Xiao Sun (CEE, research assistant), Qingli Dai (CEE), Muraleekrishnan Menon (MEEM, research assistant) and Fernando Ponta (MEEM) co-authored “Design and Simulation of Active External Trailing-edge Flaps for Wind Turbine Blades on Load Reduction.”
The paper received the 2017 Journal of Aerospace Engineering Best Paper Award. An award banquet will take place at the 2018 Earth and Space Conference on April 9-12 in Cleveland.
https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)AS.1943-5525.0000771
The Michigan Tech Mobile Lab was on the road in November 2017, stopping in Warren, Michigan at TARDEC (The US Army Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center). While at TARDEC, a professional development short course was given in Hybrid Electric Vehicles.
Students enrolled in the course were full time engineers specializing in vehicle sustainability. They enrolled for this course specifically to help better equip themselves for future effort in electrified applications of vehicles and mobile equipment for the military.
The course itself included lecture materials on the concepts behind the design of hybrid electric vehicles, as well as hands-on interactive activities that allowed students to operate a fully functional powertrain test cell and evaluate a variety of production-intent HEV’s.
Instructors for the course included Lucia Gauchia, Wayne Weaver, Jeremy Worm, and Chris Morgan. Additional support provided by Darrell Robinette, Alex Normand, Tucker Alsup, Tina Sarazin and Nicholas Monette.
For more information about the Michigan Tech Mobile Lab, contact APS Labs or cjmorgan@mtu.edu.
The Michigan Tech Engineering Ambassadors (EA) Program is planning 24 visits to local area schools this semester. The program is designed to change the conversation about engineering, starting with creating excitement for engineering disciplines through outreach activities designed for grades 4-9.
Outreach topics for October and November vary from buoyancy and energy in bouncy balls to structures and chemistry in engineering.
Right now there are 21 ambassadors in EA at Michigan Tech, including 10 veteran ambassadors. The program is open to all of Michigan Tech’s engineering majors, who can join at the start of fall or spring semester. The outreach experience is considered to be professional development for University students, allowing practice with brief presentations and hands on activities with kids.
EA is part of a larger network of universities united under one goal: changing the way people talk about engineering.
Learn more about Engineering Ambassadors at Michigan Tech! Contact the program director Jaclyn Johnson if you are interested in participating.
Join us in welcoming Venkatesh Prasad of Ford, who will present on challenges faced at the frontier of mobility and opportunities for education, research, collaboration and career pathways.
The seminar is being held from 3 to 4 p.m. Monday, October 2, 2017, in MUB Ballroom A2.
The title of the presentation is Challenges at the Frontiers of Mobility and Opportunities for Education, Research, Collaboration and Career Pathways.
Join Venkatesh Prasad and Eric Marsman from Ford for a tutorial presentation on the OpenXC Platform from 10 a.m. to noon Monday (Oct. 2) in EERC 501. Bring a laptop.
Ford Motor Company will give a two-hour workshop on the OpenXC capabilities and a tutorial on building an Android application. It will include information on GitHub, Android, iOS, Python and vehicle CAN bus basics. Come see how you can use vehicle data in your class or research projects in order to contribute to the next wave of vehicle technologies.
Jeremy Worm (ME-EM/APSRC) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $20,422 research and development contract from the US Department of Defense, Army, TARDEC. The project is “Development and Delivery of a Professional Course in Inverter Design.” This is a four-month project.
Michigan Tech’s Automotive Engineering camp for high school girls strives to address concerns about gender gap in the automotive workforce.
The immersive, week-long program aims to inculcate a strong interest in automotive engineering among pre-college teens to kick-start their dream job in the automotive industry and also help gain a competitive edge for college.
Although the camp is meant only for juniors and seniors, some super motivated 9th graders typically make it to the class each summer.
More than 85% camp goers said they would be interested in an automotive engineering career, according to a post-program survey this summer. That compares to 40% who said they would be interested in such a career before the start of the program. A whopping 95% said they would be interested in pursuing a science career once they completed the camp.
Smithsonian’s Air & Space Magazine published a feature article about Michigan Tech’s new NASA Space Research Institute, headed by Greg Odegard (ME-EM). The institute will work on using carbon nanotubes to create a composite that is lighter and stronger than any material used in load-bearing structures today.
These students are designing materials tough enough to land on another planet.
The project, called the Institute for Ultra-Strong Composites by Computational Design (US-COMP), is led by Michigan Technological University professor Greg Odegard, who assembled the 11-university team of experts in computational mechanics and materials science. The problem NASA has set for them to solve: Use carbon nanotubes to create a composite that is lighter and stronger than any material used in load-bearing structures today. Odegard says high-powered computers at his university and others are the key to success.
Will Pisani is in his first year of work toward his Ph.D. at Michigan Tech, and he’s already started some of the computational modeling the institute will use.
Using molecular dynamics, Matt Radue, who is just about to receive his Ph.D. from Michigan Tech, has created models to simulate the formation or breakage of chemical bonds between atoms; he calculates, by programming Newton’s laws of motion into the models, the velocities and accelerations of the atoms under different conditions, such as changes in temperature.
Julie Tomasi loves it when the materials in the lab behave the way the computer models predict. Tomasi, also pursuing a Ph.D. at Michigan Tech, has tested the mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties of epoxy with various embedded fillers, such as graphene (a carbon particle lattice).
Nancy Barr, director of the MEEM Engineering Communications Program, presented a paper at IEEE’s Professional Communication Society (PCS) annual conference in Madison.
Her paper, titled “Starting from Scratch: Incorporating communication instruction in a revised mechanical engineering curriculum,” described the process used to develop and implement instruction in technical writing and presenting into the four-course mechanical engineering practice sequence.
The IEEE PCS society is dedicated to understanding and promoting effective communication in engineering, scientific and other technical environment.
The conference took place July 23-26, 2017.
“Fundamentals of Diesel Engines”—MEEM 5202 will be offered next week Wednesday through Friday as a one credit short course.
Course includes extensive laboratory components with a format that mixes traditional lecture and group discussion with hands-on experiments conducted in powertrain test-cells and through driving vehicles on the road. The course will be available to all Michigan Tech faculty/staff, graduate students, and undergraduate seniors.
Course description is included below.
“Fundamentals of Diesel Engines”—MEEM 5202 is a combination of lecture and hands-on activities. Options for transportation and lunch. Content; fundamentals of operation, performance metrics, thermochemistry, combustion, fuel injection and spray, air systems and turbocharging, EGR, energy balance, heat transfer, diesel engine simulation and advanced concepts and trends in diesel engines.
These courses are a great option for anyone looking to increase their understanding of vehicle systems, engines, or for students needing additional credits. The course will be delivered from the Michigan Tech Advanced Power Systems Research Center located near the Houghton County Airport. The course will be 2.5 days in duration, starting at 1 p.m. Wednesday, ending at 5 p.m. Friday of that same week. Transportation to and from campus may be provided each day. Lunch will be provided on Thursday and Friday.
Registration is now open through banweb.
Fundamentals of Diesel Engines, 7/12 through 7/14 CRN 52378.
There are no pre-requisites, but familiarity with thermodynamics and/or IC engine cycles will be helpful.
Contact Chris Morgan cjmorgan@mtu.edu for further details.
By MEEM, APS Labs.
Michigan Tech’s Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics is hosting high school students from Houghton, Calumet and Lake Linden at a Robotics Machining Workshop during the week of June 19, 2017. The students are members of FIRST Robotics Competition teams.
Workshop developers are Marty Toth and Michael Goldsworthy (ME-EM). They will teach the students machining skills and safety practices. During the workshop, the students will machine all the components to construct a working Stirling Engine.
Building a competition robot is a complex undertaking requiring electro-mechanical design, computer modeling, creating machining prints, prototyping and lots of machining.
Michigan Tech connects with FIRST Robotics in many ways. Like many universities, Tech recruits FIRST Robotics high school students with scholarship opportunities. Tech faculty and staff volunteer with the teams during the six-week building season and during the off-season with special projects such as a robot that was created for this year’s Bridgefest Parade, which helped students develop skills for the next building season, which begins early in 2018.