Wind power is generally regarded as a green energy source, but one key concern about its development is its potential in
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
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HELPING EAGLES COEXIST WITH WIND ENERGY DEPLOYMENT Wind power is generally regarded as a green energy source, but one key concern about its development is its potential interactions with wildlife like bats and birds — particularly bald and golden eagles, animals protected under federal law. With support from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Roberto Albertani, Boeing Professor in Mechanical Engineering Design, is leading a team developing an automatic system to detect and deter approaching eagles and to determine if a blade strike occurs. If successful, the system will be a major breakthrough in the expansion of wind energy worldwide.
ALUMNI
JILL LEWIS ’11, SPACEX As a structures certification engineer, Jill Lewis is a technical liaison between SpaceX and its biggest customers: NASA’s Commercial Crew space flight groups and the U.S. Air Force. Lewis and her team verify that SpaceX’s Falcon launch vehicles and Dragon spacecraft meet all internal design, testing, and analysis requirements. Through detailed presentations, she also ensures that clients understand that in-depth structural knowledge. She appreciates the theoretical and practical foundation she received from her coursework at Oregon State, and student clubs such as Formula SAE enabled her to aggregate her skill set. “The hands-on approach really helped me once I got into industry,” Lewis said.
The system features a tower mounted, computer connected camera able to determine if an approaching bird is an eagle and whether it’s flying toward the blades. If both answers are yes, the computer triggers a ground level deterrent: randomly moving, brightly colored facsimiles of people designed to play into eagles’ apparent aversion to humans. If an event occurs, sensors mounted on each blade will detect it and a microcamera will record video data that can be examined to determine the cause and species involved. The team includes Sinisa Todorovic, associate professor of computer science, Matthew Johnston, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and three Oregon State graduate students, as well as two collaborators from the U.S. Geological Survey, biological statistician Manuela Huso, and wildlife biologist and eagle expert Todd Katzner. The view of an eagle’s flight caught by a 360-degree camera. Similar cameras will be mounted on wind turbines as part of a system to detect and deter eagles flying nearby. Cover Image: A bald eagle flies to his trainer at the National Wind Technology Center. Photo by Dennis Schroeder, courtesy of National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
RESEARCH
PUSHING 3D PRINTING FURTHER
Unlike conventional homogenous materials, FGMs are characterized by transitions in design, microstructure, texture, and properties that can be obtained at relatively small or large length scales, depending upon the functional gradient desired in a particular application. Somayeh Pasebani, assistant professor of advanced manufacturing, is working to advance research in metal additive manufacturing, focusing on new techniques such as selective laser melting (SLM). Technologies like SLM allow engineers to create objects with detailed control over process parameters and part geometry and structure that would have been impossible just a few years ago. Using a materials design approach, Pasebani and her research group couple experimental research with theory and mechanistic modeling for the accelerated and innovative development of alloys and metal matrix composites that can be manufactured by additive manufacturing. In doing so, they are developing the tools that will overcome the limitations of conventional and current additive manufacturing.
Additive manufacturing — also known as 3D printing — is rapidly disrupting the manufacturing sector, providing freedom of design, allowing a transition from rapid prototyping to real commercialization, decreasing material waste, and reducing time and cost of manufacturing. Furthermore, additive manufacturing methods can be utilized in the manufacturing of functionally graded materials (FGMs).
RESEARCH
3D-PRINTABLE ALLOY FOR FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS, SOFT ROBOTS Researchers at Oregon State have taken a key step toward the rapid manufacture of flexible computer screens and other stretchable electronic devices, including soft robots. By thickening Galinstan, a liquid metal alloy, with nickel nanoparticles, they created a paste with a consistency suitable for additive manufacturing. “With the pastelike texture, it can be layered while maintaining its capacity to flow, and to stretch inside of rubber tubes,” said Yiğit Mengüç, assistant professor of mechanical engineering. Gallium alloys are already being used as the conductive material in flexible electronics. They have low toxicity and good conductivity, plus they’re inexpensive and “self-healing” — able to attach back together at break points.
The practical applications of this research will be far-reaching — from high temperature oxidation and corrosion resistant parts for extreme environments such as energy sectors, aerospace, or nuclear reactors to implementation in tooling industry. She collaborates with several faculty members across the College of Engineering as well as companies such as HP, ATI, and Daimler Trucks, with support from research grants from the RAPID Manufacturing Institute, Oregon Metals Initiative, and Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center Research and Development.
FACULTY
THREE FACULTY MEMBERS RECEIVE ASME’S TOP HONOR For their outstanding accomplishments, Rob Stone (pictured, left), Irem Tumer (center), and Brian Paul (right) were elected Fellows of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Paul, Tom and Carmen West Faculty Scholar and professor of manufacturing engineering, conducts theoretical and experimental studies of the physics and chemistry in micromanufacturing processes. He leads the module manufacturing focus area within the RAPID Manufacturing Institute. The institute is committed to advancing modular chemical process intensification for reducing capital equipment costs and improving energy efficiency in chemical processing. Stone, professor of mechanical engineering, leads the Design Engineering Lab at Oregon State. He is the co-director of the National Science Foundation IUCRC Center for e-Design site at Oregon State. His research interests include design theories and methodologies, specifically ontologies for product architectures, functional representations, and automated conceptual design techniques.
Tumer, professor of mechanical engineering, leads the Complex Engineered System Design group within the Design Engineering Lab at Oregon State, and co-directs the Center for e-Design. She is an expert in system-level design and analysis of highly complex and integrated engineering systems with reduced risk of failures. She is also the College of Engineering’s associate dean of research.
STUDENT
ADVANCING ACCESS TO CLEAN WATER Today, more than one in 10 people worldwide do not have access to clean drinking water. Despite technological advancements, a large percentage of disseminated water treatment technologies break or go unused. Grace Burleson, who is pursuing dual master’s degrees in mechanical engineering and applied anthropology, is working to solve this problem. She is part of a team of researchers, led by Nordica MacCarty, assistant professor of mechanical
engineering, collaborating with InStove, a nonprofit organization, to assess a new clean water technology. The team has tested a novel water purification product and is investigating ways to support its deployment and promote sustained use. The InStove Water Purifier has the potential to produce 4,500 liters of safe drinking water per day — enough for 1,000 people — at minimal cost to users and the environment. For her part, Burleson is using a mixed-methods approach to evaluate and test the feasibility and effectiveness of the product before it can be commercialized. “The issue isn’t just a technical one,” she said. “It’s about understanding human needs and human behavior.” As part of the study, she traveled to Uganda for a field trial. The insights from local users will help designers produce a more preferred and sustainable product, a step that is often neglected in development work. “The InStove Water Purifier must be evaluated both technically and socially to ensure that the product is both effective in this context and usable,” Burleson said. “We’re working with engineering, anthropology, and business faculty to look at this project more holistically than traditional engineering projects.”
NEW FACULTY
RESEARCH
JOSEPH DAVIDSON
NAOMI FITTER
Assistant Professor Davidson’s research interests include agricultural robotics, human-machine interaction, and mechanical design. Prior to joining Oregon State, he was a postdoctoral research associate in the Newman Laboratory for Biomechanics and Human Rehabilitation, which is part of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Assistant Professor Fitter’s research interests include physical human-robot interaction, socially assistive robotics, haptics, robots in education, and wearable sensors. Her academic honors include the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and Penn’s John A. Goff Prize. Prior to joining Oregon State, she was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Southern California’s Robotics and Autonomous Systems Center.
LONGER FLIGHT TIMES, NEW HYBRID DRONE ENGINE COULD SAVE LIVES
ALI TABEI
EAN NG
Assistant Professor Tabei’s research efforts are focused on computational integration of materials’ microstructural evolution and manufacturing processes. Additionally, he has worked on synthesis of nanomaterials and semiconductor processing and modeling. Prior to joining Oregon State, he was a senior research and development engineer at ATI Corporation and a research affiliate at Georgia Institute of Technology.
Assistant Professor Ng is an engineering economist focused on measuring factors crucial to organizational improvement that have been traditionally deemed unmeasurable, such as the cost of workplace safety, quantifying improvement strategy outcomes, and predicting failures. Prior to accepting a tenure-track position, she was a senior researcher and director of the online engineering management program at Oregon State.
Chris Hagen, associate professor of energy systems engineering, and his team have developed a prototype hybrid engine for small unmanned aerial vehicles capable of keeping them aloft for extended periods of time. The team’s concept miniaturizes technology that has been proven in larger vehicles, including aircraft. The prototype combines a small gasoline engine with an electric motor. The engine powers a generator that charges the batteries, which in turn power the electric motors attached to the propellers. This new technology could enable applications such as search and rescue in hazardous environments.
PODCAST
ENGINEERING A CULTURE OF PROBLEM SOLVING Streamlining Boeing’s manufacturing Javier Calvo-Amodio, associate professor of industrial engineering, (pictured, center, with reseach assistants Sage Kittelman and Siqi Wang) focuses on understanding how to design and manage systemic changes in large organizations or companies. His research group is partnering with Boeing Portland to monitor the company’s efforts to build a culture of continuous improvement. Traditionally, researchers who study continuous improvement models are interested in discovering best practices for doing a particular kind of work and then replicating those practices elsewhere. But with Boeing, Calvo’s group is taking a different approach. They’re not just interested whether something works; they want to understand why it works. By developing measurable, repeatable, provable theories about how organizational
change works, they can then apply those theories to other organizations. By designing a communication system and team maturity model, it is then possible to control the rate of change in the organization by identifying points where deviations occur. Learn more about this project and other research happening at the College of Engineering on our podcast, “Engineering Out Loud.” Subscribe from your favorite podcast app, or listen online at engineeringoutloud.oregonstate.edu.
RESEARCH
24-HOUR SOLAR POWER
times smaller than existing technology, while also reducing costs, energy loss, and weight. A key advantage of thermal energy is that it can be stored cheaply and at utility scale, enabling 24-hour power production from a renewable source. The Oregon State team — led by Brian Fronk, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, Kevin Drost, retired associate professor of mechanical engineering, Brian Paul, Tom and Carmen West Faculty Scholar and professor of manufacturing engineering, and Sourabh Apte, professor of mechanical engineering — will create a system that transfers concentrated solar radiation to supercritical carbon dioxide that is used to generate power.
Oregon State researchers, in collaboration with national lab and university partners, are working on highly efficient, microchannel solar thermal receivers that will be about four
This new system will be more efficient than existing solar thermal approaches to energy production because it will be able to operate at higher temperatures and under higher pressure. This concept uses arrays of micropins to efficiently absorb high heat fluxes, resulting in smaller, less expensive components. The project is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office.
THE NUMBERS
1832 143 UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
PH.D. STUDENTS
RESEARCH EXPENDITURES
SCHOLARSHIPS AWARDED
$12.2M
$883K
CAREER/YOUNG INVESTIGATOR AWARDS
MANUFACTURING USA INNOVATION INSTITUTE MEMBERS
14
4
STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION FELLOWS
17
7
192 57 MASTER’S STUDENTS
FACULTY
Advanced Manufacturing Design Engineering Energy Systems and Sustainability Next-Generation Materials and Devices Production, Service, and Human Systems Robotics
SCHOOL OF MECHANICAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING 204 Rogers Hall 2000 SW Monroe Avenue Corvallis, OR 97331
SCHOOL OF MECHANICAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING We are dedicated to creating a safer, smarter, more resilient, and more prosperous world. We do this through breakthrough research and by providing transformational educational experiences that produce graduates who drive change throughout their lives. We offer ABET-accredited undergraduate degrees in mechanical, industrial, manufacturing, and energy systems engineering as well as graduate degrees in mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, materials science, and robotics. Our highly collaborative culture and interdisciplinary approach allow us to attract and retain world-class faculty, who further excellence in thinking and breakthrough research in six signature areas. For more about our research strengths, including an in-depth video series, visit mime.oregonstate.edu/research-excellence. Harriet B. Nembhard, Ph.D. School Head Eric R. Smith Professor of Engineering facebook.com/OregonStateMIME @OregonStateMIME
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