Professor emeritus (Mechanical Engineering) Lee Langston recently began a new column entitled Technologue, in the July-August 2013 issue (Vol. 101) of American Scientist. For his first topic, Lee chose to profile “The Adaptable Gas Turbine,” covering the history, advantages and challenges, and current applications of gas turbines in jet engines and non-aviation applications such as natural gas pipeline compressors, ships and combined cycle power plants.
Dr. Robert X. Gao, the Pratt & Whitney Chair Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and colleagues have received a three-year National Science Foundation GOALI (Grant Opportunities For Academic Liaison With Industry) grant to support collaborative research aimed at improving spare parts inventory management in the aircraft industry. UConn shares this three-year, $450,000 award with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Pratt & Whitney is the industry partner on the project. NSF developed the GOALI program as a means to catalyze industry-university partnerships and thus help to ensure that “intellectual capital and emerging technologies are brought together in ways that promote economic growth and an improved quality of life.” Dr. Gao explains that the goal of the project is to develop the basic science and practical tools to transform sensor measurements collected from a large number of distributed machines (such as jet engines) in the field into forecasting methodologies – along with inventory policies – for the spare parts required to maintain the equipment. To achieve this goal, the researchers, aided by their colleagues at Pratt & Whitney, will conduct research along four pathways:
health status of specific engine parts before they require replacement (versus the prevailing techniques that indicate the overall health of an engine only);The research will culminate in improved forecasting and inventory management for commercial engine spare parts. Beyond these specific technical advancements, Dr. Gao says the project will “determine the economic impact of advanced sensing and predicting methodologies and the resulting improvement in decision-making, and potentially make the case for their pervasive installation. Although the developed models will primarily be validated within Pratt & Whitney’s business units, the models and methods will be beneficial to a wide array of manufacturing firms for whom after-sale service is a critical component of their business.” In addition to this GOALI research, Dr. Gao has received several other NSF grants since joining UConn in 2008 that focus on advancing the science base of sensing physics for advanced manufacturing (such as electrically-assisted precision micro-rolling and multivariate injection molding control) and building the cyber-physical infrastructure for a “Smart City.”
Leila Ladani joins the Mechanical Engineering Department. Dr. Ladani received her PhD at the University of Maryland in 2007. Her research expertise spans additive manufacturing, manufacturing of nanomaterial and micro/nanoelectronics, material characterization and mechanics, and multi-scale modeling and simulation. Most recently, she was an assistant professor at the University of Alabama.
Michael Pettes joins the Mechanical Engineering 
Department. He received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2011 and brings expertise in thermal transport physics at the micro- and nano-scale, and engineering of materials at the nanoscale for energy conversion and storage applications. Dr. Pettes was a post-doctoral researcher at UT Austin prior to joining UConn. Earlier, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps.
David Pierce joins the Mechanical Engineering Department and the Department of Mathematics. He received his PhD from Stanford University in 2007. Dr. Pierce’s research expertise includes computational and experimental solid (bio)mechanics, finite element methods, biomechanics of cartilage and arteries, reliability prediction and design tools for MEMs. He was an assistant professor and Vice Head of the Institute of Biomechanics at Graz University of Technology, Austria.
Dr. Barber has served as a professor-in-residence in the Mechanical Engineering Department since joining UConn in 2000. He enjoyed a distinguished career with Pratt & Whitney and the United Technologies Research Center prior to joining UConn. Dr. Barber is an Associate Fellow of AIAA and a member of ASME, and he has served as an Associate Editor of the AIAA Journal for Propulsion and Power. His induction into CASE recognizes his contributions to computational fluid mechanics, his leadership in expanding and managing the professional Master of Engineering (MENG) degree program and oversight and expansion of the Mechanical Engineering senior design program.
Dr. Chiu is a professor of Mechanical Engineering who is recognized for his pioneering work in heat and mass transfer, including his development of new approaches 
to understanding micro- and nano-structure induced transport phenomena in energy, photonics and semiconductor materials. Dr. Chiu’s honors include the Rutgers University School of Engineering Medal of Excellence Award for Distinguished Young Alumni, the ASME Bergles-Rohsenow Young Investigator Award in Heat Transfer, the U.S. Army Research Office Young Investigator Award, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award. He is an Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer and the International Journal of Thermal Sciences.
UConn Engineering was well represented during the Second Annual Celebration of Innovation, presented by the UConn Office of Economic Development on April 10th. The gala event (see event photos here) afforded the innovation community an opportunity to network and to celebrate the achievements of some of its most outstanding members. Read a related story here. Importantly, the event underscored the vital linkages among academic innovation, commercialization and economic impacts that benefit the State of Connecticut. According to Dr. Mary Holz-Clause, UConn’s Vice President of Economic Development, in the past year, UConn researchers have developed 80 new inventions and filed 42 U.S. patents, and the university has signed 10 license deals. Commercializing university innovations is a growing resource for the university that has generated $1.2 million in patent revenue alone in the past year. “UConn, thanks to the innovative research done by our faculty and students, is re-inventing industries and driving new innovations. The Celebration of Innovation is an opportunity to recognize the contributions the university is making in not only reshaping the state’s economy but also having a meaningful impact globally,” said Dr. Holz-Clause. Among the honorees were Dr. David “Ed” Crow, General Electric Corporation, and engineering faculty members who received U.S. patent awards in the last year.
Dr. David “Ed” Crow, professor emeritus of Mechanical Engineering (2002-11) and a 36-year Pratt & Whitney employee, was honored with the Innovation Champions – University Employee Award. An elected member of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering, Dr. Crow has served as an outstanding role model throughout his engineering and academic careers. In 2011, he established the 
D.E. Crow Innovation Prize at UConn, which helps engineering students turn their entrepreneurial inspirations into marketable products through seed funding. Dr. Crow joined Pratt & Whitney in 1966 and rose to the position of Senior Vice President of the company’s Engineering, where he oversaw 6,600 engineers responsible for the design, development, validation and certification of all Pratt & Whitney large commercial engines, military engines and rocket products. Earlier, he served as Senior Vice President for the company’s Large Commercial Engines unit. He is a past secretary of the SAE, a member of ASME and AIAA, and an elected member of the University of Missouri-Rolla Academy of Mechanical Engineers and the UConn Academy of Distinguished Engineers. Earning the Collaborator of the Year Award, which is presented to a partner whose collaboration is likely to have a strong and lasting impact on the State economy, was General Electric Corporation. Last fall, GE Industrial Systems expanded its partnership with UConn Engineering through a five-year, $7.5 million investment that includes an endowed professorship, undergraduate scholarships, graduate fellowships, and $3.3 million in funding for company directed research at UConn, focused on electrical-protection technologies, including circuit breaker technologies. The investment brings together researchers from various academic disciplines and from the energy industry to conduct R&D on core electrical-protection technologies, including circuit breakers. Paul Singer, Technology General Manager of GE Industrial Systems, accepted on behalf of GE.
New Patents In addition, a number of UConn mechanical engineering faculty members were honored for their receipt of U.S. patents during the 2012-13 year. They are listed below: Baki Cetegen and Michael Renfro (Mechanical Engineering) – Fiber Optic Based In-Situ Diagnostics for PEM Fuel Cells, U.S. Patent # 8,268,493 Bahram Javidi (Electrical & Computer Engineering) · Depth and Lateral Size Control of Three-Dimensional Images in Projection Integral Imaging, U.S. Patent # 8,264,722 · Optical Data Storage Device and Method, U.S. Patent # 8,155,312 · Optical Security System Using Fourier Plane Encoding, U.S. Patent # 8,150,033 · System and Method for Recognition of a Three-Dimensional Target, U.S. Patent # 8,150,100 Aggelos Kiayias (Computer Science & Engineering) – Systems and Methods for Key Generation in Wireless Communication Systems, U.S. Patent # 8,208,628 H. Russell Kunz (Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Center for Clean Energy Engineering) andLeonard Bonville (Center for Clean Energy Engineering) – Bipolar Plate for Fuel Cell, U.S. Patent # 8,097,385 Richard Parnas (Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering) and Nicholas Leadbeater (Chemistry) – Systems for Alkyl Ester Production, U.S. Patent # 8,119,832 Lei Wang (Electrical & Computer Engineering) – Error-Tolerant Multi-Treaded memory Systems with Reduced Error Accumulation, U.S. Patent # 8,190,982 Quing Zhu (Electrical & Computer Engineering) – Method and Apparatus for Medical Imaging using Near-Infrared Optical Tomography and Fluorescence Tomography Combined with Ultrasound, U.S. Patent # 8,239,006
Mechanical Engineering junior Rufat Kulakhmetov, has been selected one of just 15 students nationwide to participate in the 2013 NASA Propulsion Academy located at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL. The 10-week, residential summer research and educational experience is reserved for top students interested in propulsion and is a pipeline intended to prepare young professionals for employment in aerospace positions. As an intern, Rufat will work on a four-person team under the guidance of propulsion engineers at Marshall, local commercial entities, and local universities. A New England Scholar, Rufat currently works in the Combustion and Gas Dynamics Laboratory (adv.: Mike Renfro).
M.S. degree candidate Joseph Mummert (Mechanical Engineering) received an honorable mention for his submission for a 2013 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Joseph is advised by Dr. Wei Sun, with whom he expects to launch a business, ValveFix, LLC, in the future. ValveFix designs, manufactures and distributes an FDA-approved, durable tissue heart valve for young and old patients that eliminates the need for repeat open-heart surgeries and requires no anti-coagulation drugs. The valve relies on a patented, biocompatible, coated valve that offers superior structural stability and anti-calcification.
Published on: Apr 25, 2013
A research team lead by Dr. Robert Gao has won a “Best Paper Award” at the 2012 ASME/ISCIE International Symposium on Flexible Automation, held in St. Louis, MO in June 2012. The paper, “Viscosity Measurement in Injection Molding Using a Multivariate Sensor,” describes a sensing method that quantifies multiple parameters critical to the quality control in polymer processing and wirelessly transmits the measured data through acoustic waves for remote information retrieval. The paper results from a collaborative effort between Dr. Gao’s group at UConn (with graduate student Navid Asadizanjani and Assistant Research Professor Zhaoyan Fan) and Prof. David Kazmer in the Polymer Engineering department at UMass Lowell. This research has been supported by the Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) Division of the NSF.
Tucked away in the Quiet Corner of Northeastern Connecticut is a mid-sized company that has been serving the world’s leading aerospace companies for decades,Whitcraft, LLC. At the company’s Eastford facility, nearly 300 employees carry out highly technical specialty sheet metal fabrication and machining for companies like Pratt & Whitney, GE Aviation, Rolls Royce, Honeywell and other top names in aerospace.
Whitcraft is a good neighbor to the community, hiring high school and college students for co-ops and internships, and building an employment pipeline that spans Ellis Technical High School in Danielson, Quinebaug Valley Community College and UConn to fill its needs for qualified, innovative engineers. “Our employees are world-class technicians,” says Sandy Karosi, HR Manager.
Karosi, Engineering Manager Allen Roy and a rep from sister company Connecticut Tool and Manufacturing have attended the UConn Engineering Career Fair each year since 2008.
Among the company’s valued employees are four UConn Engineering alumni, including Chad Chmura, a Junior Engineer who received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 2012.
Whitcraft usually hires one or two year-round interns each year. The company recruits juniors and seniors, with the intention of hiring them after they earn their degrees. Whitcraft has a long tradition of recruiting co-op students from Ellis Tech because “These students often have job shop experience, and that knowledge puts them much further ahead,” according to Karosi, who adds, “When we recruit interns, we look for students who have experience or hobbies that demonstrate an interest in hands-on, mechanical things, such as rebuilding an engine.”
Chmura: Hands-on Engineer
UConn alumnus Chmura started working at Whitcraft as a junior at Ellis Tech. Though he intended to pursue his degree in the automotive program, Chmura ended up in the Machine Shop because it offered “cooler tools.”
Karosi says, “When Chad applied to Whitcraft, he arrived for the interview with pages of autoCAD sketches, blueprints of a one-tenth scale remote control monster truck that he designed and built, and other portfolio items that showed his mechanical skills. Chad had an impressive mechanical aptitude; he’s the kind of kid who taught himself CNC (Computer Numerical Control) software.”
Though Chmura was the valedictorian of his high school class, he admits that UConn was not in his sights post-high school. “I did not envision myself coming to UConn because of the cost. But my high school guidance counselor told me of the Presidential Scholars Program the day before college applications were due, and I scrambled to submit my application in time.”
Chmura was accepted to UConn Engineering and received the scholarship which, combined with an engineering scholarship that covered the cost of his books, made UConn an affordable option. Karosi notes that after Chmura began his coursework, Whitcraft revised his work schedule to accommodate his studies. “We have a policy with our interns: school comes first.”
Throughout his undergraduate years, Chmura worked 15-25 hours/week, racing to Whitcraft after his classes concluded daily. The two experiences, along with his training at Ellis Tech, complemented each other nicely, according to Chmura.
“My pre-UConn education prepared me 180 degrees differently from students who attended traditional high schools. I struggled initially through some of my gen-ed courses, but during my junior and senior years, when my engineering courses ramped up, I was better prepared and less stressed about my classes than many of my peers.”
After his reassignment to the engineering team throughout his years at UConn, Chmura found that once his engineering courses ramped up, he was able to apply his engineering lessons and contribute more actively on large projects at Whitcraft.
One project he recalls with pride involved the design and development of an automated process for bending tubes at different angles. The French customer had been outsourcing the task to an outside vendor. Chmura designed and built a hydraulic machine capable of bending the tubes at two angles with minimal processing, enabling the customer to bring the process in-house and effectively cut production and distribution costs in half.
For their senior design project at UConn, Chmura and his fellow team members, Callan Gruber and Waleed Zawawi (advised by Dr. Jiong Tang), worked on a project involving wheel optimization for sliding glass doors. The team developed a way to test various types of load wheels — the mechanism that supports the sliding motion of the door — for Stanley Access Technologies. The team’s fully-automated test setup was able to accurately measure the rolling resistance of various types of loads while under different conditions (load, temperature, speed, direction, track surface materials) and achieve repeatable results. The project netted the 2012 Mechanical Engineering senior design competition, receiving the top $1000 prize among all ME projects.
After Chmura earned his B.S. in May 2012, Whitcraft offered him a full-time salaried job. Karosi says, “He’s doing phenomenally. He’s working on a Raytheon missile project for which he serves as lead engineer.”
Since Karosi started keeping rack, the company has hosted seven UConn Engineering interns. Two of the company’s engineers are currently pursuing their master’s degree in mechanical engineering at UConn, with tuition reimbursement help from Whitcraft.
Chmura is an outspoken advocate for Whitcraft, which he says “makes me feel appreciated.” Furthermore, he says, Whitcraft provides an outstanding manufacturing environment because it is continually upgrading its equipment to include devices such as direct metal laser sintering and 3D prototyping machines, CAD software, laser cutting devices and other equipment. “I can’t imagine working for a better company,” he concludes.
On Thursday, April 11th, a dedicated team of students and faculty demonstrated and discussed innovative “home grown” engineering prototypes at the Connecticut State Capitol during a rally in support of Governor Dannel P
. Malloy’s proposed Next Generation Connecticut.
Next Generation Connecticut is aimed at reenergizing and redefining Connecticut’s economy through strategic investments in science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines (STEM) at UConn. The bill, which is making its way through the legislative process, was passed overwhelmingly by the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee on April 16th.
Among the featured speakers were Gov. Malloy, UConn President Susan Herbst, UConn Provost Mun Y. Choi, elected officials, labor and business council leaders, as well as two outspoken executives from Connecticut businesses: Robert Friedland, co-founder, president, and CEO of Wallingford-based Proton OnSite; and Ed Murphy, Senior Director of Technology Planning and Intellectual Property at JDS Uniphase in Bloomfield.
But for many attendees, the most compelling demonstration of why Connecticut should invest in UConn’s STEM programs was evidenced by the array of extraordinary projects designed and developed by UConn students and faculty members. The selection of UConn Engineering projects displayed included a custom test stand for a common surgical implement, a fuel cell-powered model vehicle, unmanned autonomous aerial and land vehicles, a microbial fuel cell, and 3D manufacturing apparatus. The projects and demonstrators are summarized below. See photos here.
Surgical Tool Test Device
For their senior-year design project, Biomedical Engineering students Kathryn Dobler, John Burke and Jordy Schuller designed and built a custom, prototype testing device for a Covidien product, the Premium Surgiclip™, used to clamp off blood vessels during surgery. A hand-held, stapler-like device is used to apply the clip during surgery. The medical equipment giant Covidien tasked the students to develop a fixture capable of performing several different tests to determine the force applied by the clip dispenser and its effect on the clip. The testing unit is integrated within a machine that tests for tensile, compression, fatigue, impact and hardness, with the measures displayed on an attached computer screen. The students explained that the ultimate goal of the project is to establish a clinically acceptable product specification that can be measured and evaluated.
Hydrogen-Powered Fuel Cell Car
Seniors Nicholas Morse and Leia Dwyer, with their advisor, Dr. William Mustain (Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering) demonstrated “The Chegger,” a model car that runs on a hydrogen-powered fuel cell. The car was developed for an American Institute of Chemical Engineers-sponsored competition, ChemECar. Entries must rely on chemical reactions to power the motor and stop the car. The Chegger employs a light-activated electronic circuit incorporating an iodine chemical reaction to stop the car. For the ChemECar competition, vehicles must travel a fixed distance while carrying a payload, but the distance and weight requirements are not revealed to teams until competition day. Dr. Mustain and his research team are making advances in the area of electrocatalyst materials for energy conversion and storage, and in enhancing our understanding of the fundamental science behind fuel cell technology, that may contribute to the future of fuel cell applications in energy.
Autonomous Vehicles [View a video here]
Mechanical Engineering students Roseanna Warren, Yuqian Liu, Jiaxing Che and Robert Herman, accompanied by their advisor, Dr. Chengyu Cao, showcased prototype autopilots along with quad-copter and helicopter models – unmanned autonomous vehicles designed and constructed in the Adaptive Systems, Intelligence and Mechatronics (AIM) Lab. Dr. Cao’s lab is developing novel control algorithms to enable the vehicles to adapt to local and environmental uncertainties, such as obstacles and varying terrain. The team is also linking the vehicle control systems into networks that allow for more complex interactions among the vehicles. Other focuses include the auto-pilot technology and circuits that host the control and navigation algorithms. The team’s work will improve the robustness and adaptive capabilities of unmanned vehicle networks.
Benthic Microbial Fuel Cell (BMFCs)
Graduate students Udayarka Karra (Civil & Environmental Engineering) and Ridvan Umaz (Electrical & Computer Engineering), accompanied by Dr. Baikun Li (Civil & Environmental Engineering), demonstrated two bench-scale microbial fuel cells that generate electricity through the metabolic activity of anaerobic bacteria and the decay of organic matter found in the top layer of sediment in bodies of water. The research team anticipates these devices may provide a steady power supply for remote oceanographic devices used in sensing and monitoring ocean environments. A focus is on developing a distributed network to address the energy supply problems for underwater sensor network applications. Dr. Li and her team are exploring and testing various facets of the technology, including novel electrode materials, BMFC configurations, power management schemes, and microbial ecology analysis to enhance understanding of the various aspects related to underwater bioenergy conversion.
3D Manufacturing
Sonya Renfro, Program Coordinator for Diversity & Outreach, and junior Monica Smith (Mechanical Engineering and German) demonstrated 3D printing using a desktop device in which a three-dimensional object is built layer-by-layer using a plastic material. The device is one of two used by UConn’s Engineering Ambassadors in outreach visits to middle and high school students aimed at exciting the students in engineering as a fun and creative career choice. Often used for rapid-prototyping of highly complex geometries, 3D printing begins with a digital CAD design, which software interprets as a series of thin horizontal slices. The 3D printer then builds the actual shape in successive layers. Inexpensive machines are now being used to produce sculptures, machine parts, jewelry, home furnishings, and medical implants. 3D printing is related to the more complex additive manufacturing technologies underway at UConn’s recently announced Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center, which hosts state-of-the-art Arcam electron beam devices that are suitable for manufacturing large, complex metal parts from a range of different materials at high temperature.
Published: April 24, 2013