January/February 2015 - University of Dayton Research Institute

January/February 2015
Also in this issue:
Holiday calendar • 2
A new degree • 2
Family matters • 2
New employees • 2
Anniversaries • 3
Volunteers needed
for Science Day • 3
Off the clock • 3
Safety corner • 3
New work • 4, 5
Researchers recognized • 5
Leland named to OAATC • 5
Brain teaser • 6
In the public eye • 6
Leading the way; natural gas for greener transportation
The University of Dayton Research Institute
will lead an Ohio-based research team tasked
with developing affordable composite naturalgas vehicle fuel tanks under the new Institute
for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI) announced Jan. 9 by President
Barack Obama.
Led by the
University of Tennessee, Knoxville,
IACMI was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy
to become a national
not-for-profit
institute aimed at
creating better composite materials and
process technolo-
gies for rapid deployment within the automotive, wind turbine and compressed-gas storage
industries. Research and development within
these three focus areas will be spearheaded by
IACMI’s founding partners, the universities of
Tennessee and Kentucky, Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, UDRI,
the National Renewable
Energy
Laboratory,
and
Purdue and Michigan State universities.
The founding
partners will work
with the Institute’s
122-member consortium, compris(continued page 4)
Building a better pallet
The Leader is published
by the
University of Dayton
Research Institute
300 College Park
Dayton, OH 45469-0101
Phone: 937.229.3268
Editor/Designer/Feature stories:
Pamela Gregg
[email protected]
Proofreaders:
Sarah Browning
Jackie Maddox
Lisa McCaffrey
The University of Dayton Research Institute has been awarded a $1.25 million Rapid
Innovation Fund award to develop a next-generation, fully-recyclable cargo pallet for the Department of Defense cargo transport fleet. The
pallet will be designed to provide
cost-savings to the Air Force, be less
damaging to the environment than
the current model, and create a more
competitive manufacturing market.
Under the 21-month Air Force
contract, researchers will design,
prototype and qualify an all-aluminum cargo pallet for use in transport
aircraft, such as the C-130 Hercules,
Cargo pallets are used to deliver equipment,
supplies and often humanitarian aid. Here
members of the 81st Aerial Port Squadron,
Joint Base Charleston, offload aid during a
humanitarian mission to Haiti in 2010. (USAF
photo/Senior Airman Robert Pilch)
C-17 Globemaster and C-5 Galaxy. The new
pallet could potentially replace the current pallet, which is made of aluminum with a balsawood core, said Dan Bowman (Aerospace
Mechanics). The current pallet (cont. page 4)
RESEARCH LEADER
PAGE 2
Holidays
Good Friday
Friday, April 3
Easter Monday
Monday, April 6
(Campus sites only)
A degree higher
Kudos to Bryan Harris (Structural
Integrity),
who earned his
master of science
degree in electrical
engineering from
the University of
Dayton Dec. 20.
Family matters
Congratulations to proud parents Trey Coleman
(Structural Integrity) and his wife,
Kimberly, and Lisa
McCaffrey (Office
of the Director) and
her husband, Rick,
whose
children
signed letters of intent to play for collegiate teams in the
fall during National
Signing Day Feb.
4. Nick Coleman , a
senior at Alter High
School, signed to
play defensive back and running back
for Notre Dame. Elijah Redman, a senior at Fairmont High School, will be
joining the UD Flyers soccer team.
An eagle eye - Larrell Walters
(Sensor Systems) caught this
eagle mid-flight over Dayton in
January.
Welcome aboard
Chris Buck
joined UDRI Dec.
1 as an associate
research engineer
in the Integrated
Methods Materials Characterization group in the
Structural Integrity division. He
received a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering
from UD in 2013
and specializes in
mechanical and
materials
testing. When not at
work, Chris enjoys cooking and
skiing.
Joshua Buck
joined the Software
Systems
group in Sensor
Systems Jan. 5 as
a junior programming technician.
He is close to finishing his bachelor of science in
computer science
coursework
at
UD. Joshua enjoys reading the
news, home improvement projects and writing
financial management software.
Tim Dale joined the Software Systems group in Sensor Systems Jan. 5 as
a junior programming technician. He is
also pursuing a bachelor of science degree in computer science at UD. Tim
dedicates some of his free time to the
Epsilon Tau Pi service fraternity, an Eagle Scout organization whose members
perform community service work.
Jake Freeman joined the Software
Systems group in Sensor System Jan.
12 as a software engineer. He special-
izes in software
engineering and
worked in the
BioServe Space
Technologies division at the University of Colorado before coming
to UDRI. Jake’s
hobbies include
skiing.
Doug Johnson joined the
ISR group in Sensor Systems Jan.
13 as a distinguished researcher in high-performance computing
integration. Doug
is recently retired
after more than 30
years of service to
the Department
of Defense; he
worked for the
Space and Naval
Warfare Systems
Center Atlantic
for more than 26
years and detailed
to the Defense
Research
and
Engineering Network (DREN) for
19 years in that
time period. Doug
enjoys
working out, hunting,
sports events and woodworking.
Marianne Shreck joined the Contracts and Grants office Jan. 16 as a
contracts and grants administrator. She
specializes in research administration
and worked at Wright State University
for 21 years before joining UDRI. She
enjoys reading, crafts, making jewelry
and being outdoors.
Derrick Kaliney joined the Software Systems group in Sensor Systems
Jan. 16 as a junior software programming technician. He worked at PQ
(continued page 4
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015
PAGE 3
Happy anniversary!
January
John Murphy
Tom Held
Claudette Groeber
John Stalter
Dayle Pearson
Ollie Scott
Cindy O’Brien
Kevin Roach
Scott Stouffer
Matt Pierson
Timmie Campbell
Matt Davies
Chenggang Chen
Bob Olding
Debbie Meyers
Bill Barnes
Diane Buhrmaster
Sharon Vukelich
Nick Gagliardi
Dan Kramer
Frank Smith
Carl Sjoblom
Rhonda Cook
Patrick Hytla
Tom Fitzgerald
Martin DeSimio
Andrew Kordik
Victor Tsao
Carrie Roemer
Christopher Marks
Lorenzo LoMonte
Sophia D’Angelo-Lauwers
Hondo Imwalle
Joel Warm
Christopher Northenor
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Bradley Comes
Kevin Cunningham
Karl Salva
Stephen Bricker
February
J.R. Ruschau
Mark Ruddell
Marlene Houtz
Kevin Poormon
Rhonda Diehl
Tak Yamada
Kate Holley
Adam Long
Jennifer Durbin
Sirina Safriet
Alexandre Lagounov
Mike Nickell
Gary Martin
Lisa Brown
Kathy Weisenbach
Charles Ebbing
Daniel O’Brien
Richard Beblo
Christine Malloy
Douglas Johnson
Fahima Bouchendouka-Ouchen
Qiuhong Zhang
Rebecca Glagola
Tyler Hendershott
John Samios
Yulie Halim
Patrick Carmody
Jason Errett
Albert Vam
Bradley Thompson
Richard Coomer
Off the clock
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Volunteers needed for UDRI-sponsored Science Day
Volunteers are still needed for a variety of roles at the 41st Montgomery
County Science Day fair, to be held
Saturday, March 7, at the Dayton Convention Center. UDRI hosts the annual
event, in which several hundred students in grades seven through 12 from
more than 24 school districts present
their science projects at the county level
competition. Projects are judged by representatives of industry, academia and
government, and those judged “superior” are eligible to compete at the West
District and Ohio State science fairs.
The top three projects will go to the
International Science & Engineering
Fair in Pittsburgh May 10-15.
Volunteers can serve as judges or in a
number of operational capacities. Please
contact Gloria Hardy at gloria.hardy@
udri.udayton.edu or Marylea Barlow
at [email protected]
for information on volunteering or on
how to make a personal, tax-deductible
contribution to MCSD, a non-profit
organization dedicated to perpetuating
the scientific and engineering tradition
of the Miami Valley.
Additional information can be found
at montgomerycountyscienceday.org.
Temperatures in
the teens didn’t stop
hundreds of runners,
including
UDRI’s
Tom
Fitzgerald
(Sensor
Systems),
from stripping to
their skivvies for the
annual Cupid’s Undie Run fundraiser in Newport, Ky., on
Valentine’s Day. Tom, who said it was
“extremely cold,” and his team raised
$18,000 of the total $51,000 raised by
local runners — and more than any other group — in support of the Children’s
Tumor Foundation; runners in CUR
runs across the country raised a total of
$500,000.
Safety corner
by Denny Gault
OSHA
General
Duty
Clause: In my last “Safety
Corner” article, I introduced the OSHA
General Duty Clause. The deceivingly
simple statements in this federal law
may or may not be known to our employees but, as far as OSHA is concerned, this is as simple and as difficult as safety gets in the workplace:
Occupational Safety and Health
Act of 1970, Section 5: Duties
(a) Each employer (1) shall furnish to
each of its employees employment,
and a place of employment, which
are free from recognized hazards that
are causing, or are likely to cause,
death or serious physical harm to his
employees; and (2) shall comply with
occupational safety and health standards promulgated under this Act.
(b) Each employee shall comply with
occupational safety and health standards and all rules, regulations, and
orders issued pursuant to this Act
which are applicable to his own actions and conduct.
To accomplish this at UDRI, we
must analyze our risks in the work
place, determine how to manage these
risks, and have a process in place to
achieve and maintain an acceptable
level of protection for our employees.
One such process within OSHA is
“Process Safety Management” which I
will address in my next article.
PAGE 4
IACMI (from p. 1)
ing leading manufacturers across the
supply chain, universities and national
laboratories, to step up the development
of affordable advanced fiber-reinforced
polymer composites that are lighter
and stronger than steel, with development taking place from laboratories to
production lines. While advanced composites are already used in select industries such as aircraft, military vehicles,
satellites and luxury cars, the materials
are expensive, require large amounts of
energy to manufacture and are difficult
to recycle. IACMI’s members will work
to develop low-cost, high-rate production, energy-efficient manufacturing
and recycling processes for composites
applications.
In Ohio, UDRI will lead the initiative for the development of compressedgas storage vessels for the automotive
and trucking industry. “The demand for
compressed natural gas as a lower-cost,
cleaner-burning alternative to diesel and
gasoline fuel for vehicles continues to
grow,” said Brian Rice (Multi-Scale
Composites and Polymers) and will
serve as director for the compressed-gas
storage initiative. “In order for natural
gas fuel to be efficiently and safely used
to power vehicles, the transportation industry needs an affordable, lightweight
but high-strength compressed-gas fuel
tank. Our team will work to design and
develop tanks and manufacturing processes that can be mass produced at low
cost while minimizing energy use and
waste production.”
Rice said the research and development through the initiative will target
semi-trailer trucks first, followed by
commercial box trucks and, eventually,
automobiles.
Ohio is uniquely suited for the compressed-gas storage focus area because
of the abundance of natural gas available and produced in the state, Rice said,
which will also allow Ohio to ultimately
be a leader in supplying natural gas for
the transportation industry.”
In addition to developing materials and manufacturing processes, the
compressed-gas storage initiative team
RESEARCH LEADER
will also work to develop jobs to meet
the workforce created by the initiative,
as well as to educate and train workers
to fill them. UDRI will work with Sinclair Community College on workforce
development, Rice said.
“UDRI is grateful to the state of
Ohio for its commitment of $10 million
for this initiative, as well as for the support of Ohio industry partners, the National Composite Center, Sinclair Community College, the Ohio Third Frontier,
JobsOhio, PolymerOhio, and GLWN.”
The fifth institute launched under the
National Network for Manufacturing
Innovation (NNMI) initiated by Obama,
IACMI is supported by a Department
of Energy commitment of $70 million
over five years along with greater costmatch commitments from non-federal
resources. The Institute’s six partner
states and members have committed a
total of $189 million, including the state
of Ohio’s commitment of $10 million.
Funding for projects will be determined
during an annual review process.
IACMI is expected to stimulate
significant follow-on investments and
create thousands of manufacturing jobs
over the next decade, while supporting
DOE’s energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction goals.
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New employees (from page 2)
Systems as a software developer and
is expected to receive an associate degree in software development at Sinclair Community College in the spring;
he then plans to pursue a chemical
engineering degree at UD. When not
at UDRI, Derrick enjoys his side job
cleaning fish tanks.
Jessica Ravine joined the Sensor
Systems division Feb. 2 as a senior research engineer working in the FastLane
MEP program. She earned a bachelor’s
degree in chemical engineering from
UD in 2006 and a master’s in materials
engineering in 2008, and she specializes
in composites. Jessica enjoys cooking
and gardening.
New contract
UDRI has been awarded
$7.77 million for a second task
order entitled “Power, Thermal,
and Control Technologies and
Processes Experimental Research” under Air Force contract
FA8650-12-D-2224.
The 42-month program will
allow researchers in UDRI’s
Energy Technologies & Materials division to perform basic and
applied research and development of materials and technologies for more efficient, compact
and lightweight power, thermal
and control systems for military
applications.
The effort will involve modeling/simulation and research
and development of: batteries,
thermoelectrics, integrated carbon nanotubes, superconductors,
nanomagnetic materials, actuators, motors, power modules,
thermal management and system
integration. Bang-Hung Tsao is
the principal investigator and program manager.
Pallets (from p. 1)
is the workhorse of the cargo transport
system” and has served its purpose well,
but needs updated because of maintenance costs and service-life limitations
related to the current design, Bowman
said, adding that there are between
200,000 and 250,000 pallets in use at
any given time.
“The current design is about 50
years old, and pallets last about five
years before needing repaired,” Bowman said. “The problem is that the cost
to refurbish represents a high percentage of the cost to build a new pallet.
We knew we could design a pallet that
would substantially increase that service
life. We also anticipate that our design
will be less expensive to manufacture.”
“Because the new pallet will not
have a wood core, it will be 100-percent
(continued page 5)
PAGE 5
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015
Researchers recognized
Congratulations to Alex Morgan
(Energy Technologies & Materials),
who was appointed
the new editor-inchief of the peerreviewed
Journal
of Fire Sciences,
effective Jan. 1. Alex
replaced the journal’s
founding editor, who
retired after 32 years
as editor-in-chief. A member of the Journal’s editorial board since 2010, Alex
was selected from a number of potential
candidates. He has been in the material
flammability and combustion science
field for some 19 years, with more than
100 publications to his credit.
Rick Scudder (Sensor Systems)
and his undergraduate lab tech, Matt
Syrnoyachki, have been recognized as
part of the team that won AFRL’s annual Director’s Cup award, presented
Jan. 15 in ceremonies at WPAFB. The
team won for creating and rapidly deploying life-saving sensor technology
in overseas field operations. The team
beat three competing teams for the honors, and will next compete at the AFRLwide level for 2014 top team honors.
Moving up
Congratulations to the following
UDRI employees who received ingrade* or full promotions in January
and February: From Accounting: Jerri
Bond*, Lauren Robbins* and Patty
Ward; from Contracts & Grants: Sarah
Browning; from RITO: Angi McInturff;
from Energy & Environmental
Engineering: Joshua Cory, Michael
Hanchak*, Samuel Tanner, Fahima
Ouchen, Nilesh Chavada, Jeffrey
Dennis*, Jacob Lawson*, Leah
Lucente*, Barbara Miller* and Evan
Thomas*; from Multi-Scale Composites
& Polymers: Michael Braginsky*,
Brian Czapor*, Michael Nickell*,
James Reinert* and Eric Zhou*; from
Nonstructural Materials: Paul Childers,
David Claiborne, Jennifer Dodaro*,
Andrew Phelps*, Zachary Reed, Ollie
Scott* and Kevin Tienda; from Sensor
Systems: Kristen Bachman*, Eric
Bogle*, Drew Bowers*, Jonathon
Brown, Andrew Frantz, Rob Gillen,
Patrick Hytla*, Jeffrey Kramer*, Tonia
Kuck, John McNichols*, Michael
Merrill, Nilesh Powar*, Dan Rafferty*,
Bill Turri, Michael Velker* and Nick
Vicen; from Structural Integrity: Corey
Boltz* and John Porter.
Leland named to state aerospace committee
John Leland, Interim Vice President
for Research and
Research
Institute
Director has been
appointed by Ohio
Governor John Kasich to serve on the
inaugural Ohio Aerospace and Aviation Technology Committee.
The 21-member committee, comprising legislators and member of the
aerospace and aviation community –
including military personnel, academic
experts and industry leaders – will explore ways to boost the aerospace industry in Ohio via the development of
focused policies.
Members of the OAATC will:
Study and develop comprehensive
strategies to promote the aviation, aerospace, and technology industry throughout the state, including through the commercialization of aviation, aerospace,
and technology products and ideas;
•Encourage communication and
resource-sharing among individuals and
organizations involved in the aviation,
aerospace, and technology industry, including business, the military, and academia;
•Promote research and development
in the aviation, aerospace, and technology industry, including research and development of unmanned aerial vehicles;
•Provide assistance related to military base realignment and closure.
Supporting NASIC
UDRI’s Sensor Systems division will support Riverside
Research in providing technical advisory and assistance to
the National Air And Space Intelligence Center under a new
five-year, $49 million contract
to Riverside. The “Advisory and
Assistance Services, Geospatial
and Signatures Intelligence”
contract will fund the advancement of technologies that preserve national security.
Pallets (from p. 4)
recyclable, eliminating the need for refurbishing.” The non-wood, recyclable
nature of the pallet also makes it better
for the environment, as does the absence
of adhesive in the design, Bowman said.
“The process to prepare the aluminum
for adhesive bonding, as well as the adhesive itself, create a hazardous waste
stream. Our design will eliminate that
waste stream.”
Removing adhesives from the design will also allow a greater number
of manufacturers to compete for future
pallet-manufacturing contracts, Bowman said. The technical data package
we ultimately deliver to the Air Force
will provide everything a manufacturer
will need to know to build pallets using
the new design.”
Department of Defense cargo pallets
are 88 inches by 108 inches, a standard
size to work with handling equipment
and the rail systems currently in place
on transport aircraft. Current pallets
weigh just under 300 pounds and can
carry a 5-ton load. The new pallets will
have the same nominal weight as the
current design and will have the same
load capacity.
300 College Park
Dayton, Ohio 45469-0101
??
?
Brain teaser
??
?
A neighbor asks a boy how many siblings he has. The boy answers,
“three brothers,” to which the neighbor responds, “how old are they?” The
boy responds, “the product of their ages is 72.” The frustrated neighbor asks
again, “how old are they?” The impish boy replies, “I’d tell you the sum of
their ages, but you’d still be stumped.” As the boy turns to leave, the neighbor asks, “well how old are you then?” The boy turns and proudly answers,
“I am the second oldest.” As he leaves, the neighbor thanks him and says,
“at least I know the ages of your brothers, and surely one of them will tell
me yours.” What are the ages of the boy’s brothers?
Please submit your answer, along with your name and division, by Monday,
April 6, to Pam Gregg at [email protected].
Answer to the November/December brain teaser: The surface of a sphere
Thanks to Mike Bouchard (Aerospace Mechanics); Zach West (Energy & Environmental Engineering); and Michael Craft, James Hierholzer and Dale Osborne
(Structural Integrity) for submitting answers.
In the Public Eye
President Barack Obama’s announcement about the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation program, and the UDRI-led
natural-gas storage initiative in Ohio
(see story, page 1), received significant
coverage across the United States and
in Europe. The story was picked up by
dozens of print and television outlets. In
addition to mainstream media, such as
CNBC, the story was also covered by
trade media such as Reinforced Plastics, Today’s Motor Vehicles, Aerospace Manufacturing and Design,
Natural Gas Vehicle Global and Composites World.
The Dayton Business Journal also
focused on UDRI’s role in IACMI in its
feature story on the Research Institute’s
coming year in research.
The DBJ and Airforce Technology
magazine wrote about UDRI’s efforts to
develop a better cargo pallet (see page
1). UDRI was also mentioned in a DBJ
story about a $49 million NASIC award
to Riverside Research (see page 5).