AME_Newsletter 2015 long version

Florida State University’s Aeropropulsion, Mechatronics and Energy Center
AME
NEWSLETTER
Inside this issue:
News
24
Research
Highlights
5
New Faculty
members
5
REU Program
6
Outreach
Activities
6
Student
Highlights
67
Publication
Highlights
8
Current Grants 9
AME Center
Florida State University
2003 Levy Avenue
Tallahassee, FL 32310
Phone: (850) 645-0134
Fax: (850) 645-0112
http://ame.fsu.edu
Statement from the Director
T
his is the beginning of the
fourth year of our center and we
have continued our upward growing trajectory. First of all, we
congratulate two AME faculty,
Dr. Jonathan Clark and Dr. Sungmoon Jung, who received NSF
Early Career Awards while
boosting the AME tally of recipients of such an award to four. We
also would like to welcome two
new members joining our centers:
Dr. Cheryl Xu, who is an expert
in advanced manufacturing using
nanotechnology, and Dr. Shangchao Lin, who joined through the
Energy & Materials Strategic
Hiring Initiative.
AME faculty members continue making stride in the pursuit
of external funds including the
$2.7M grant from the Air Force
Office of Scientific Research on
supersonic flow research and the
initiation of the NSF Industry
University Cooperative Research program working with
aerospace industry and government agencies to improve aircraft design. Collectively, AME
faculty members are PIs of 50
projects with multi-year, accumulative budget over $20 M and
an annual expenditure exceeding
$5.9M in 2014.
In addition to the tradition
research and technology grant
programs, the center has continued to expand its cross-campus
collaborations working with
colleagues from mathematics,
College of Education and Learning Systems Institute to develop
educational and outreach activities. We continue to serve as the
synergistic hub for graduate
education by employing more
than 50 graduate students and
have recently coordinated with
the College of Engineering to
conduct the first-ever annual
graduate recruitment event in
spring 2015.
On behalf of the AME faculty, staff and students, I invite
you to browse through the AME
web site at
http://www.ame.fsu.edu and
welcome you to join our continued endeavors to develop transformational research, advance
engineering education, professional training, and establish
alliance with industry and government agencies to foster technology innovations.
Dr. Chiang Shih
Spring 2015
NEWS
Robotics Engineer, Jonathan Clark, Wins National Science Award
Page 2
Excerpt from Kathleen Haughney’s article, FSU News
A
“Clark is hoping to
build robots
that can move
faster
over treacherous
terrains. “
Florida State University mechanical engineering professor has
received a highly competitive grant from the National Science Foundation to build faster, more agile robots to both run and climb across
several different terrains. Floririda A&M University-Florida State
University College of Engineering Assistant Professor Jonathan
Clark received the NSF Career Award, a prize designated for scientists still in the early stages of their academic careers who show great
potential. Clark's award came with a $402,804 grant to help him
move his research to the next stage.
"I'm interested in designing robots and understanding how they
can move and interact with the world in different ways," Clark said.
"How do you get a robot to move well in more than one domain?
Clark is hoping to build robots that can move faster over treacherous
terrains. If successful, advances he makes in the lab could lead to
unprecedented mobility for robots involved in search and rescue
missions or hazardous material clean up projects.
His lab at Florida State is already chock-full of robotic prototypes. Some robots crawl up walks mimicking the movements of a
gecko. Others scurry across the floor like a cockroach. He hopes one
day to build a robot that moves like a squirrel.
Clark's robots are often based on animal movements. He collaborates
with biologists who study how animals — specifically geckos, cock-
roaches and squirrels — traverse land, trees and other surfaces. He
then builds robots that mimic these movements. Though Clark's
focus will be on building more effective robots, the NSF Career
Award also requires recipients to undertake an educational project to
help further knowledge in their specific field. Clark plans on working to create a stronger robotics community, bringing together various researchers at Florida State and Florida A&M with Leon County
students, so that researchers can share a bit of their expertise and
help interest more students in engineering..
Civil’s Sungmoon Jung receives NSF Career Award
“The results of this
project, can reduce
risk to wind turbine
structures in
hurricanes and can
contribute to wider
adoption of the
offshore wind
energy.”
S
ungmoon Jung, an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has become the newest member of
the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering’s growing NSF Career awardees. His well-deserved NSF Career Award is
based on “Offshore Wind Turbines Subjected to Hurricanes: Simulation of Wind-Wave-Structure Interaction and Aerodynamic Load Reduction”.
Sungmoon Jung joined the FAMUFSU College of Engineering fall 2008 as an assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering bringing with him his interest in wind as a renewable energy resource. According to Jung there is
a growing demand for renewable energy providing researchers many exciting opportunities of study. Jung says,
“Offshore wind farms have enormous energy potential, yet one of the major concerns is vulnerability of wind turbines in hurricanes.”
“The results of this project,” Jung continues, “can reduce risk to wind turbine structures in hurricanes and can contribute to wider
adoption of the offshore wind energy. I am very excited and honored to tackle this important problem here in FAMU-FSU College of
Engineering.”
Simulating and Controlling Fluid Flow
“Aerodynamic
optimization
through active flow
control can
improve
maneuverability of
military aircraft and
increase fuel
efficiency of
commercial
vehicles.”
T
he Florida State University Aeropropulsion Mechatronics & Energy Center (AME) is already well-known for big wind
tunnels, robots, and other big research projects. AME also engages in big computing to expand the research horizon with computation fluid dynamics (CFD).
Kunihiko “Sam” Taira is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the AME Center. He and his team of students in the Computational Fluid
Dynamics Laboratory (CFD) are studying fluid flow around various objects.
“You may have heard about aerodynamics around airplanes and cars,” states
Sam. “Studying the flow of air over bodies such as these is what we essentially
do. We also try to modify the behavior of the flow in a beneficial way with
what’s called active flow control.” Some aspects of fluid flows that interest
researchers at the CFD Lab include vortices, turbulence, and acoustics.
Applications of this research affect efficiency of everything from military
aircraft to personal vehicles. In fact, anything that has fluid surrounding it can
benefit from the research at the CFD Lab. Examples include improved maneuverability of military aircraft and increased travel range of personal vehicles.
Sam emphasizes that, “Aerodynamic improvement we make in our lab will
enhance the performance of the vehicles we study in terms of performance and fuel efficiency.”
NEWS
Volume 1, Issue 1
Researchers
bring in $2.7 million to improve aircraft performance
A
group of Florida State University
researchers has won a highly competitive
$2.7 million grant from the Air Force
Office of Scientific Research to improve
aircraft performance by examining how
shock waves impact the bodies of supersonic airplanes.
The charge, though a very fundamental research problem, has many
practical applications in the long-term,
said Farrukh Alvi, the lead researcher on
the grant and the director of the Florida
State-based Florida Center for Advanced
Aero-Propulsion.
Understanding how shock waves
impact the air flow, especially the flow
near the surface of the vehicle, referred to
as the boundary layer, would allow researchers and aerospace companies to
more efficiently control air flow into an
aircraft's engine, or over its wings and
other parts of the air frame. That, in turn,
could impact the aircraft's speed, mobility
and overall efficiency.
"It has a lot of applications, some
that we may not even be aware of at this
point," Alvi said.
Florida State will be joined on the
project by Auburn University, Ohio State
University and the University of Texas-
Austin. Rajan Kumar, assistant professor
of mechanical engineering at Florida
State, will serve as the co-primary investigator with Alvi..
"It's a complicated problem, and
we're bringing in the needed expertise
from different universities," Alvi said. "I
believe that together, we make a formidable team."
Auburn researchers will focus on
advanced measurement techniques, Ohio
State will run high-fidelity simulations
and University of Texas-Austin will use
its experimental facilities to study supersonic and near-hypersonic flow.
FCAAP, with its new polysonic
wind tunnel, will also focus on supersonic flow and running a number of the
experiments in the wind tunnel, which
can generate wind speeds up to Mach 5,
i.e. five times the speed of sound.
The process to get the funding was
long and highly competitive, with Florida
State's application competing against
many of the top aerospace engineering
programs in the country.
Page 3
"We have made a
concerted effort to
give our engineering
program a boost
through some
tremendous faculty
hires and the addition
of new facilities, such
as the polysonic wind
tunnel," said Vice
President for
Research Gary K.
Ostrander. "This
grant from the Air
Force is a wonderful
show of faith in our
ability to produce top
notch research
results."
Story by Kathleen Haughney, FSU News
NSF I/UCRC grant to spur development of better, cheaper aircraft
A Florida State University researcher is leading an effort to make aircraft cheaper and more
efficient by combining the resources and ingenuity of both the academic and business worlds.
The National Science Foundation selected Lou Cattafesta, co-director of the Florida Center for
Advanced Aero-Propulsion, to participate in a unique grant opportunity called the Industry/
University Cooperative Research Centers Program. Through the program, Cattafesta received a
$15,000 grant to lead a team of FSU and Ohio State University researchers who will work in
coordination with aerospace companies and government agencies to work on some of the issues
that make flight so costly. To do that, they will focus on the issue of airflow control. Airflow, in
its simplest terms, is how air travels through an aircraft’s engine or over its wings and other parts
of the plane. The flow can impact the aircraft’s performance, safety and overall efficiency.
Engineers at universities and aerospace companies have been looking at airflow issues for years
in an attempt to create improved aircraft designs.
“If you can reduce problems with airflow, you can make the planes much more efficient,
improve fuel efficiency and reduce the cost of travel,” Cattafesta said.
The team will use the grant to help plan the program and attract companies to the partnership. Each university is then required
to bring in at least three companies as business partners, which will also contribute funds to the project. By combining the efforts of
the universities and industry and government partners, the research will draw on expertise from a variety of areas.
"It’s a very multifaceted approach,” Cattafesta said. “There are people with experience in fluid mechanics, mathematics, computer science and dynamics and control.”
Cattafesta is planning an introductory planning session for any interested companies to meet with researchers from FSU and
OSU in late April. Interested companies can contact Cattafesta at [email protected].
By Kathleen Haughney, FSU News
Dr. Lou Cattafesta is
seeking NSF I/UCRC
support to develop
industry-academia
collaboration to
improve aircraft
designs
NEWS
Bing Energy using FSU’s breakthrough nanotechnology
Dr. Jim Zheng
developed key
technologies to build
cheaper and more
efficient fuel cells
leading to
commercialization
success
Since 2006, Jim Zheng, a professor in FSU’s Department of Electrical and Computer engineering, has worked with Richard Liang and Ben Wang, both professors in FSU’s Department of
Industrial and Manufactural Engineering, to develop high performance hydrogen fuel cells
using Buckypapers, a material made of microscopic carbon tubes 1/50,000th the diameter of a
human hair.
Using Buckypaper in fuel cells appeared to have two big advantages: One, it could make
the cells lighter. More important, they thought, the properties of Buckypaper could reduce the
amount of expensive platinum the cells needed to produce the chemical reaction.
Over three years of research, FSU professors, with the help of post-doctorate student Dr. Wei
Zhu (now Bing’s R&D director), developed a cell that met a technical goal set out by the U.S.
Department of Energy: It could sustain a vehicle for 5,000 hours of running time — the equivalent of 100,000 miles. Zheng says the
Buckypaper cell also appeared to be more stable than existing cells, with a longer lifespan.
By late 2009, Zheng started to think his invention should be in the hands of people who knew how to run a business. He called up an old
college friend — Harry Chen — and that led to the formation of Bing Energy. Today, the company’s fuel cells use less than half the platinum
of traditional fuel cells. While it costs about 30 cents per square centimeter to build a Bing cell, about the same as a traditional cell, Bing
CFO Dean Minardi says “our durability is more than two times as much,” cutting the life-cycle cost of the Bing cell in half.
Headquartered in a technology park in Tallahassee, Bing’s 10 employees include the executive team and other high-level workers with
Ph.D.s who continue to do research and engineering work. In mid-April, Bing Energy purchased the assets of a company in West Palm Beach
called EnerFuel — giving Bing access to the company’s 40 patents and prototypes of vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells used as range extenders. Minardi says the company plans to keep the EnerFuel brand and target fleet operations involving buses and package delivery companies
— vehicles that can be recharged and refilled every night.
Meanwhile, Bing plans to earn revenue by selling its Buckypaper fuel cells — known as “membrane electrode assemblies” — to telecommunications companies in China for use as backup power generators for cell phone towers. Most of the current towers — “there are 1.3
million cell towers in China,” Minardi says — rely on inefficient, polluting backup generators that use diesel or lead acid batteries. Bing’s
fuel cells are lighter and more compact than the batteries, which have to be replaced at least once every five years, or the diesel generators,
which have to be run once a week for an hour and drained every six months.
“A 500-pound fuel cell makes no vibrations, no noise, and you have to turn it on and off maybe once or twice a month,” Minardi says.
Bing’s fuel cells cost around $10,000, which Minardi says makes them competitive with the existing backup systems. Most of Bing’s manufacturing activity is in China, which gave the company a major incentive deal to locate a manufacturing plant in Rugao, a city of 1.4 million
people 125 miles northwest of Shanghai. In exchange for a 40% stake in Bing’s Chinese subsidiary, the Chinese government gave Bing a
110,000-sq.-ft. three-story manufacturing facility, a 30,000-sq.-ft. dorm for employees and an investment of $7.5 million over five years. The
money was earmarked to pay for equipment and other capital investments.
In Florida, Bing produces the “core intellectual property,” including the Buckypaper and then ships incomplete fuel cells to China to be
assembled. The completed fuel cell, or membrane electrode assembly, is then sold to end-users. Navigant Research predicts the stationary
fuel cell market will grow from $1.7 billion in 2013 to $9 billion by 2022, and Minardi says Bing intends to compete in the U.S. as well —
and manufacture fuel cells domestically. “The way we are set up is as the market in the U.S. starts to get going, we will build it right here in
Tallahassee,” Minardi says.
Farrukh Alvi appointed Cummins Inc.
Professor in Engineering
Dr. Farrukh Alvi is
recognized as the
Cummins Professor
in Engineering
Dr. Rajan Kumar is
elected as an
Associate Fellow in
AIAA
Congratulations to Dr. Farrukh Alvi, professor in Mechanical Engineering and Director
of the Florida Center for Advanced AeroPropulsion (FCAAP), on his appointment as
Cummins Inc. Professor in Engineering at the
FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. Following
Dean Yaw Yeboah's review of the nominations
received from the departments in the College of
Engineering, Yeboah was pleased to select Alvi
as the first Cummins Inc. Professor in Engineering.
"Dr. Alvi's selection was based on his
outstanding record of accomplishment and sustained upward trajectory," said Dean
Yeboah. In particular, he noted Alvi's successes as Founder and Director of
FCAAP, scholarly work in the areas of active flow and noise control, pioneering
work on microjets and microfluidic actuators, and his election as a Fellow of the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
According to Yeboah, "These accomplishments set Alvi apart from the other
excellent nominees for the Cummins Professorship. Also, his contributions to
engineering education and research exemplify the national and international reputation of the donor, Cummins Inc., in the engineering discipline."
"I look forward to Dr. Alvi attracting outstanding students," continued Yeboah, "and utilizing the Cummins Professorship to support the College of Engineering's goal of maintaining a "tradition of excellence" by providing the best
educational and training experience for your students."
Rajan Kumar elected as 2015
AIAA Associate Fellow
Dr. Rajan Kumar, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, has been
elected to Associate Fellow in the American Institute of
Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). James F. Albaugh, AIAA President, wrote, "On behalf of the AIAA
Associate Fellow Committee, it is my pleasure to inform
you that you have been elected to the grade of Associate
Fellow in the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics (AIAA). Congratulations!" Albaugh continued, "AIAA Associate Fellows are individuals of
distinction who have made notable and valuable contributions to the arts, sciences, or technology of aeronautics
or astronautics. Each year, only one for every 150 voting
members are selected and approved. It is quite an honor." Dr. Kumar will be officially recognized and awarded his Associate Fellow lapel pin and certificate at the
AIAA Associate Fellow Recognition Ceremony and
Dinner to be held on
Monday, 5 January
2015, at the Gaylord
Palms and Convention
Center, Kissimmee,
Florida, in conjunction
with the AIAA SciTech
Forum.
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
Material – Thermal/Electrically
Conductive Ceramic Nanocomposites
T
his research effort is
funded by the Office of
Naval Research, Young
Investigator Program to
develop a novel advanced
manufacturing process to
fabricate a new class of
multifunctional ceramic
nanocomposites reinforced
with a high volume fraction
(up to 40 vol.%) of well-dispersed and well aligned carbon nanotubes,
which cannot be produced by any other existing technique. The wellaligned carbon nanotubes largely improve the composites’ fracture
strength, toughness and stiffness. These nanocomposites possess enhanced thermal/electrical conductivity along a unique direction and thus
can rapidly absorb thermal shock and reduce temperature gradient
under extreme conditions (e.g., for advanced hypersonic vehicles). My
research group is focusing on issues of uniform dispersion and alignment in fabricating such nanocomposites and on the goal of eventually
scaling up the process for mass production. If successful, our effort will
lead to a revolutionary breakthrough in the fabrication and engineering
of ceramic composites, especially for their light-weight structural applications and enhanced capability for thermal protection under ultra-high
temperatures (in the range of 1900 to 2500o C).
Development of High Temperature
Pressure Sensors
T
he Oates group is currently developing models and experimental methods to advance material manufacturing methods and sensor development for sensing pressure at temperatures ranging up to approximately 1200°C. The project involves laser machining of sapphire and integration into an
optical sensor design for sensing applications such as reentry
of space vehicles and operation of gas turbines. The optical
concept is shown in (a) in the figure below.
Through research in Oates lab and electron microscopy at
the National High Magnetic Field laboratory at FSU, we have
shown that controlled damage from laser ablation significantly
increases the fracture resistance of these materials as shown in
(b) and (c). The project is highly interdisciplinary requiring
research in materials science, solid mechanics, sensor prototyping, and experimental fluid mechanics.
The research is being carried out by William Oates in
collaboration with Mark
Sheplak at the University
of Florida and Rajan
Kumar at the AME facility.
AME faculty continue
their efforts for the
Development of
sensors and actuators
operating at extreme
conditions suitable for
applications such as
advanced hypersonic
vehicles and gas
turbines.
This research effort, headed by Professor Cheryl Xu (Mechanical Engineering), is funded by the Office of Naval Research, Young Investors
Programs
NEW FACULTY MEMBERS
Dr. Chengying “Cheryl” Xu is an
Associate Professor who joined the
Florida State University in Spring
2014. She received her Ph.D. degree
in 2006 in mechanical engineering
from Purdue University, U.S., and her
M.S. in 2001 in mechanical manufacturing and automation from Beijing
University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing, China. Her research
interests include manufacturing of
advanced materials, manufacturing
process optimization and control,
high temperature sensor design. Dr.
Xu has co-authored a textbook: Intelligent Systems: Modeling, Optimization and Control (CRC Press, 2008,
433 pages), and four book chapters. She has authored and coauthored
more than 30 journal papers and around 30 refereed conference proceedings. Dr. Xu is the Journal Guest Editor for ASME Transactions,
Journal of Micro- and Nano- Manufacturing (ASME JMNM), an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Nanomanufacturing (IJNM)
from 2008 to 2010, and has been on the Board of Editors for Journal of
Aviation and Aerospace Perspectives (JAAP) since 2010, and International Journal of Computational Materials Science and Surface Engineering since 2007. She won the Office of Naval Research Young
Investigator Award and Society of Manufacturing Engineers’ (SME)
Richard L. Kegg Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer (OYME)
Award in 2011. She has secured significant support from National
Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DoE), Office of
Naval Research (ONR), international/national companies, and her
university to conduct research.
Dr. Shangchao Lin joined
FSU in the fall of 2014 and
is currently an Assistant
Professor in the Department
of Mechanical Engineering. He was a postdoctoral
associate in the Laboratory
of Atomistic and Molecular
Mechanics in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 2012 to
2014. He received his M.S.
(2008) and Ph.D. (2012)
degrees in Mechanical Engineering from MIT for his work on
molecular simulations and modeling of carbon nanomaterials
in colloids and at interfaces. He holds a B.S. degree summa
cum laude (2006) in Mechanical Engineering from the joint
program of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His current research interest is in
the general field of multi-scale computational materials science, focusing on atomistic simulations of functional nano-/
biomaterials, coarse-grained simulations of composite microstructures, nanoscale phonon heat transfer, and electrochemical energy storage. He has published more than 18 peerreviewed journal articles (more than 480 citations) and given
more than 10 invited seminar presentations at major universities and conferences. Some of his works are highlighted by
MIT News, Institute of Physics (IOP), and Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN).
AME welcomes two
faculty members:
Dr. Cheryl Xu and
Dr. Shangchao Lin
STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS AND OUTREACH ACTIVITIES
Page 6
The overarching goal
of the REU program is
to motivate more US
students to pursue
advanced engineering
degrees and enter
research-oriented
careers.
AME students have
received awards from
international
organization as well
as joint academia and
industry partnerships.
Research Experience for Undergraduate Program at AME
The Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) program sponsored by the National Science Foundation program provides undergraduate students in engineering and related fields an
opportunity to participate in ongoing active research programs, including the development of
micro air vehicles, multi-modal robots, active flow control, aeroacoustics, sensors and actuators, smart materials, etc..
For the past three summers (2012-2014), we have recruited 45 REU students, 30 external
and 15 internal students into the program. Among external participants, nine are international
exchange students from Brazil and Nigeria. During the 10-week summer program, they were
assigned to 40 projects supervised by 12 engineering faculty and 22 postdoc/graduate
student mentors. In addition to their individual projects, REU students were engaged in
group design project when they develop an autonomous quad-rotor with autonomous maneuver and image processing capabilities. Shown in one of the pictures is the group photo
during the test flight event of the quad-rotor. Other enrichment activities include research
lab tours, weekly seminars, outreach and social activities. The summer programs were
culminated in a whole-day research symposium with individual and group presentations
plus poster sessions (as shown).
Female Mechanical Engineering
Student is Awarded the Amelia
Earhart Fellowship
Puja Upadhyay, a
Ph.D. Candidate in
Mechanical Engineering,
has been awarded the
prestigious Amelia
Earhart Fellowship by
Zonta International. The
Amelia Earhart Fellowship program helps talented women,
pursuing advanced studies in the typically male dominated
fields of aerospace-related sciences and aerospace-related
engineering, achieve their educational goals. The Fellowship enables these women to invest in state of-the-art computers to conduct their research, purchase expensive books
and resource materials, and participate in specialized studies around the globe. Amelia Earhart Fellows have gone on
to become astronauts, aerospace engineers, astronomers,
professors, geologists, business owners, heads of companies, even Secretary of the US Air Force.
AME Open House
More education
and outreach
activities can be
found at
www.ame.fsu.edu
Newly Established AME Fellowships Awarded
to Mechanical Engineering Graduate Students
The AME Center hosted its 2nd annual Open House on
February 21, 2015. The event was free for all ages and was
in cooperation with the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, the Center for Advanced Power Systems, the Center
for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies and FCR-STEM
program from the Learning Systems Institute.
The event featured science activities designed for families
with young children as well as a variety of other ages. Visitors got a hands-on look at science in action, including: the
Left-right: Greg Robertson, Jennifer Gavin, and Phillip Munday, are among the first students to receive newly established
mechanical engineering fellowships. Robertson and Munday are
two of three awardees of the Lockheed Martin-AME-FCAAP
Graduate Fellowship and Gavin is the sole awardee of the Turbocor-AME-FCAAP Fellowship.
Not pictured: Brian Davis, who is the third awardee of the Lockheed Martin-AME-FCAAP Graduate Fellowship. Also not pictured are Robert Cook and Vineeth Chandran Suja, who both
have received an AME-FCAAP fellowship.
Polysonic
Wind Tunnel,
the Subsonic
Wind Tunnel,
the Anechoic
Jet Facility,
the recently
completed
HighTemperature
Jet Facility,
dynamic vertical climbing robots, flying drones, creating
electricity from household materials, paper chromatography,
3-D printing, air
powered rockets,
making nonNewtonian fluids
and much more!
STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS AND OUTREACH ACTIVITIES
Working with Fluid Dynamics, Graph Theory and Stability Theory in Tallahassee and
Stockholm
My name is Aditya Nair, a PhD candidate at Florida State University
(FSU) in the Mechanical Engineering Department. Completing my Master of
Science from University of Michigan, I was elated to get admitted to Florida
State University in May 2013 for pursuing my PhD degree and join my current adviser Dr. Kunihiko (Sam) Taira’s Computational Fluid Dynamics
research group. I also received an AME fellowship to support my research
endeavors. During the course of my degree here, I have got the opportunity to
work in novel projects including application of graph theory to unsteady fluid
flow to understand interactions between various fluid elements. I have also
got involved in projects involving identification of instabilities in fluid flow.
These projects have not only helped me submit two journal publications till
date, but also immensely contributed to my understanding of the field.
During the course of my degree here, I have been given the opportunity
to travel to conferences held within the United States. These include American Physical Society (APS) held conferences in Pittsburg
in November 2013 and in San Francisco in November 2014 and American Institute of Aerospace Sciences (AIAA) conference held
in Atlanta in June 2014. These conferences have been a motivating factor as well as a medium of interacting with people actively
involved in the field. Courtesy of having an excellent research advisor, Sam, and international research collaboration with Royal
Institute of Technology (KTH) on some of the projects that I have been working on, I got an opportunity to travel to Stockholm in
Sweden in October 2014 for interacting with our collaborator there. I worked with Dr. Shervin Bagheri to wrap up one of my research projects and brainstorm on new ideas going into the future. It was truly an amazing experience to visit their campus and
interact with some of the stalwarts in the field. In addition, I also got time to visit some of the beautiful attractions in and around
Stockholm.
I truly feel that coming to FSU was one of the best decisions that I have ever made. It has been a fun working and an enjoyable
learning experience till now and I hope that it continues.
Page 7
AME students
collaborate with
international partners
and received awards
from DOE Labs
Oparaji receives Awards from DOE Labs and Workshop at Kennedy Space Center
Onyekachi Oparaji, a 3rd year graduate student in Dr. Hallinan’s research group, was awarded best group experiment and
presentation at the 16th National School on Neutron and X-Ray Scattering (NXS) at Argonne and Oak Ridge National Laboratories
in June 2014. His group was composed of members from other top universities. They designed an experiment using VISION spectroscopy at Oak Ridge National Lab and presented their results to the school.
“[NXS School] targets graduate students from all across the country in physical sciences to study hands-on [experiments] and
theory of neutron and X-ray scattering at large national facilities,” said Bryan Chakoumakos instrument scientist from ORNL and a
co-director for the school. “The hands-on part is to familiarize themselves with the big facilities – how to access them, how to
interact with the instrument scientists.”
“Learning X-rays and neutrons scattering from top international researchers from industries and academia has exposed me to
more opportunities of the field and interesting applications to my dissertation”, Onyeka said.
Onyekachi Oparaji also received a third place poster award at the 2014 International Workshop on Environment and Alternative Energy at the Kennedy Space Center in October 2014. He presented a poster of his research on water diffusion in polymer
electrolytes for lithium air batteries. His research addresses the effects of water diffusion and polymer relaxation on polymerelectrolyte-based battery performance.
Wildfruber, Christoph (Scientist at Oak
Ridge National Lab) preparing members
of group C for the VISION spectroscopy
experiment. Group C (left to right):
Dipanshu Bansal (University of Buffalo),
Onyekachi Oparaji (Florida State University), Viktor Cybulskis (Purdue University), Raul Palomares (University of
Tennessee-Knoxville).
More education
and outreach
activities can be
found at
www.ame.fsu.edu
PUBLICATION HIGHLIGHTS
Page 8
Noise-driven phenomena in hysteretic systems
(Authors: Mihai Dimian and Petru Andrei, Springer, 2014, ISBN 978-1-4614-1373-8)
The book provides a general approach to nonlinear systems with hysteresis driven by noisy inputs,
which leads to a unitary framework for the analysis of various stochastic aspects of hysteresis. It
includes integral, differential and algebraic models that are used to describe scalar and vector hysteretic nonlinearities originating from various areas of science and engineering. The universality of the
approach is also reflected by the diversity of the models used to portray the input noise, from the
classical Gaussian white noise to its impulsive forms, often encountered in economics and biological
systems, and pink noise, ubiquitous in multi-stable electronic systems.
Dr. Cheryl Xu is the
guest editor for the
ASME Journal of
Micro– and NanoManufacturing.
Guest Editor for Transactions of the ASME, Journal of Micro- and NanoManufacturing by Professor Cheryl Xu (Mechanical Engineering)
(Excerpt from the editorial) “Micro- and nano-fabrication processes are increasingly important in modern technology and economy.
Basic fabrication methods include additive, subtractive and deformation-based processes. In recent years, novel fabrication processes
such as laser micro/nano machining, 3D printing of miniature features, etc., have undergone significant growth and have reduced the
manufacturing cost and enabled new designs for emerging markets such as smart phones, photovoltaics (PVs), and advanced batteries.
This special issue focuses on the established and emerging non- traditional manufacturing technologies with various energy sources
(mechanical, thermal, optical, etc.) at micro- and nano-scales. It consists of several invited papers and papers presented at the symposium on micro-/nano-scale fabrication processes at the manufacturing science and engineering conference, held on June 9–13, 2014 at
the University of Michigan, organized by the Manufacturing Engineering Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
(ASME). The included papers consist of a variety of non-traditional manufacturing processes at small scales, ranging from novel
process development and innovative simulation method, to broad application examples for different industries.”
FSU Mechanical Engineering professor among innovative early-career engineering
faculty selected to participate in NAE's Sixth FOEE symposium
Kunihiko Taira, Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the FAMU-FSU
College of Engineering, has been selected to participate in the 2014 Frontiers of Engineering Education symposium.
Dr. Kunihiko Taira
attended the 2014
Frontiers of
Engineering Education
Symposium as an
innovative earlycareer engineering
faculty
Billy Oates, Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering also at the FAMU-FSU
College of Engineering, was a past participant at FOEE in 2013.
Excerpted from the National Academy of Engineering Press Release:
WASHINGTON – Seventy-seven of the nation's most innovative, young engineering educators have been selected to take part in
the National Academy of Engineering's sixth Frontiers of Engineering Education (FOEE) symposium. Faculty members who are
developing and implementing innovative educational approaches in a variety of engineering disciplines will come together for the 2
-1/2-day event, where they can share ideas, learn from research and best practice in education, and leave with a charter to bring
about improvement in their home institution. The attendees were nominated by NAE members or deans and chosen from a highly
competitive pool of applicants. The symposium will be held Oct. 26-29 in Irvine, Calif.
"The Frontiers of Engineering Education program brings together top university faculty to explore preparing engineers for the
world's great engineering challenges," said NAE President Dan Mote. "It is a no-holds-barred look at the front-edge of engineering
education."
"Most of the faculty in higher education must adapt to changing times; from chalk boards to overheads, from classrooms to
online education, and from traditional students to learners who are quite adept at navigating the Internet. As a consequence, faculty are not only needing to continuously update their course content but also their delivery approach so as to better engage the students. Research on learning, publications on teaching methods, and conferences on education are all trying to support the beleaguered faculty", said James M. Tien, Distinguished Professor and Dean of the College of Engineering at University of Miami and
Chair of the FOEE Advisory Committee. "So is the annual FOEE symposium, which
brings together engineering faculty who are eager to share their innovative teaching
approaches and to learn from their equally talented colleagues."
AME Recent Sponsored Research Programs (Active in FY2014-2015)
Aeropropulsion
PIs
Farrukh Alvi
& Rajan Kumar
Farrukh Alvi
Farrukh Alvi
Farrukh Alvi
Funding Agency
Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Cascade Technologies
Danfoss Turbocor
Federal Aviation
Administration
Title: Description
Time period: Total
Budget
A Comprehensive Study of 3-D Shock/
Turbulent Boundary Layer
7/14-7/19:
$2,738,836
Design Optimization and Analysis of Advanced Exhaust Systems
Active Control of Turbomachinery Using Microjet Actuators
9/14-4/15:
$24,000
9/14-5/15:
$80,000
8/10-5/15:
$138,860
Technical Oversight and Integration
MRI: Development of a Next Generation Polysonic Wind Tunnel for Transformative Active
Control Technologies and Non-Intrusive Flow
Diagnostics
PIRE: Collaborations with Japan and France on
University of
Complex and Multiphase Fluid Technologies
Florida
Flow Physics and Nonlinear Dynamics of SepAir Force Office
of Scientific Rearated Flows Subjected to ZNMF-Based Consearch
trol
Aeroacoustic Measurements of a LeadingNASA
Edge Slat
Assessment of Noise Reduction Concepts for
NASA
Leading-Edge Slat Noise
(pending)
I/UCRC Planning Grant: Application in Flow
NSF
Control"
Office of Naval
A Novel Method to Predict Circulation Noise ConResearch
trol
Wind Tunnel Balance Correction for Strucutral
M4 Engineering
Motion Effects
Aero-Optical Flow Control for Mitigation of
Spectral Energies
Shock Effects in Airborne Applications
M4 Engineering
Evaluation of Unsteady Loading on Store Tra(pending)
jectories
National Science
Farrukh Alvi
Foundation
9/10-8/15:
$3,295,029
Farrukh Alvi
7/10-6/15:
$510,211
Louis
Cattafesta
Louis
Cattafesta
Louis
Cattafesta
Louis
Cattafesta
Louis
Cattafesta
Rajan Kumar
Rajan Kumar
Rajan Kumar
Rajan Kumar
and Farrukh
Alvi
William
Oates
William
Oates
Kunihiko
Taira
Kunihiko
Taira
Kunihiko
Taira and
Louis Cattafesta
Kunihiko
Northrop Grumman
FAMU (ARO)
NSF
Air Force Office
of Scientific Research
Army Research
Office
9/14-9/17:
$1,078,400
9/13-6/15:
$84,970
9/14-12/15:
$90,000
8/14-7/15:
$16,060
4/12-3/15:
$340,000
4/14 – 12/14:
$30,035
9/14-9/16:
$99,156
6/14-9/16:
$255,665
Flowfield characteristics of axisymmetric and
non-axisymmetric sonic jets
10/13-12/14:
$140,000
Simulation of Fluid-Structure Interaction for High
-Reynolds-Number Compressible Flow
CDS&E/Collaborative Research: Uncertainty
Quantification of an Electromechanical Nonlinealy Continuum Theory
5/14-4/15:
$18,633
9/13-8/16:
$206,652
Understanding the Fundamental Roles of Momen- 5/13-5/16:
tum and Vorticity Injection in Flow Control (YIP) $362,550
Network-Theoretic Modeling of Fluid Flow
8/14-4/15:
$49,954
University of Florida
Three Dimensional Control Of High Speed Cavi- 3/13-2/15:
ty Flows
$304,477
Army Research
Office
Turbulent Flow Modification with Thermo-
6/14-5/17:
$355,367
Page 9
For the past year,
AME faculty has been
successful in carrying
out externally
sponsored research
activities:
 Principal
investigators of 50
active projects
among 12 AME
faculty members
 Total multi-year
funding exceeding
$20M
 Annual research
expenditures $5.9M
AME Recent Sponsored Research Programs (Active in FY2014-2015)
Page 10
Kunihiko Taira and William
Oates
Ali Uzun and
Farrukh Alvi
Chiang Shih
Subcontract
from Farrukh
Alvi FAMU
grant
Simulation of fluid-structure interaction for
high-Reynolds-number compressible flow
National Institutes
of Aerospace
Direct Numerical Simulation of Three Dimensional Boundary Layer Receptivity
7/14-8/15:
$78,163
High Temperature Supersonic Jet Noise – Fundamental Studies and Control using Advanced
Actuation Methods
5/13-4/15:
$132,418
AFOSR
Mechatronics
Funding Agency
Title: Description
PIs
3 High-Temperature Sapphire Pressure Sensors
for Harsh Environments
Modeling and Experimental Characterization of
Novel Photochemical Fiber Structures
William Oates
UF (DOE)
William Oates
AFOSR
William Oates
Federal Aviation
Administration
William Oates
Florida Legislature Active Materials and Structure
William Oates
Chiang Shih
Emmanuel
Collins
Jonathan
Clark
Jonathan
Clark
Emmanuel
Collins, Jonathan Clark and
William Oates
Emmanuel
Collins
Emmanuel
Collins
5/13-4/16:
$444,200
Army Research
Office
High Temperature, Optical Sapp
Time period:
Total Budget
1/14-12/16:
$309,843
9/13-9/17:
$300,980
8/10-5/15:
$254,163
2/09-8/15:
$46,700
CAREER: Materials Driven by Light: Nonlin2/11-1/16:
ear Photomechanics of Liquid Crystal Elasto$400,000
mers
The Application of Cone Penetrometers to
National Park Ser- Archaeological Survey to Determine the Hori- 8/13-8/15:
vice
$30,656
zontal and Vertical Distribution of Organic
Midden Deposits
Federal Aviation
8/10-5/15:
Autonomous Rendezvous and Dock
Administration
$225,868
Intelligence
New Forms of Robotic Locomotion for
Climbing Walls, Ceilings, and Interiors: UtiCommunity
9/12-8/15:
lizing Smart Materials for Miniature Multi$240,000
Postdoctoral
Modal Dynamic Locomotion
Program
National Science
CAREER: Rotational Dynamics for Im10/14-10/19:
Foundation
proved Legged Locomotion
$402,000
National Science
Foundation
General Dynamics
Exploring Novel Sensor Phenomenology
6/3/13 – 4/15/15;
$789,600
NSF
Momentum Based Motion Planning for Manipulators with Heavy Loads
9/1/11 – 8/31/14;
$249,966
Quality of Life Technology Engineering Research Center
03/01/10 –
05/31/14; $
350,000
Carnegie Mellon
Univ.
AME Recent Sponsored Research Programs (Active in FY2014-2015)
Page 11
Energy
Funding Agency
Title: Description
PIs
Cheryl Xu
ONR
Gang Chen
Hinkley Center
Gang Chen
Hinkley Center
Jim Zheng
Army
Jim Zheng
DoE
Jim Zheng
NSF ERC
Jim Zheng
General Capacitor
Education
& Outreach
Multifunctional ceramic nanocomposites reinforced with a high volume fraction of welldispersed and well-aligned carbon nanotubes
Design and Testing of a Multifunctional Energy
and Space-Saving Reactor
Aerated Recirculation and Pressurized Suspended
Fiber Biofiltration for the Treatment of Landfill
Leachate
Investigation on the Effect of Porosity and Catalyst to the Cathode performance in Li-air Batteries
Investigation of Pre-Lithiated Anodes for Li-ion
Batteries and Li-ion Capacitors
Development of Advanced Energy Storage Devices
Development and Characterization of Li-ion Capacitor Electrodes and Cells
Time period:
Total Budget
6/14-5/16:
$305,316
11/14-10/15:
$41,214
11/13-10/14:
$46,780
4/14-10/15:
$250,000
7/13-12/15;
$450,000
9/08-1/17:
$2,400,000
1/14-12/15:
$227,114
Funding Agency
Title: Description
Time period:
Total Budget
NSF
Multi-Physics of Active Systems and Structures
7/11-7/16:
$381,850
Chiang Shih Dept. of Education
US-Brazil Partnership in Sustainable Energy and
Aeronautical Engineering
Chiang Shih AFRL/Eglin AFB
Integrated Research and Education Program
PIs
Chiang Shih
Farrukh
Alvi
Chiang Shih
Juan Ordonez
Alvi, Farrukh
NAVSEA
FAMU
Naval Engineering Education Center:
Noise and Thermal Management of Naval Systems
Research & Education Program for HBCU's
Petru Andrei NSF/(NCSU)
REU: College education
Petru Andrei NSF/(NCSU)
Curriculum development in Renewable Energy
Systems
8/11-9/16:
$248,239
8/10-8/15:
$324,707
9/10-9/15:
$524,715
5/13-4/16:
$30,987
1/09-8/18:
(approx.)
$500,000;
$15,238 (from
Fall 2014-Summer
2015)
1/09-8/18:
$100,000
(approx.)