we are doing is, we’re going from a lab scale—which could be a pound, half a pound, quarter pound—all the way to something similar to say a ton, ton per hour. That’s what we’re trying to do that, and we are doing it in strong collaboration with the Madison crew,” says Ezra Bar-Ziv, a mechanical engineering professor at Michigan Tech.

Read more at WLUK FOX 11 by Emily Matesic.

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Ezra Bar-Ziv (ME-EM/APSRC) is the principal investigator (PI) on a project that has received a $549,954 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation.

The project is titled “Continous Process for Solvent-Targeted Recovery and Precipitation (STRAP) for Plastic Wastes using Green Solvents.”

Shreyas Kolapkar (ME-EM/APSRC) is the co-PI on this potential three-year project.

April 19, 2023.

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Katherine Rauscher Wins Audience Choice Award at URSS 2023

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Winners Announced: Undergraduate Research & Scholarship Symposium

Presenter standing by her poster, with attendees in the background.

The Pavlis Honors College hosted the Undergraduate Research & Scholarship Symposium (URSS) last Friday (March 24) in conjunction with the Great Lakes Research Center (GLRC). The event featured a panel discussion in which participants discussed how undergraduate research impacted their present work, two poster sessions and a networking social event that culminated with the announcement of the award winners. In addition to Michigan Tech students, students from the Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College shared their work during this year’s URSS.

Thanks to the Portage Health Foundation and the DeVlieg Foundation for supporting the Undergraduate Research Internship Program as well as to the faculty, staff and graduate students who served as judges for the event.

The winners of the 2023 Undergraduate Research & Scholarship Symposium include mechanical engineering student Katherine Rauscher for her poster “Learning from Aviation to Improve the Safety of Autonomous Vehicles.” Rauscher’s poster was selected for the Audience Choice Award. Rauscher’s faculty advisor was Marika Seigel from the Department of Humanities.

By the Pavlis Honors College.

Extract from the URSS Booklet 2023:

Learning from Aviation to Improve the Safety of Autonomous Vehicles

Student Presenter: Katherine Rauscher, Mechanical Engineering
Faculty Advisor: Marika Seigel, Department of Humanities

Although Autonomous Vehicles [AVs] have proven to be successful in preventing human error accidents, there are still a myriad of concerns with the safety of this new technology considering automation has contributed to some modern highway accidents.

An in-depth literature review of previous highway and aviation accidents pertaining to automation was conducted using the Michigan Tech Van Pelt and Opie Library search tools to find appropriate scholarly sources from a variety of authors and perspectives.

This research revealed that the safety of AVs may be improved by emulating the aviation industry and taking actions such as implementing event recorders, encouraging safety collaboration, pursuing shared control, defining the roles of man and machine, improving automation understanding, combating complacency, and developing effective simulators.

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Jeff Naber and Jeremy Worm on Electric Vehicles in Cold Environments

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Jeff Naber in a video interview.
Jeff Naber in a video interview with WLUC TV6.

Jeff Naber and Jeremy Worm (ME-EM/APSRC) were quoted by WLUC TV6 in a story answering Keweenaw residents’ questions about operating electric vehicle batteries in cold temperatures. The story was picked up by Lansing’s WILX News 10.

Naber and Worm are researchers at Michigan Tech’s Advanced Power Systems Research Center.

“We’re looking at how we can extend the useful life of these vehicles and how we can extend the range of vehicles when we’re using them under climates in the Upper Peninsula,” said APS LABS Director Jeffrey Naber.

“If you’re operating and the battery is continuously at 32 degrees its life expectancy could decrease as much as 20%, if it’s 0 degrees Fahrenheit, it could decrease as much as 50%,” Worm said.

Read more and watch the video out WLUC TV6, by Annette Giachino.

Jeremy Worm in a video interview.
Jeremy Worm in a video interview with WLUC TV6.
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Hassan Masoud Wins NSF CAREER Award

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Hassan Masoud is principal investigator of CFAM, the Complex Fluids and Active Matter Lab.

Hassan Masoud, assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics at Michigan Technological University, has won a $520,255 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, “Collective Hydrodynamics of Robotic Swimmers and Surfers at High Reynolds Numbers.”

Dr. Masoud will use his award to examine the hydrodynamics of aquatic robots locomoting in orderly ensembles and identify the collective behaviors that emerge from their flow-mediated interactions.

Dr. Masoud earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and conducted postdoctoral research under the joint supervision of Howard Stone in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University and Michael Shelley at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU. He joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics at Michigan Tech as an assistant professor in 2017.

CAREER awards, administered under the Faculty Early Career Development Program, are the NSF’s most prestigious form of support and recognition for junior faculty who “exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.”

We congratulate Assistant Professor Hassan Masoud on his outstanding accomplishment!

Abstract: Robotic swarms have attracted much attention in recent years due to their vast potential applications. In particular, there has been a growing interest in aquatic robots, either swimming underwater or surfing at the air-water interface. By using large numbers of individuals working in tandem through local communication, a swarm of underwater swimmers or interfacial surfers can augment their collective intelligence while maintaining relatively simplistic designs. Harnessing this unique, joint ability leads to achieving superior functionalities, which makes aquatic robots very appealing for a myriad of practical applications, including surveillance, monitoring of invasive species, tracking weather and sea conditions, pollution management, etc. This project aims to obtain an in-depth understanding of many-body hydrodynamic interactions in the collective motion of robotic swimmers and surfers at high Reynolds numbers. The design of robots chosen for the studies is motivated by species in nature that have mastered their respective terrains. The swimmers mimic the general form of a fish, with the tail flapping providing the thrust, while the surfers take inspiration from water-walking insects. The investigations will be conducted using a synergistic application of high-fidelity numerical simulations and laboratory experiments. Validated simulations allow for exploring an extensive range of flow regimes and combinations of relative positions between the robots. Coupled with reinforcement learning algorithms, they also enable searching for optimal strategies for collective locomotion. The unsteady flows generated by the motion of robots in the experiments will be captured via time-resolved, volumetric particle tracking velocimetry. The fundamental knowledge gained during this project is expected to directly contribute to the design and implementation of future aquatic robots capable of functioning alongside each other with a high degree of coordination, similar to the behaviors exhibited by fish in schools and birds in flocks. The planned research studies in this project are coupled with a range of educational activities that involve outreach to middle and high school students, engagement with the general public, mentorship of community college and graduate students, and curriculum development.

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What Tiny Surfing Robots Teach Us About Surface Tension

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Play Fluid Dynamics: Michigan Tech Researchers Take it to the Tank video
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Fluid Dynamics: Michigan Tech Researchers Take it to the Tank

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Top Teams Advance in NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge

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NASA illustration of lunar workers in suits with vehicles and equipment.

NASA named 15 teams moving on to compete in the semifinal level of its Break the Ice Lunar Challenge on December 14, 2022. The $3.5 million multi-phase challenge invites problem-solvers from businesses, academia, maker communities, and more to play a role in building a lasting human presence and vibrant economy on the Moon by tapping into resources that are already there.

The second phase of competition kicked off in June with the goal of furthering development of lunar excavation and transport technologies. Level 1 challenged solvers to design a robotic system for digging and moving large quantities of icy Moon “dirt,” or regolith, found in the coldest, darkest places on the lunar surface.

Phase 2, Level 1

Twenty-five teams from around the world submitted entries for the first, qualifying level of Phase 2 competition. A panel of government, industry, and academic experts in in-situ resource utilization, or ISRU – the technical term for using local resources – evaluated teams’ entries and selected the winners based on submissions of detailed technical reports, engineering designs, and test plans.

Michigan Tech’s Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab (PSTDL) was selected among the winning teams. The founder and director of PSTDL is Paul van Susante, assistant professor in mechanical engineering-engineering mechanics and faculty advisor for Multiplanetary INnovation Enterprise (MINE).

Read more at NASA.gov.

Play NASA Announces Newest Winners in Break the Ice Lunar Challenge video
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NASA Announces Newest Winners in Break the Ice Lunar Challenge

NASA Announces Newest Winners in Break the Ice Lunar Challenge

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To the Moon—and Beyond

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Jason Blough Receives SAE International Lifetime Achievement Award

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Jason Blough
Jason Blough

Jason Blough, chair and distinguished professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics (ME-EM), received SAE International’s Ralph K. Hillquist NVH Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2023 Noise and Vibration Conference.

Established by the Noise & Vibration Conference Committee, this award recognizes those individuals who have shown a continued contribution to ground vehicle noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) over a period of 15 years or more.

According to the award notification, Blough has “been instrumental in shaping the sound package material industry over the last 30 years, alongside unmatched dedication and commitment to industry and SAE.” He was nominated for the award by Darrell Robinette (ME-EM), associate professor.

Blough’s research includes dynamic measurement problems, developing new digital signal processing algorithms to understand NVH-type problems and ways to improve the NVH characteristics of virtually any machine. He routinely teaches many experimental NVH techniques in both classroom settings and industry short courses, and serves as the SAE Clean Snowmobile Team faculty advisor under Tech’s Advanced Motorsports Enterprise.

Congratulations to Dr. Blough on this significant achievement.

By Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics.

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