table of - mechanical engineering · mechanical engineering annual report • 2004-2005 14 4. ......

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Message from the Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

Bringing Ideas to LifeU-M-GE Transportation Partnership Improves

Aircraft Engine Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Automotive Research Center Addressing Energy Challenges . . .5From Collaboration to Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6High-Speed Laser Imaging Highlights Fuel Plume Flow . . . . . .7Low Temperature Combustion Consortium:

Paving the Road to Clean and Efficient Engines . . . . . . . . .8S.M. Wu Manufacturing Research Center Launches

Three Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9ERC-RMS Disseminates its Pioneer Research

and Makes Strong Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10New Center for Precision Forming Attracts

Strong Industry Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12U-M Establishes Center for Lasers and

Plasmas for Advanced Manufacturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13Rod Theory Sheds Light on DNA Supercoiling . . . . . . . . . . .14Nature Inspires MEMS Cochlea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16Over, Under, Around and Through . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17Diann Brei Designs Actuator for Rifle Stabilization . . . . . . . .18A Better Fly Cast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19Kevin Pipe Explores Nano-Scale Thermal Physics . . . . . . . . .20From Lab to Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21Donors & Research Sponsors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22Research Trends & Expenditures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Educating the Next GenerationJames R. Barber Named Thurnau Professor . . . . . . . . . . . . .24ME Teaching Incentive Fund Awardees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24New and Improved Course Sparks New and

Improved Cell Phone Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25ME 599 Heat Transfer Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26New Summer Exchange Program Receives Funding . . . . . . . .27Inspiring Girls to Learn About Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28Three Students Explore ME Options Through

Tribal Colleges and Universities Partnership . . . . . . . . . . .29

Mechanical Engineering Annual Report • 2004-2005

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Making Their MarkOutstanding Student Leader Recognized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30Gold Medal Student Athlete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31Charles S. Hutchins Wins Distinguished Service Award . . . . . . . . . .32Sun-sational! U-M Team Wins Solar Car Race . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33On or Off the Road, SAE Leaves Its Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34ME Students Reflect MLK’s Spirit of Giving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37Vernon Newhouse Named GEM Award Winner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37Increasing AWAREness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38BLUElab Wins 2005 Elaine Harden Award . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39NSF Recognizes ME Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40Graduate Student Awards and Fellowships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42Undergraduate Student Awards and Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43Enrollment and Degree Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44Ph.D. Degrees Conferred . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .452004-05 Graduates Receive Faculty Appointments . . . . . . . .46Other Recent Appointments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

Earning AccoladesTwo New Faculty Join ME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50Wei-Hsuin Yang Retires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51Faculty Promotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51Bruce Karnopp Retires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52Celebrating the Life of Professor Gerard M. Faeth . . . . . . . . .53Teamwork Leads to Outstanding Achievement . . . . . . . . . . .54Prized Professor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54Goldstein Elected to the National Academy of Engineering . .55Professor Christophe Pierre Named Dean at McGill University . .56Professor Ceccio Appointed to OVPR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56Not a Typical Day: DSSG Teaches Through Experience . . . . . .57Brei Tours State with Michigan Road Scholars Program . . . . .57Staff Excellence Recognized in ME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58Meet Simmi Isaac, Graduate Admissions Coordinator . . . . . .58Faculty Honors & Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

Giving BackCharles M. Vest Honored with Alumni Society Medal . . . . . . .60Timothy M. Manganello Receives 2005 Alumni Society

Merit Award . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61Alumni Award Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61ME Welcomes Perspectives from External Advisory Board . . . .62Fourth Annual KAIST-U-M Joint Workshop a Success . . . . . . .64

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2004-05 MECHANICAL ENGINEERING ANNUAL REPORT2

Message from the Chair

It is a real pleasure to invite you to read the MEDepartment’s annual report for the past year. Our

department has continued to make great strides inteaching and research, and these contributions havebeen recognized both internally and externally. As therapid changes in the world and the economy constantlyreinforce the need for the skills and innovative ideas ofmechanical engineers, our Department is uniquelypositioned to lead the way in addressing grandchallenges in the fields of energy and environment, aswell as improving the quality of life.

Over the past year, US News ranked our undergraduateprogram as #3 and our graduate program as #4 in thenation. These rankings consistently reflect the excellentimpression that our peers have of the quality of ourprograms. Recently, our undergraduate curriculum wasreviewed by ABET, found to be in full compliance withthe applicable criteria, and recommended foraccreditation till the next general review in 2011. Lastyear, we graduated the largest number of Ph.Ds in adecade, almost one per faculty member. A large numberof our doctoral graduates accepted academic positionsat prestigious academic institutions. Once again, four ofour graduate students were selected for the prestigiousNSF fellowships. ME continues to focus on globaleducation and research alliances, adding the TechnicalUniversity of Berlin to our current collaborators inKorea and China. Our faculty and students are alsoworking on generating a strong and diverse pipeline ofstudents interested in engineering, and fosteringinterest particularly with women and underrepresentedminority populations.

The achievements of our students outside theclassroom continue to make all of us in the MEDepartment proud of the mentorship and support wegive them to be successful. The College’s major vehicleracing teams — Solar, Baja, and Formula — allachieved high levels of success and included many MEundergraduate students. In particular, the Solar Carteam Momentum finished first in the North AmericanSolar Challenge, earning its fourth nationalchampionship — the most of any university — sincecompetition began in 1990. A special note ofappreciation goes to loyal ME alumnus Chuck Hutchins(BS ME 57) for his dedicated support and mentorship

of the team since its formation in 1989. Our students have alsoworked hard to improve communities and community living, asexemplified by the AWARE@home group who helped consumersimprove energy conservation and efficiency in using our naturalresources. While we have always known that our students are gold-medal caliber, one of our students, Dan Ketchum (BS ME ’04, MSEME ’05), actually won a gold medal at the Athens SummerOlympics in the men’s 4x200-meter freestyle relay!

Despite the great challenges that the North American automotiveand manufacturing industries are facing, our Department hascontinued to attract significant funding from both government andindustry, and our research expenditures of $27.3M continue toplace us among the highest funded ME programs in the nation. Asignificant portion of the ME Department’s research activities hasfocused on improving the generation, conversion and conservationof energy. Within the Automotive Research Center and the GMCollaborative Research Laboratories, innovative approaches havebeen aimed at dramatically improving fuel economy of next

Dennis Assanis in front of Lurie Fountain on the College ofEngineering’s North Campus

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR 3

generation vehicles while at the same time meetingultra-stringent emission standards. Under a newlyforged, five year strategic alliance with General ElectricTransportation, ME researchers are working to lengthenthe life of aircraft engine turbine blisks and developpredictive intelligent maintenance processes andsensors to reduce unscheduled machine downtime. TheS.M. Wu Manufacturing Research Center is focusingnew efforts on the manufacturing of portable powergeneration systems and fuel cells with a goal ofreducing costs to hasten adoption of this alternativeenergy technology. In addition to the global impact ofour NSF ERC on Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems,two newly founded NSF IUCRCs on Precision Formingand Lasers and Plasmas for Advanced Manufacturingare attracting strong industry interest.

In parallel, ME is continuing to diversify its researchportfolio in other emerging areas of mechanicalengineering, often inspired by mother nature, with greatsuccess. For instance, ME researchers are makingfundamental contributions to hearing science throughthe conceptualization and development of a novelmicro-machined device that mimics cochlea function,which has been featured prominently on the NSF webpage. Using the principles of mechanics and dynamics,our faculty are shedding light on DNA supercoiling toassist molecular biologists understand how the DNAfunctions are influenced by its structure. Our facultyare also probing the fundamentals of micro and nano-scale thermal physics, both in the classroom andthrough their research activities in novel areas such asheat transfer inside electronic and optoelectronicdevices and energy transport into organic and inorganicdevices.

Our faculty were recognized in many ways this year,including a record 10 promotions to higher ranks andprominent University honors. Among them, JamesBarber joins three other ME colleagues as an Arthur F.Thurnau Professor in recognition of his outstandingcontributions to undergraduate education. AnnaStefanopoulou received the Henry Russel Award, givenin recognition of her “distinguished scholarship andconspicuous ability as a teacher.” Ann Marie Sastry hasbeen selected to receive the University’s facultyrecognition award and Zoran Filipi has been selected to

receive the University’s research faculty recognitionaward. Steven Goldstein, a joint faculty member inOrthopedic Surgery and Biomedical Engineering, waselected to the National Academy of Engineering, thehighest professional recognition given to an engineer.Our former colleague and past M.I.T. President ChuckVest has been honored with the Alumni Society Medalfor his distinguished four decade career in teaching andhigher education administration.

To complement our distinguished faculty, we added two new highly promising members to the ME facultyranks — Assistant Professor Angela Violi (January2006) whose research interest is nano-scale particulateemissions and Assistant Professor Nikolas Chronis(September 2006) whose research interest is bio-MEMS systems. This year also saw the retirementof two long-time colleagues, Professor Wei-Hsuin Yangand Associate Professor Bruce Karnopp who havetaught multiple generations of Michigan engineers thefundamentals of applied mechanics and dynamics.Amidst these honors and celebrations, we were deeplysaddened this year by the unexpected passing of ourcolleague Professor Gerard “Jerry” Faeth. His 45 yearsof teaching and research touched many lives, and underhis outstanding mentorship many of his more than 50Ph.D. students chose to emulate his foot steps andpursued their own academic careers. We will gravelymiss Professor Jerry Faeth and will always cherish himas a colleague, teacher, mentor and friend.

A great Department is a reflection of its excellentstudents, alumni, faculty and staff. Indeed, this annualreport epitomizes the spirit of the ME Department andis a tribute to the energy, teamwork and dedication ofour ME community. As we move forward, I know thatgreat things will continue to happen and I am grateful toall of you for your enthusiastic support of our mission.

Dennis N. AssanisProfessor and Chair, Mechanical EngineeringJon R. and Beverly S. Holt Professor of Engineering

The U-M College of Engineering has received $5million in research funding, distributed among four

thrust areas over a five-year period, through GeneralElectric Transportation’s University Strategic Alliance (USA) Program. This makes the College the GE USA program’s largest member. The scope of research in MEencompasses two thrust areas focused on advancedmethodologies for modeling, testing, machining and intelligentmaintenance of turbine engine rotors. Additional grants wereawarded to College of Engineering faculty in the Departments ofAerospace Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering.

Manufacturing variation and non-uniform wear cause smalldifferences in the natural frequency of each blade of a bladed diskin a turbine engine. These small differences, called mistuning, canlead to immense changes to the system’s vibration and can resultin premature fatigue and blade cracking.

From a computational standpoint, modeling such systems poseshuge challenges. Associate Research Scientist Matt Castanier isleading one of the thrust areas to model the structural dynamics ofturbine engine rotors, the culmination of 12 years of research onmodeling vibration in systems with parameter uncertainties. Muchof the previous research was done through the GUIde consortiumon Blade Durability, a government, university and industry effort.

Castanier continues to collaborate with former ME ProfessorChristophe Pierre (see related story, page 56) and ME ProfessorSteve Ceccio in developing experimental methods and systemidentification techniques to capture the vibration response ofbladed disks and one-piece bladed disks (‘Blisks’). Their goal is toimplement an experimental system for identifying blade mistuningand predicting blisk reliability in GE’s Cincinnati facility.

Also in ME, Professor Jun Ni and Associate Professor Albert Shihco-lead the thrust area focused on manufacturing research, namelythe modeling and optimization of five-axis end milling processesfor Blisk machining; machine health monitoring and performanceprediction; and micro-blasting for surface preparation.

Bladed disks have many cost and performance advantagescompared to conventional blade assembly, but there are alsosignificant challenges to their cost-effective manufacture. In thefirst project, Ni and his graduate students will investigate themachining process and cutting tool performance optimization fortitanium Blisks. This research will model the complex five-axis endmilling process, predict chip evacuation and optimize tool designs.

The second project will leverage the extensive research programcurrently being pursued by the National Science Foundation-sponsored Industry/University Cooperative Research Center forIntelligent Maintenance Systems. Ni, along with Assistant ResearchScientist Dragan Djurdjanovic and their graduate students, willdevelop multi-sensor-based predictive tools for the monitoring,diagnosis and prognosis of machine tool health condition. Theultimate goal is to predict degradation of critical machinesubsystems so that intelligent, predictive maintenance measurescan minimize unscheduled machine downtime.

Surface irregularities can have critical impact on rotor durability.Professor Albert Shih and his graduate students will investigatevarious fundamental aspects of micro-blasting processes and theirimpact on surface generation and modification. His team willconduct both theoretical and experimental research to modelprocess mechanisms, evaluate critical parameters and apply thisnew process to selected aerospace components.


U-M - GETransportationPartnershipImprovesAircraft EngineDesign

Vibration mode shape of a blisk obtained from finite element analysis.

BRINGING IDEAS TO LIFE 5

The global energy situation creates animperative to improve energy utilization

in transportation, which now accounts forone third of the energy used in the U.S.Given that almost all of this energy issupplied by petroleum, the need to workon alternative fuel options is paramount.The impact on powertrain architecturescan be immense, and solutions includingclean diesel, hybrid and fuel cells need tobe developed ahead of time.

The Automotive Research Center (ARC), inits second year of a five year, $40 millionU.S. Army grant, is focusing a large portionof its research on significantly improvingfuel economy for the next generation ofmilitary and civilian ground vehicles. Withincreasing uncertainty of petroleumreserves, the ARC is focusing research andeducation in the important area of energy.

The ARC, a seven-university consortium ledby U-M and sponsored by the NationalAutomotive Center at the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command(TACOM) in Warren, Michigan, worksclosely with government and industrypartners.

“To tackle immense challenges at theinterface of various disciplines,” saidProfessor Dennis Assanis, ARC director.“It’s this type of collaboration that enablesthe ARC’s success, making it the mostsophisticated university-based automotiveresearch center in the country. There istremendous interest in our powertrain andfuels projects from both the commercialsector and the military since we take asystems approach to developing dual-usestrategies to address problems.” A rangeof related issues, including vehicledynamics and control, advanced materialsand light weight structures, humanmodeling, optimal design and reliability areaddressed too.

The Center allows us to investigateconcepts and components that aren’treadily available — how much can wereduce consumption if the powertrain ishybridized? What if we use an advanced

Zoran Filipi, research associate professorand ARC assistant director.

The breadth of the current research in the ARC and the already establishedcollaborative links with government andindustry make the center uniquelypositioned to address complex researchissues related to the energy options forthe future. “The ARC is indeed one of thecornerstones of the campus-wide energyinitiative that promises the development of energy sources and energy policies thatwill promote the responsible use of theenvironment, and economic prosperity,”said University of Michigan President MarySue Coleman.

Automotive Research Center AddressingEnergy Challenges

light weight design?Beyond petroleum fuelsfor vehicle propulsion,other candidates includenatural gas, ethanol, bio-diesel, synthetic Fischer-Tropsch fuel and gas-to-liquid fuels. Hydrogen isconsidered the ultimaterenewable energycarrier, and promiseshighly efficientpropulsion incombination with a fuelcell. However, there aremany unansweredquestions with regardsto hydrogen generationand storage.Fundamental researchaims to develop controlsand management strategies tailored foralternative powertrains and fuels to meetfuture performance/emissions targets.Assessments analyzing a large number ofpowertrain and fuel options enable ARC toserve as an honest broker in evaluatingtheir true potential.

One of the novel approaches in developingclean and fuel efficient vehicles of thefuture consists of ‘engine-in-the-loop’methodology. It links real-world powertrainhardware with virtual objects simulated onthe test-cell computer. The foundation forthis work was laid through collaborationbetween the advanced propulsion team,developing a state-of-the-art engine testingfacility in the W.E. Lay AutomotiveLaboratory, and the vehicle dynamics andcontrols team. “We are pursuing systematicmodel-reduction techniques to ensurereal-time performance of the hybriddriveline while preserving appropriatefidelity” said Professor Jeffrey Stein, ARCassociate director. “We can mix and matchvarious powertrain components and obtainaccurate fuel consumption and transientemissions data in the test cell underrealistic in-vehicle conditions. This type ofdata may otherwise be difficult or costly toobtain from a vehicle prototype test,” said

U-M President Mary Sue Coleman and Dennis Assanis.


Novel engine and manufacturing concepts continue to spurresearch initiatives in the two collaborative research

laboratories between General Motors and the Department ofMechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. “Thispartnership brings together an impressive group of top notchminds to help GM tackle some important issues around engineefficiencies and vehicle manufacturing,” said Dr. Alan Taub,executive director of GM Research Laboratories. “The work inboth GM CRLs represents true collaboration. We have madesignificant strides toward resolving the research issues critical forrealizing our partner’s vision about future technologies” said MEDepartment Chair and Professor Dennis Assanis.

In the GM CRL for Engine Systems Research (ESR), “the driversare improving fuel economy dramatically while at the same timesatisfying ultra-stringent emissions standards that will go intoeffect in 2007/2010,” according to Assanis, who co-directs the GMCRL-ESR. Work in four thrust areas includes development andapplication of optical diagnostics techniques for direct-injectiongasoline engines, thermal characterization of direct-injectionengines, premixed diesel combustion and aftertreatment, andmodeling of engine systems.

In the area of optical diagnostics, planar laser-inducedfluorescence, OH chemiluminescence, and fast exhaust gasanalysis have been used to better understand the formation of thepollutant nitric oxide in spray-guided gasoline direct-injectionengines. “We now have indications of how to suppress NOxformation, thanks to the combination of all three techniques,” saidProfessor Volker Sick, co-leader of the optical diagnostics area.Work in this area also included fundamental studies ofspectroscopic properties of fluorescence tracers, as well as tracerinteraction with fuel.

In the area of thermal characterization of direct-injection engines,researchers have completed a fundamental study and developed amodel of heat transfer in homogeneous charge compressionignition (HCCI) engines. “The next step is to understand theformation and role of combustion chamber deposits across arange of realistic operating conditions,” according to ResearchAssociate Professor Zoran Filipi, a thrust area co-leader.

Assanis and his research group continue their work towardinnovative fuel management strategies for diesel engines, includinglow-temperature combustion (LTC), premixed diesel combustion,and development of novel catalysts. “We have demonstrated near-zero NOx and soot emissions from LTC diesel combustion,” saidAssanis.” Assistant Research Scientist Stani Bohac is focusing onthe characterization of the unburned hydrocarbons resulting fromthis novel mode of combustion, which will be critical for thedevelopment of suitable aftertreatment devices.

In the GM CRL for Advanced Vehicle Manufacturing (AVM), whereresearch thrust areas include advanced forming, welding and

joining, and assembly and manufacturing systems, “the spirit ofinnovation continues to be evident in the work that has been donethis year,” said Professor S. Jack Hu, co-director. “At the sametime, as we finish the third year of the GM CRL-AVM, many of theresearch results are moving closer to implementation into GMproducts and manufacturing.” For example, feasibility tests havebeen completed on the use of the GM C-Flex robotic part fixturingsystem to control dimensional quality in auto body assembly. Inaddition, U-M contributors used a combination of the latesttechniques in variation modeling and statistical methods to assistthe GM Metal Fabrication Team in determining the root cause ofvariation and identifying corrective actions for the problems thatwere being experienced in the plant.

A significant accomplishment of the GM CRL-AVM over the pastyear is the award-winning assembly modeling project. Each yearGM presents the People Make Quality Happen Award to threeteams that have significantly improved the quality of a productthrough the implementation of sustainable quality programs. Thisyear the Engine Cradle Project, which was a collaborative effort ofGM Metal Fabrication Division and the GM CRL-AVM, was selectedfrom among 1000 entries as one of 10 finalists for this award.

“The collaborative research environment of the GM CRLs providesa unique training ground for students, several of whom are hiredby GM after they earn their degrees. GM has had success in hiringthe cream of the crop,” said Rodney Rask, GM manager of EngineResearch and co-director of the CRL-ESR. The new additions tothe GM R&D team are Drs. Nicole Wermuth, Ronald Grover andJunseok Chang.

From Collaboration to Innovation

Low Temperature Combustion is the key to clean diesel technology.Researches in the GM/UM CRL are developing advanced fuel injection andExhaust Gas Recirculation strategies required to achieve premixed dieselcombustion. The goal is to avoid forming rich pockets in the combustionchamber responsible for soot emission, and hot pockets responsible forNOx emission.


High-Speed Laser Imaging Highlights Fuel Plume Flow

Professor Volker Sick and Ph.D. student James Smith, also an MEgraduate student instructor, have developed a technique for

high-speed imaging of fuel distribution and have applied it forstudies around the spark plug of an optical direct-injection gasolineengine. Their demonstration at such a high level of temporal detailis the first worldwide.

The technique, using laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) with abiacetyl tracer, has the capability to image 12,000 frames persecond for 400 to 500 engine cycles (at speeds of 2,000 RPM). Theirwork allows for the observation of critical engine processes suchas fuel injection, ignition and combustion–which occur in micro-and milliseconds–at sub-millimeter resolution.

LIF techniques have been used for more than a decade to trackfuel distribution in internal combustion engines and othercombustion devices. But these techniques can only acquire imageson the order of a few frames per second, a frequency slower thanmany of the phenomena of interest. Improvements have beenmade that increase frame speeds, but these advances are stilllimited by the need to pause to read camera chips and/or by thelimited number of pulses emitted by lasers.

At U-M, the team used a CMOS (complementary metal oxidesemiconductor) camera lens-coupled to an image intensifier and afrequency-tripled, diode-pumped Nd:YAG laser to excite thebiacetyl fuel tracer to track the fuel plume. Biacetyl was chosenbecause its evaporation characteristics are similar to those ofgasoline and because it does not change the way the fuel burns,explained Smith. But the main reason for choosing biacetyl, he said,was for its photo-physical properties. “We needed a tracer thatcould be ‘illuminated’ by the ultraviolet light produced by our high-speed laser. The normal selection of tracers is not sensitive to lightat this wavelength. So far, our measurements show promise thatthis biacetyl imaging setup can provide quantitative gas-phaseequivalence ratio measurement at kHz rates, which is verysignificant.”

With their novel approach, the group has been able to observechanges from engine cycle to engine cycle resulting from, forinstance, exhaust gas remaining in the cylinder or when fuel hitsthe spark plug at the wrong angle and doesn’t ignite. The techniquehas application in the area of engine performance optimization interms of fuel economy, emissions and driver experience andperception. In addition the team, which includes Aerospace

Engineering Professor James Driscoll and ME Professor StevenCeccio, will look to apply the method to supersonic combustionengines and for improving understanding of cavitation phenomena.

“We know it works,” said Sick. “Now we just have to refine thetechnique. We need more signal to improve optical quality and wehave to investigate what happens to fluorescence that’s emitted athigh temperatures and pressures in order to better quantify it. We

also would like to evaluate different tracers. With theimprovements we envision, we’ll also be able to get goodbenchmarking data for validating CFD (computational fluiddynamics) models that others in the department are working on.”

The project was funded by General Motors Corporation. The laser,provided by the Air Force Office for Scientific Research, was madeavailable by Professors Driscoll and Ceccio.

Optical direct-injection engine for advanced imaging studies.

A fuel jet impinges on the spark plug electrodes. Crank-angle resolved LIF images show the fuel dispersion and mixing process.


Low Temperature Combustion Consortium:Paving the Road to Clean and EfficientEngines

Anew university consortium, funded by DOE and led by U-M, willbegin in 2006 and will focus on Low Temperature Combustion

(LTC). The LTC concept is utilized in Homogeneous ChargeCompression Ignition (HCCI) and Partially Premixed CompressionIgnition (PPCI) engines, and allows for dramatic engine-outemissions reduction while maintaining or improving current fueleconomy.

Under LTC conditions, combustion occurs by auto-ignition at lowtemperature, resulting in ultra-low NOx and soot emissions forboth diesel and gasoline applications. Moreover, ultra-leanmixtures and high compression ratio can provide diesel-like fueleconomy with gasoline fuel. To date, LTC has been feasible only ina relatively small mid-load operating region. Operation outside thisregion has been hindered by control, stability, and harshnessissues, thus limiting the practical benefits of this technology.

The objective of researchers at U-M and partner schools MIT,Stanford, and the University of California at Berkeley, is toinvestigate the fundamental processes determining theboundaries of LTC and develop methods to extend thoseboundaries to further take advantage of the LTC characteristics.The approach will include state-of-the-art experimental work in allpartner schools, as well as a full array of modeling techniques,ranging from engine system level simulations to detailed chemistryand fluid dynamics models. Studies will focus on a number ofpromising enablers for real-life implementation of LTC toproduction vehicles, such as advanced fuel injection and boostingstrategies, thermal management, and alternative fuels.

Initial work at U-M revealed that combustion chamber wall temperaturehas a large effect on HCCI combustion limits. This performance map showsaugmented HCCI range during transient operation (orange) from an initialmedium load point (red circle) to other speed load conditions, while thegreen area shows the steady state operating range. Normal changes of wall temperature that occur during driving can shift the boundariessignificantly and will have to be part of a successful implementation oftechnology.

This work will be the continuation of the U-M led HCCI consortium,now in its fourth and final year. In the past three years, anenormous amount of knowledge has been gained about this novel,high fuel economy engine concept. In particular, two of the keychallenges of the HCCI concept, namely practical control ofcombustion timing and limited operating range, are beingeffectively addressed. U-M researchers and their partners havedemonstrated successful control of HCCI engines on several testbeds as well as with model simulations and control algorithms. Atthe same time, modeling work has shown the importance ofthermal management in extending the HCCI operating range.

Furthermore, shock tube and rapid compression machineexperiments provided valuable insight into combustion kineticsand supported the development of advanced physics-basedmodels.

The new LTC consortium will capitalize on the experience andknowledge gained during the previous HCCI consortium. Pastinteractions have already established effective and efficientmethods for data exchange and integration of results. The U-M ledLTC team is now poised to make rapid progress towards realizingthe full potential of the LTC concept.Graduate student Brad Zigler, Research Fellow Dr. Aris Babajimopoulos,

and Professor Margaret Wooldridge discuss application of the near-infrared spectroscopy for diagnostics in an optical HCCI engine.


widespread adoption of these technologies for alternative energyand other applications.

The center also co-organized the sixth biennial Wu Symposium U-M & International Conference on the Frontiers of Design andManufacturing with Xi’an Jiao Tong University in Xi’an, China. Morethan 650 representatives from industry, academia and governmentattended Asia’s largest manufacturing conference. Numerous U-Mfaculty and students participated.

Under the sponsorship of U-M’s Office of Vice Provost, Ni also led agroup of 16 U-M undergraduate students to Shanghai, China, as partof the Global Intercultural Experience for Undergraduates (GIEU).Through benchmarking various multinational corporations, state-owned enterprises and private companies, the students gained anin-depth knowledge of the culture, society and issues related tooperating a global engineering firm in China. Recently, U-MPresident Mary Sue Coleman and Shanghai Jiao Tong University(SJTU) President Sheng-wu Xie finalized an agreement with SJTUfor a Joint Institute that will manage and direct degree-grantingprograms offered by both universities to students of bothcountries. In addition to U-M’s Department of MechanicalEngineering, other engineering disciplines and other collegeswithin the University will participate. “The new entity will serve as abase for U-M students to gain global experience and for faculty toexplore new research frontiers,” said Ni.

Finally, the center is organizing an inaugural manufacturing scienceand engineering conference for the American Society of MechanicalEngineers Manufacturing Engineering Division to take place in AnnArbor in October 2006.

“It’s definitely been a busy and productive year,” said Ni. “And we’relooking forward to making even greater strides toward our researchobjectives and in our collaborations with industry and universitypartners in the coming year.”

Three major initiatives were launched during the 2004-2005academic year, in addition to numerous other activities,

according to Professor Jun Ni, who directs the S.M. WuManufacturing Research Center.

Under a $6 million National Institute of Standards and TechnologyAdvanced Technology Program grant, Principal Investigator Ni andco-principal investigator Associate Professor Albert Shih areworking with industry partners to develop rapid ultra-precisiondirect metal deposition techniques. Researchers at U-M arespecifically responsible for developing control strategies formachine accuracy and for thermal drift. They are also developing a dry Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) process to performfinishing operations for dies and molds.

In Phase II of a DARPA-funded program, Wu Center researchersare working with Powerix Technologies, LLC, of Ann Arbor onMICSE-based (Micro Internal Combustion Swing Engines)portable power generation systems. The team is addressingspecific challenges, particularly micro and mesoscalemanufacturing of miniaturized features required by MICSEsystems and strategies for onboard engine control.

Under a grant from the Semiconductor Research Corporation, auniversity research management consortium, researchers aredeveloping predictive modeling and intelligent maintenance toolsfor high-yield, next-generation fabrication, including both station-level and end-of-line level yield optimization. The Wu Center isworking with Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., and TaiwanSemiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited on this project.

Fuel cell manufacturing work at the center continues and isfocused on four main areas of manufacturing for energyapplications: bipolar plates, stack assembly, metrology and systemperformance. The goal is to reduce the costs of manufacturingsince associated expenses have been the bottleneck to

S.M. Wu Manufacturing Research CenterLaunches Three Initiatives

U-M President Mary Sue Coleman at SJTU signing the joint institute agreement.


said Pulak Bandyopadhyay, research & development manager atGeneral Motors Research Center. “We’re fortunate that NSF hadthe foresight to support the RMS vision 10 years ago.”

In May 2005, the ERC-RMS also co-sponsored a symposium on“Mass Customization: Keys to Competitiveness in Textile-BasedIndustries.” The two-day event was the result of a collaborativeeffort among the ERC-RMS, the Textile Research & TrainingInstitute at Eastern Michigan University and the Department ofManagement of Grand Valley State University.

The focus of the conference, conceived by Zbigniew Pasek, formerERC operations manager and associate research scientist, was toengage industries indigenous to Michigan that rely on textiles intheir final products and connect them with university researchers.The symposium was “especially crucial for our state — Michiganleads the country in the automotive industry, is second in furnitureand in the top ten in apparel,” according to Julie Becker, directorof the Textiles Research and Training Institute.

The ERC-RMS is reviewed annually by a site visit team composedof 10 reviewers from industry, academia and the NSF. Theoutstanding ERC research efforts for the year culminated in asuccessful NSF site visit in May 2005, which for the first time inNSF history was held at the site of an ERC partner, Morgan StateUniversity (MSU), a HBCU (historically black colleges and

Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems(RMS) is a relatively new research

discipline, introduced by the NSFEngineering Research Center for RMS atU-M. Within just a few years, it hasemerged as an important research topicsupported by research grants in Europe,Canada, Japan and China. The pastacademic year has been filled with successstories for the ERC-RMS which saw thefruits of its research efforts disseminatedto many global partners from industry,government and academia.

In May 2005, the ERC hosted at U-M the 3rd International Conference onReconfigurable Manufacturing, an eventsponsored by the Paris-based InternationalInstitute for Production EngineeringResearch (CIRP), which attracted over 180attendees from 17 countries around theworld. Professor Yoram Koren, director ofthe ERC-RMS, opened the conferenceplenary session with an address onreconfigurable manufacturing systems thathighlighted not only the characteristics and applications of thesesystems but their increasing role in the competitiveness ofmanufacturing organizations.

Roman Krygier, group vice president for Global Manufacturing andQuality at Ford Motor Company, delivered the primary keynoteaddress during which he outlined the company’s powertrainmanufacturing strategy. The strategy includes the ‘commonization’of equipment and processes — and strong leadership from topmanagement. The ERC-RMS has had impact on efficiency at theFord Windsor Engine Plant, according to Krygier. “Working with theUniversity of Michigan ERC, we were able to apply the Streams ofVariation Methodologies. This research helped us understand andconfirm the linkage of features and characteristics. Based on U-Manalysis results, we have changed our coordinate measuringmachine gauging strategy to measure only representative features.This has led to a 60 percent reduction in measurements throughthe first three operations, with only a 4 percent loss of data.”

Other conference highlights included sessions that addressedtopics in RMS applications, business models, system design,controls and ramp-up. Participants presented more than 80research papers in 18 sessions and sparked passionatediscussions. “Panel discussions were excellent examples ofinteractions between universities, government labs and industry,”

ERC-RMS Disseminates its PioneerResearch and Makes Strong Impact

Arlene Cole-Rhodes (right) presents joint research to the 2005 Site Visit Review team as DonnaRobertson assists.


universities) institution, which graduates the largest percentage ofindustrial engineers in the state of Maryland. The collaborationwith U-M’s ERC-RMS has been in place since 2003 and is based oncomplementary long-term goals. The partnership is transformingMSU, a primarily undergraduate teaching institution, into ateaching- and research-focused university; and it has allowed ERCto transfer some of its technologies and educational materials foradoption in MSU undergraduate curricula.

Two projects were selected for technical demonstrations duringthe visit: the Reconfigurable Factory Testbed (RFT) andReconfigurable Inspection Machine (RIM). The RFT demonstrationinvolved two labs at MSU and U-M connected via the Internet,jointly executing a manufacturing process. Teams on each endworked closely: Associate Professor Dawn Tilbury led the U-Mgroup, including Associate Research Scientist James Moyne and

Assistant Research Scientist Jonathan Luntz. Hargrove led the MSUteam; former Associate Research Scientist Zbigniew Pasekcoordinated the U-M team.

The RIM demonstration relied on a portable prototype machinedeveloped at U-M under Reuven Katz, associate research scientistand chief engineer at the ERC-RMS. The machine was moved toMSU so students there could more readily explain their work, doneunder the guidance of Arlene Cole-Rhodes, a professor ofElectrical Engineering (see photo on facing page). U-M post-doctoral research fellows Gil Abramovitch and Pat Spicer and theirstudents ensured that the complex equipment worked without aglitch.

The immense joint effort paid off. “It is to the credit of the ERC-RMS that the University of Michigan and Morgan State Universityhave developed an impressive and truly partnered relationship.Through the use of Internet/communication technologies a well-coordinated agenda was executed during this visit,” states the NSFsite visit report. And MSU students gained so much confidencefrom the experience that they asked, “When are we doing the nextone?” The enthusiasm the U-M faculty took to Baltimore inspiredeight more MSU students — there are 16 now at U-M — toexpress interest in reconfigurable manufacturing. This site visitwas so successful that NSF decided to cancel the 2006 site visit“due to the favorable reviews the ERC-RMS received at the 2005site visit.”

Ford Motor Company Group Vice President Roman Krygierspeaking at the RMS conference.

The University of Michigan and Ohio State University have formedthe Center for Precision Forming, a National Science

Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center. Thecenter will conduct scientifically challenging and industriallyrelevant research to develop innovative, cost-effective andenvironmentally friendly metal forming processes, tooling andequipment.

At a planning meeting held in March 2005, representatives fromautomotive, aerospace, heavy truck, electronics and medical devicesectors expressed strong interest in working with the center.Companies in attendance included General Motors, GeneralElectric Company, Toyota, DaimlerChrysler, Nissan, Kia, Boeing, TheTimken Company, Dana Corporation, Delphi, FlextronicsCorporation, Ladish Co., Inc., and International Truck and EngineCorporation, among others.

“With increasing competition from overseas, U.S.-basedmanufacturers want to increase their competitiveness withinnovation and low-cost products,” said Muammer Koç, MEassistant research scientist and co-director of the center withOhio State University Professor Taylan Altan. “In order to do thisefficiently, companies from different sectors are looking for waysto leverage their know-how and investment. The interest shown bythese companies in the center isdue to its strong research program,which offers near-term appliedresults to member companies, withtheir early input and intensiveinvolvement.”

Research areas include: testing andmodeling of advanced materials;tribology issues in advanced formingprocesses; innovative formingprocess technologies such aselectromagnetic forming,hydroforming, warm forming andmicroforming; and fabricationtechniques and issues inmanufacturing of functionalstructured surfaces for fuel cells,micro-reactors, and medical devices.

Collaborating U-M faculty membersinclude Koç and ME Professors JunNi, Noboru Kikuchi and Jack Hu.Ohio State University colleaguesinclude Professors Altan, Gary Kinzeland Glen Daehn.

Both universities are well-suited for the joint venture: Ohio Statehas housed the Engineering Research Center for Net ShapeManufacturing for more than 15 years; U-M houses large andconcentrated manufacturing research initiatives in forming,precision machining, machine tools, metrology and processcontrols under the auspices of the S.M. Wu ManufacturingResearch Center, the NSF Engineering Research Center forReconfigurable Manufacturing Systems, the Dimensional Control &Measurement Center and Center for Intelligent MaintenanceSystems. Faculty and facilities of these centers are also available tothe Center for Precision Forming.

The first set of research projects will begin in fall 2005, with thecenter’s official launch scheduled for January 2006.

National Science Foundation Industry/University CooperativeResearch Centers are intended to develop long-term partnershipsamong industry, academia and government. More information onthe Center for Precision Forming can be found athttp://www.cpforming.org.

New Center for Precision Forming AttractsStrong Industry Interest

The Center for Precision Forming is expected to be launched in January 2006. Research areas of the CPF willbe (1) Testing and modeling of advanced materials, (2) Tribology issues in advanced forming processes, (3)Innovative forming process technologies such as electromagnetic forming, hydroforming, warm forming,microforming, etc., (4) Fabrication techniques and issues in manufacturing of functional structured surfacesfor fuel cells, micro-reactors, and medical devices.



The U-M Center for Lasers and Plasmasfor Advanced Manufacturing opened

under the auspices of the MechanicalEngineering department in September2004. Jyotirmoy Mazumder, Robert H. LurieProfessor of Engineering, serves as thecenter’s first director. The center is fundedby the National Science Foundation andindustry partners, including GeneralElectric Global Research, IMRA USA,Nuvonyx Inc., General ElectricTransportation Group and Toyota MotorManufacturing North America Inc. Thecenter’s focus is gaining a fundamentalunderstanding of and applying lasers inmanufacturing to reduce the time fromconcept to product. University of Virginiaand Southern Methodist University areUniversity partners.

According to Mazumder, work done at thecenter will establish a scientific base forlaser material processing. Researchprojects will lead to the production ofmaterials with novel properties and thedevelopment of efficient processingmethods. Technology developed will betransferred through an incubator to avoidthe need for heavy industry investment. Inaddition, the education of students andindustry representatives about the latesttechnologies and the effects ofglobalization is a priority.

One ongoing project includes work toimprove welding of galvanized steel, which“has been a problem for the auto industryfor the last 60 years,” said Mazumder. Whilesome earlier studies carried out byGeneral Motors indicate that laser weldinggalvanized steel can increase vehiclestructural strength by 30 percent, it alsocreates problems. The low boiling point ofzinc means it evaporates at the weldinterface and results in high-porosityjoints. “Until now, there hasn’t been aproduction-friendly solution available,” hesaid. An alloy based technique recentlydeveloped prevents induced porosity andmaintains the weld’s anti-corrosionproperties. Researchers also havedeveloped a spectroscopic sensor tomonitor the quality of the laser welds. “Any

company that uses this system now has afool-proof method,” said Mazumder.

A second project involves the manufactureof nanocrystalline surfaces of variousmetals by high brightness diode-pumpedNd-YAG lasers by rapid melt and quenchtechnique. The one of a kind, highbrightness, diode pumped Nd-YAG laserwas developed under a project funded bythe DARPA. The work, which includesexperimentally quantifying themicrostructure of various materials tounderstand the catalytic effect on the gasphase using detailed chemistry models, isheaded by Professor Arvind Atreya.Applications include improved combustionof hydrogen and have implications forrocket design.

Also in development, in conjunction withindustry partner General Electric AircraftEngines, is a single crystal super alloy thinfilm coating for aircraft blades. The singlecrystal nickel superalloy, comprised of tenelements, prevents mechanical failureknown as creep, or slippage between grainboundaries. Researchers are working to

U-M Establishes Center for Lasers andPlasmas for Advanced Manufacturing

understand the atomic-level interactionsand ideal parameters for achieving a singlecrystal.

With industry partner IMRA America Inc.,scientists are developing a process for one-step laser microfabrication of vascularnetworks. The process includes Nd:YAGlasers for rough machining with a femto-second laser for fine machining of 3-Dchannels. Researchers from the MedicalSchool and Department of BiomedicalEngineering are incorporating the processinto their work on an artificial lung.

Mazumder is extremely pleased with theprogress the center has made in its firstyear. He hopes to continue adding newindustry partners and to increase awarenessof the benefits of laser technology amongU.S. manufacturers. “If you’re stamping asteel part, you need a special tool. If you’reusing lasers, you just need to change theprogramming. They exhibit amiability forcomputerization and for interfacing withrobots. The tool life is infinity — there’snothing to wear down.”

Graduate student Dong Hyuck Kam examining the Nd:YAG laser micromachined samples formicrofluidic testing.


Rod Theory Sheds Light on DNASupercoiling

Without DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid,life as we know it would not exist.

The long chain biopolymer molecule that’spacked into the nuclei of our cells isresponsible for providing blueprints tocells for the manufacture of essentialproteins through a process calledtranscription. DNA also transfers theseblueprints from one cellular generation tothe next ensuring our survival through aprocess known as replication.

How this all happens is as much amechanical process as a chemical one,explained Professor Noel Perkins, “andmolecular biologists wrestle withunderstanding how the functions of DNAare influenced by its structure, including itsgeometry and the stresses to which it issubjected.”

Perkins and ME Associate Professor EdgarMeyhöfer, along with doctoral studentsSachin Goyal and Todd Lillian, are using rodtheory to understand the mechanics ofDNA on long-length scales, that is, betweenone helical turn — about threenanometers — to the millimeter scale.They also collaborate with research groupsfrom biophysics (Professors Chris Meinersand Alexei Tkachenko and doctoralstudents Seth Blumberg and David Oros),biochemistry (Professor Ioan Andricioaeiand doctoral student Jeff Wereszczynski)and cellular and molecular biology(doctoral student Troy Lionberger), whoare employing complementary methodsincluding statistical mechanics, full

molecular dynamics, and experimentaltechniques for exploring the mechanics ofsingle molecule DNA.

At these scales, strands of DNA form loopsand supercoils. Supercoiling allows for anorganized means of compacting DNAmolecules — by as much as 105 — so thatthey fit within the cell nucleus. Supercoilingalso plays key roles in transcription andreplication. For example, the formation ofsimple loops of DNA on long-length scalesis known to regulate the expression ofcertain genes. Likewise, the winding of DNAon spool-like proteins (histones) leads toan organized compaction of the molecule.


Supercoiling also induces stresses in themolecule that may help initiatetranscription and replication at specificsites along the molecule.

Using the rod models, multiple effects atlong-length scales can be captured,including: large deformations and rotationsof the molecule; base-pair or ‘sequence-dependent’ mechanical properties;electrostatic ‘self-contact’ andinterwinding; and dissipation and thermalexcitation from the aqueous environment.

To date the team has modeled how aninterwound supercoil may evolve and thebifurcations it experiences through a buildup of twist. More recently, the group hascreated a computational model to describethe DNA looping that occurs in a well-known experimental model system forgene regulation, the bacterial lac operon ofE. coli. In the lac operon transcription ofseveral contiguous genes that encode keyenzymes and transport proteins for themetabolism of lactose is regulated by thelac repressor protein. The repressor is atetrameric protein that functions as agenetic switch by binding to two specificDNA binding sites (operator sites) justupstream of the structural genes.Repressor binding forces the flexible DNAstrand into a tight loop with a radius ofabout 10 nm, and thereby preventstranscription of the lac structural genes.However, the presence of lactose in E. coli’s medium leads to the creation of

allulactose (a side product of themetabolism of lactose), which inducestranscription of the lac operon by bindingto the repressor protein and dissociating itfrom the operator sites.

“The lac-repressor protein acts as abiological ‘switch.’ In the absence oflactose it turns the process off, but iflactose is available as energy the requiredenzymes can be generated within a coupleof minutes,” explains Meyhöfer. Perkinsadds, “Our work demonstrates that rodtheory is well-suited to model the loopingprocess, in particular the energetics, andquantitatively predicts and confirmsprevious mutational analysis of this system.Knowing how much energy it takes to formthis loop in turn will enable molecularbiologists to better understand both thelikelihood and stability of this fundamentalgene regulation mechanism.”

The work was initially sponsored byLawrence Livermore National Laboratory;more recently funding has come from theNational Science Foundation. There areseveral major next steps to pursue, saidPerkins. One is to explore the dynamics ofthese molecules experimentally inMeyhöfer’s lab by dynamically manipulatingsingle DNA molecules using laser traps.Another is to construct true multi-scalemodels of DNA by knitting together themethods from molecular dynamics, rodtheory and statistical mechanics. Efforts inthese and other directions are currentlyunderway.

“Our workdemonstrates that rodtheory is well-suited to

model the loopingprocess, in particular

the energetics, andquantitatively predictsand confirms previousmutational analysis of

this system.”

Results from early collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories illustrating the evolution of an interwound supercoil (a plectoneme)under slowly increasing twist applied at left end.

Predicted loop of DNA caused bybinding to the lac repressor protein(shaded in grey). Rod theory is usedto predict the energy and topology ofthe loop which cannot yet be studiedby existing experimental methods.


When it comes to modeling complex phenomena, nature maymake the best instructor. Associate Professor Karl Grosh and

recent graduate Robert White (Ph.D. ’05), along with graduatestudents Lei Cheng and Robert Littrell, have built a micromachinedhydromechanical model that mimics the cochlea in mammals.

Named for the Latin term meaning ‘snail shell,’ the spiral-shapedcochlea sits in the inner ear. Coiled, it’s about the size of a pea;uncoiled, it stretches roughly 3.5 centimeters long and contains acomplex structure of fluid filled ducts separated by membranesand populated by hair cells and other microstructures. The cochleatranslates their vibrations into neural impulses, which the auditorynerve carries to the brain and we ‘hear’ as sound. With the capacityto separate audio signals into some 3,500 channels of frequencyinformation, the cochlea is a highly sensitive real-time transducer.Grosh’s efforts to build a cochlear analog sensor stemmed fromhis group’s research aimed at understanding the biological cochlea.

Other research groups have been doing similar work, but Groshand White’s model is novel in the life-size dimensions achievedwith a scalable microfabrication process.

Grosh and White produced the silicon-and-glass model usingMEMS fabrication techniques, including photolithography, deepreactive ion etching to define structures, and deposition andpatterning of composite materials to create the membrane. Thework was done at the Michigan Nanofabrication Facility, a Collegeof Engineering lab. These procedures allow for the careful tailoringof the mechanical properties of the membranes and fluid-filledducts necessary for proper function, mimicking the biologicalentity.

Near term applications for a device based on the model couldinclude those for low-power signal processing, such ashydrophones to detect submarines, in unattended autonomousvehicles to reveal mines or other uses that require real-time

frequency analysis with minimal hardware. Funding for theresearch has come from the U.S. Navy, National Science Foundationand U-M.

The next step is to incorporate sensors and active feedbackmechanisms. “Microfabrication opens up all kinds of possibilitiesfor economically building more interesting structures,” said White,who recently joined the Tufts University Department of Mechanical

Engineering as an Assistant Professor (seerelated story, page 49). In the future, thedevice could also be incorporated into acochlear implant that might overcome someof the limitations of available systems.

In the interim, there are still lessons tolearn from nature’s model. “I think it’s beensurprising not only to us but to all of thegroups trying to do this,” said Grosh, “howdifficult it is to controllably fabricate adevice that replicates what biology does soseemingly effortlessly.”

Nature Inspires MEMS Cochlea

From left to right: Robert Littrell, Lei Cheng, Niranjan Deo, Dr. SripriyaRamamoorthy, Prof. Karl Grosh, Dr. Xiao-Ai Jiang, and Professor RobertWhite.

Left: Components of the multichannel MEMS cochlea. Right: The packaged device.


Picture a snake-likerobot that rolls along the ground or

propels itself forward — just as an inchworm would —along rugged terrain, through debris or into dangerous industrialor combat situations to aid surveillance efforts. Sound far-fetched?

Research Professor Johann Borenstein and his team in the MEMobile Robotics Lab have built such a robot. While his OmniTreadSerpentine Robot is not the first serpentine robot, it does employseveral novel technologies. His work has received wide mediaattention.

The OmniTread weighs 26 lbs. and includes five segments, eachabout eight inches long and almost completely covered by tracks,allowing the robot to be indifferent to roll-overs. The tracks alsocreate propulsion wherever they touch the environment, especiallyuseful in navigating rubble or dense underbrush.

Pneumatic bellows actuate the joints between segments, giving theOmniTread “tremendous force” there, explained Borenstein. Italso allows complete control of the stiffness of eachjoint–maximum stiffness is best-suited for spanning wide gaps,while minimum stiffness allows the robot to conform to terrain.Conventional serpentine robot design incorporates electricallydriven, rather than pneumatically actuated joints, and it’s difficult,if not impossible, to control the stiffness in such joints duringmotion, he said. “If you can’t control that, it’s generally set to themaximum stiffness, but then it doesn’t conform naturally to theterrain and has less traction and propulsion.”

Using bellows instead of other pneumatic actuators makes optimaluse of limited space. “Whether the bellows are fully expanded orcompressed, they always fit exactly into the joint space. Theychange their shape in the same way the joint changes its shape.That leaves other spaces, like those within the segments, free forother components.”

Yet another innovation is a single motor in the center segment thatpowers a central drive shaft spine and provides torque to all of thetracks. Having a single on-board motor, rather than one persegment as conventional designs do, optimizes weight distributionand reduces energy consumption.

During rigorous testing atthe Southwest Research

Institute, an independentnonprofit applied research and

development organization, theOmniTread crossed railroad tracks and

maneuvered rocky ground, dense grasses, an 18-inch curb, a two-foot trench and a flight of stairs.

The current robot requires a tether for electric power andcompressed air, but a new model in development will have wirelesscapabilities and on-board CO2 cartridges that provide pneumaticpower. The OT-4 can pass through a four-inch diameter hole, incontrast to its predecessor, which can fit through one with aminimum diameter of eight inches. It can latch on to and travelalong narrow linear objects, such as pipes or wires. It can alsoselectively disengage individual tracks from the drive shaft spine,saving power. Even with the improvements, it weighs significantlyless.

Over, Under, Around and Through

The OmniTread serpentine robot is designed to traverse extremelydifficult terrain, such as the rubble of a collapsed building. It can driveover sand and rocks, as well as pass through small holes and climb overtall obstacles.


Good marksmanship, particularly overlong distances, requires skill,

concentration and the ability to remainalmost perfectly still. Even the slightestshooter-induced disturbance — rapidbreathing, vibration caused by a racingpulse, fatigue, stress — coupled withurban combat settings that don’t allowshooters the time to properly stabilizetheir bodies before taking aim, can causesoldiers to miss their mark.

Working with the U.S. Army at PicatinnyArsenal under a Defense AdvancedResearch Projects Agency program,Associate Professor Diann Brei led anational team (Penn State, Virginia Tech,TechnoSciences) that developed apiezoelectric actuator for a stabilizationsystem to minimize shooter-inducedmovements known as jitter. The INertiallySTAbilized Rifle system, known as INSTAR,is comprised of an active suspensionsystem, including power supply, controller,sensors and a piezoelectric actuator basedon active compliant transmission, installedbetween the stock and barrel. INSTAR wasdesigned for the M24 sniper rifle.

There were many challenges to designingthe actuator. The system required highperformance (large strokes, high forces,quick speed), while heavily constrainingthe weight, volume and power source. Inresponse, the team designed a novelintegrated amplification technique withregenerative power electronics. Theysuccessfully demonstrated a proof-of-concept INSTAR system with potential toraise the shooter accuracy a fullqualification level.

This innovative work led to a SmallBusiness Innovation Research programgrant from the U.S. Army and conducted incollaboration with Techno-Sciences, Inc., to design a similar system using shapememory alloys (SMAs) to address theArmy's concerns about the brittleness of

DIANN BREI DESIGNS ACTUATOR FOR RIFLE STABILIZATION

ceramics, since rifles are used in waysother than shooting, for instance to breakdown a door with the butt.

Though SMAs provide high forces andstrokes and are very reliable in adverseenvironments, they tend to be slow, Breiexplained. It is also hard to achieveproportional control, and performancedegrades over cycles, a problem referredto by materials scientists as ‘creep.’ Brei’steam, ME Assistant Research ScientistJonathan Luntz and graduate student BrianBarnes, devised methodologies to resolvethese issues: a conditioning process thatreduced creep from the typical 50 to 70percent down to less than one percent;encasing the actuator in a thermal cooler

and finding a unique duty cycle with partialtransitioning, which increased the speed tothe required ten-hertz range.

Her team has recently received Phase IIfunding to build a working demonstrationsystem based upon the SMA actuation for amore widely used rifle. She expects thatonce in use, both systems will improvesoldier survival rates and accuracy, reduceammunition requirements, cost andlogistics burdens and reduce the timeneeded for infantry training.

INertially STAbilized Rifle (INSTAR) demonstration article used in benchtop testing.


Professor Noel Perkins was selected forthe 2005 Academic Challenge Award for

his MEMS-based Fly Casting Coach/Analyzer.The award was sponsored by the TechnicalUniversity of Munich and ISPO, aninternational sports equipment exposition.

Preliminary research work on theFlycasting Coach/Analyzer began about fouryears ago when, not surprisingly, Perkinstook up fly fishing. “Casting is where thebottleneck lies in this sport,” said Perkins,who experienced firsthand the all-too-common problems of tailing loops, whichentangle the line, and rod creep, whichresults from inadvertently moving therod between forward and backcasts. Learning to cast became “abit of an addiction,” he said,“especially for a dynamicist likemyself.”

To perfect their casting technique flyfishers typically take lessons or courses,where they have an instructor watch, andeven video record, the rod and line as theycast. “But those methods are qualitativeand a bit subjective.” In response, he andhis student Caroline Gatti-Bono (Ph.D. ME,2002) did computational work trying tomodel fly casting, “but we needed to knowthe boundary conditions in order to be

A Better Fly Cast

able to do that.” So they utilized a MEMSrate gyro mounted on a fly rod to measurethe angular velocity of the rod in the planeof the cast. The angular velocity of the flyrod represents approximately 90% of theinput given to the rod by the fly caster.

This signal, known as the fly casting‘signature,’ was captured and stored on ahand-held computer (PDA) using aminiature A/D converter thatcommunicated through the PDA hotsynccable. To accompany the hardware, theteam including recent ME graduate ChrisJoseph and Bruce Richards of ScientificAnglers, created a companion softwareapplication, CastAbility, compatible withdevices running Palm OS.

The software records and analyzes thecasting signature by comparing it withthose of expert casters. Their researchstudies of casting signatures have revealedkey metrics that distinguish skill levels andidentify common problems, explainedPerkins. The software automaticallyevaluates these metrics and providesinstantaneous feedback and customizedinstruction to the fly caster on the PDA.“Now you can break the cast down intodiscrete parts and separately hone oneskill before moving on to the next. It’s asystematic way of evaluatingand learning.”

The AcademicChallenge Awardcarries with it a

2,500 prize, and Perkinswas invited to present theFlycasting Coach/Analyzer atthe ISPO February 2005 tradeshow in Munich. His fly casting

demonstrations received overwhelminglypositive reactions from novice and world-renowned fly casters alike. The system hasreceived wide coverage in trade, consumerand news media.

A patent is pending for the system, whichwill go into production this fall as apartnership between the new company,

CastAnalysis started by Perkins andRichards, and Sage Manufacturing, anindustry-leading manufacturer of fly rods.Perkins has commercial partners whorepresent other sporting industries too,including golf, baseball and hockey. Inparticular, his doctoral student Kevin Kingis advancing their wireless six degrees-of-freedom system for measuring golf swings.

Firms manufacturing waterskiing and rowing

equipment have alsoexpressed interest.“Giving thisinstrument to an

instructor, coach orstudent for any of thesesports is like giving acarpenter a tapemeasure,” he said. “Nowyou have something inyour hand to quantify whatyou’re trying to achieveduring practice.”

Professor Noel Perkins with partner BruceRichards casting a ‘long’ line on a warmMichigan day. Notice the large loop of flylineset against a brilliant sky.

Graph showing the comparison between aintermediate and an expert fly caster.

A MEMS angularrate gyro housed ina capsule. Thecapsule attaches tothe bottom of thefly rod.


During his first 18 months at U-M,Assistant Professor Kevin Pipe has

already undertaken several importantresearch projects and multi-disciplinarycollaborations. In addition to teaching ME235, Thermodynamics, and ME 631,Statistical Thermodynamics, Pipe conductsresearch in the area of micro andnanoscale thermal physics. His workfocuses on heat transfer inside electronicsand optoelectronic devices such astransistors, semiconductors and lasers inorder to improve their reliability andperformance. Some of his other researchinterests include thermoelectrics andnanoscale energy transport in inorganicand organic devices.

For a project funded by the DefenseAdvanced Research Projects Agency, he hasworked with Professor Pallab Bhattacharyaof Electrical Engineering and ComputerScience to fabricate and operate the firstroom-temperature InGaAs quantum dotlasers on a silicon substrate. Self-organized quantum dot lasers hold promisefor high performance, reliable electrically-injected light sources in a CMOS-compatible processes, as evidenced by aJune 2005 paper in Electronics Letters.

With Assistant Professor Max Shtein ofMaterials Science and Engineering, he hasbeen working on energy transfer ininorganic/organic hybrid composites forhigh-efficiency photovoltaics and nanoscaleorganic light emitters. The Office of NavalResearch and the National ScienceFoundation are funding this work.

He is also looking at quantum dotsuperlattices for thermoelectricsapplications, including microscale cooling

and power generation. The NationalScience Foundation is funding the work,and Associate Professor Rachel Goldmanof Materials Science and Engineering iscollaborating.

In conjunction with the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory,Pipe is also exploring heat transfer andthermal management in high-powersemiconductor lasers in order to improveefficiency for long-distancecommunications. In work presented at the2005 International Mechanical EngineeringCongress & Exposition, researchers in hisgroup used microscale temperaturemeasurements to examine the mechanismthat leads to catastrophic optical damage inlasers by profiling — for the first time —the spatial variation of current densityinjection across the laser top contactsurface as it varies in time.

With Associate Professor Albert Shih, he isworking with a new class of lightweightmaterial–graphite foam with a novel pore

structure and ultra-high thermalconductivity. The foam was developed atOak Ridge National Laboratory, and Pipeand Shih are applying it to the cooling ofpower electronics in automotiveapplications. The team is targeting theelectronics systems of hybrid and fuel cellvehicles, which must incorporate effectiveheat spreaders into heat sink design toprevent hot spots and insure that silicon-based electronic components do notoverheat.

Originally from Michigan, Pipe joined the U-M faculty in January 2004 aftercompleting his undergraduate studies andearning his doctoral degree in electricalengineering from the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology (2003). Of his timespent at U-M to date, he says “It’s beengreat so far. I’ve been collaborating with anumber of people in different departmentsand meeting people with quite variedresearch interests. It’s been veryproductive.”

Kevin Pipe Explores Nano-Scale Thermal Physics


Adesign concept developed by Graduate Student MohammedShalaby and Associate Professor Kazuhiro Saitou will soon

make its way into a museum exhibition at The Tech museum ofInnovation in San Jose, California. The exhibit, entitled “Green byDesign,” focuses on designing products, buildings and cities to besustainable right from their very start.

Eric Yuan, the museum’s exhibit developer, came across Shalabyand Saitou’s work on ‘design for disassembly’ (DFD) online, duringhis search for innovative recycling developments to feature in theexhibit.

Yuan found their work on DFD “easy to grasp but also veryinsightful,” precisely what’s needed for such an exhibit.

“Shouldn’t products be designed to come apart just as easily asthey come together?” he asked. “This seemed like an interestingchallenge to present to museum visitors — how do you design acell phone, for instance, that stays together during it’s roughly two-year lifespan, but comes apart easily when you’re ready to recycleit? To take it a step further, what if our products were intentionallydesigned to be recycled?”

One of the concepts featured in “Green by Design” will include aheat-reversible snap design, a conventional locator-snap systemcomprised of a catch and snap, developed under the sponsorshipof Toyota Motor Company. Upon the application of heat at certainpoints, the fastener changes shape due to thermal expansion. Thiscauses the snap and catch to disengage. In automobiles, heat-reversible snap design allows for vehicle components to maintaintheir strength and integrity during their useful life; afterward, itmakes possible the easy detachment of internal frames andexternal panels without damage to either, and increasesrecyclability.

The design requires no special material, such as shape-memoryalloys. In fact, the prototype Shalaby and Saitou provided to themuseum is made of Plexiglas, which Shalaby purchased at a homeimprovement store. “The design only utilizes the thermalexpansion and elastic deformation of materials, properties thatexist in virtually any material. Plastics, however, are some of thebest-suited given their relatively large thermal expansion ratio andlow stiffness,” Saitou said.

The museum currently is experimenting with the prototype tomake it “rugged enough for the exhibit environment — sure, aproduct may be designed for a two-foot drop onto concrete, butcan it withstand 400,000 kids a year for five years?” said Yuan. Heexpects that visitors will use a hair dryer to heat up a productutilizing the design and watch it come apart.

The exhibit will open in June 2006, and Saitou is excited about the“rare and ideal opportunity to disseminate university research tothe general public.” As to what he hopes visitors take away from

the displays, “I hope they realize that designing eco-friendlyproducts does not have to be complicated and that productsdesigned with a few simple — but good — ideas can have a hugeimpact on our future environment when mass-produced.”

News of the inclusion of his work in “Green by Design” came toSaitou while he was on sabbatical. During the fall 2004 semester, heworked with colleagues at Delft University of Technology in theNetherlands to develop a computational method for rapidlygenerating alternative product shapes and evaluating theirstructural responses during conceptual design.

He spent the winter and spring 2005 semesters at Kyoto Universityin Japan working with colleagues on structural optimization forproduct development. Throughout the year he has presentedseminars at numerous conferences and universities around theworld.

From Lab to Museum

(a) Designconcept ofheat-reversiblesnap joint.

(b) Itsdisassemblyaction.

a.

b.


Mirsky, John M.

MSC Software

National Instruments

Nissan Motor

Nissly, Robert F.

Nobunaga, Brian and Staci

NSK Corporation

Papalambros, Panos andLynn

Parks, William

Perez, Carlos

Perkins, Noel C.

Procter & Gamble

Raghava, Ram and Kusuma

Rust, Harrold Jones

Rust, Harold Jones Jr.

SAE Foundation, RaymondMorris

Schafer, Tim

Schmidt, Richard andPatricia

Schoenhals, Dr. and Mrs.Robert J.

Shell Oil Company

Smith, Kenneth and Lauren

Subia, Samuel R.

Suryanarayana, Narasipurand Pramila

Taylor HandicappedChildren’s Association

The POM Group

Toyota Gosei, ToshiyukiTomita

Toyota Group North AmericaCorporation

Toyota Motor Corporation

Toyota Technical Center,Gorge Yamashina

University of Melbourne

Uras, Haci and Ayse

Uras, Mehmet and Ayse

Van Vlack, Lawrence H.Charitable Trust

Visteon

Wilcox, Raymond and Peggy

Wilson, Douglas

Winer, Ward O.

Yamatake Corporation

Youtt, Daniel

Adams, Jeffrey M.

Advance Endodontics, LLC

Angelo and MargaretDiPonio Foundation

Assanis, Dennis and Helen

Bassett, Scott B.

BorgWarner PowertrainCenter

Brighton, Fred and Marcy

Caddell, Doris N.

Carnegie Mellon

Caterpillar

Che, Dr. Chenggang

ChevronTexaco

Cooper Tire and Rubber

DaimlerChrysler

DeFouw, Eugene

Dennis, Robert G.

Elder, Leonard and Debbie

Evsson Corporation

Exxon Mobil Corporation

Filipi, Zoran

Ford Motor Company

Four Winns

Fuller, Debbie and Laine

Gant, Larry

General Motors Corporation

General Motors Foundation

Gerich, Jerry W.

Goodis, Charles J.

Gorton, John V.

Graebel, Dr. William P. andJune E.

Grote, Matthew and Jennifer

Haberman, Dr. and Mrs.Robert

Haskins, Lori

donorsHeatcraft-Advanced HeatTransfer

Hecht, Elizabeth McIvor

Hecht, Karl and Elizabeth

Henkin, Dr. Alexander

Hendrix, Mr. and Mrs. David C.

Hewlett Packard Company

Hogan, Timothy and Shirley

Honeywell HometownSolutions

Hovingh, Jack

Huang, Dr. Ning Sheng

Ickes, William and Juliet

Ingold, Gertrude B.

International Truck

Johnson ControlsFoundation

Johnson, Jeffrey

Kim, Jinsang

Kirk, Jim

Komatsu Limited

Kostun, Patrick H.

Lady, Edward

Lawrence LivermoreNational Lab

Lewis, Dr. Lewis W.

Li and Li-Chen, Naiyi andHuey-Min

Lockheed Martin

Lowe, Deborah L.

Lubrizol Foundation

Luchini, John

Luchini, Dr. and Mrs. John R.

Ma, Zhengdong

Maier, Mr. and Mrs. Edward L.

Martelli, Robert and Nancy

Medtronic Foundation


ME Research Expenditure Trends

$ Millions

20

25

30

15

02–03 03–0498–99 99–00 00–01 01–02

NS 26.3 28.818.2 18.9 21.7 21.6

10

5

0

04-05

27.3

ME Departmental ExpendituresDistribution by Source*

May 1, 2004–April 30, 2005 %

5.56

18.54

3.11

72.79

100.00%

Academic Support1

Instructional2

Scholarships and

Fellowships

Research3

$

2,082,164

6,945,552

1,165,885

27,273,493

37,467,094

Research3

1 Funds used to support the academic mission of the department (infrastructure)

2 Funds used to support teaching and classroom activities3 Funds from external (federal and industrial) and internal sources used for research support and generation

Academic

Support1

Instructional2

Scholarships

and Fellowships

ME Research Expenditures

Federal

Distribution by SourceMay 1, 2004–April 30, 2005

%

71.20

21.80

7.00

100.00%

Federal

Industrial

Other

$

19,419,315

5,944,966

1,909,182

27,273,493Industrial Other

Air Force

Alion Corp.

Baoshan Iron & Steel Co, LTD

Boeing Corporation

Brooks Automation

Cincinnati Lamb

Cummins, Inc

CogniTens, Inc.

DaimlerChrysler

Delphi Corporation

Department of Energy

DARPA

Eaton

ETAS Inc.

Fanuc Robotics

Ford Motor Company

General Electric – AircraftEngines

General Motors

Johnson Controls

Kistler

Logistics ManagementInstitute

Mesco, Inc.

Modbus Organization, Inc.

North Carolina StateUniversity / NSF

NSF

researchsponsors

National Instruments

Pilz

POM Group / NIST

Powerix / DARPA

Rockwell Automation

Semiconductor ResearchCorporation

SNECMA

Tecnomatix Technologies,Ltd.

United States Council onAutomotive Research(USCAR)

U.S. Army

United TechnologiesCorporation

UT-Battelle, LLC

University of Wisconsin


findings have application in sophisticated automated assemblysystems and robotics.

“I like to be able to work on a level that’s simple enough to seewhat’s really going on. Especially these days where we have theability to do such complex calculations — you can easily lose sightof what’s happening in the physical system.”

James R. Barber, Professor ofMechanical Engineering and

Applied Mechanics and Professor ofCivil and EnvironmentalEngineering, has been named a 2005Arthur F. Thurnau Professor. Thisprestigious professorshiprecognizes and rewards faculty foroutstanding contributions toundergraduate education.

Mr. Thurnau attended the Universityof Michigan from 1902 to 1904, andthe professorship is now funded bythe Thurnau Charitable Trust. Everyyear the university designates five orsix tenured faculty members asThurnau Professors for a term ofthree years. Each professorreceives a $20,000 grant to supportteaching activities.

Barber has been a member of theU-M faculty since 1981. He said his reaction upon learning of hisappointment to the professorship was one of “satisfaction andpleasure.” It was also one of humility. “Many of the recipients ofthe Thurnau Professorship have instituted substantial teachinginnovations. I’m not that kind of person — I just go into theclassroom and talk.”

While his approach may sound simplistic, it is effective, not tomention popular with students. “I tell it like it is,” he said, “and Ihave a sense of humor. Because I’ve done quite a lot ofengineering consulting work over the years, I can use exampleproblems with obvious engineering relevance and I canconvincingly explain which parts of the material are particularlyuseful in practice.”

Barber actively discourages his students from excessivememorization. “Anything scientific and mathematical flows from anextremely limited number of initial assumptions. Understandingthis, and learning to trust their own reasoning rather than lookingto authority, can be an empowering experience for the student.”

That’s likely why students and researchers alike — from Chile toIran — visit his web site, www.elasticity.org. The site includes aseries of Maple and Mathematica files to solve 200-plus boundaryvalue problems presented in his widely used textbook Elasticity.

The ability to understand and convey fundamental principles is atthe heart of his approach to education and to his own research.Recently, Barber has presented some preliminary ideas fordetermining the minimum coefficient of friction needed for anelastic system to be capable of getting into a ‘wedged’ state. The

James R. Barber Named Thurnau Professor

Newest Thurnau Professor James Barber (third from left) joins three other ME Thurnau Professors (from left):Alan Wineman, Noel Perkins and ME Department Chair Dennis Assanis.

ME TEACHING INCENTIVEFUND AWARDEES(with the course for which award was received)

CORE COURSES:Matt Parkinson ME 350, Fall ’03Kazu Saitou ME 250, Winter ’03Alan Wineman ME 211, Fall ’03Claus Borgnakke ME 235, Fall ’03Edgar Meyhöfer ME 211, Fall ’03Dian Brei ME 350, Winter ’03Suman Das ME 250, Fall ’03

TECHNICAL ELECTIVES:Dragan Djurdjanovic ME 461, Fall ’03

EDUCATING THE NEXT GENERATION 25

problem. Not everyone gets to see theirresearch used in such an immediate andaccessible way, and I’m really proud ofKim’s accomplishments and the mentorshipshe demonstrated.” The research work wassupported by the NSF EngineeringResearch Center for Wireless IntegratedMicroSystems led by Professor Ken Wise(U-M EECS), in which Sastry is a co-PI.

By the end of the semester, 27 of 28student groups had found better, lower-cost designs, including using hybrid power,changes in phone casing to accommodate alarger battery and decreasing capabilities— in line with how students use theirphones — to draw less power. “They cameup with many different and creative ideason how to satisfy their cohort,” she said,“and they also learned to apply statistics ina meaningful, logical way. The point we keptdrilling home was that unlimitedexperimentation in engineering is notpossible: you have to design experiments,and apply rigorous analysis of your data, toefficiently solve problems.”

For Cook, the exercise represented comingfull circle in her own education. “Having

‘New and Improved’ Course Sparks ‘Newand Improved’ Cell Phone Designs

been an undergraduate student in thedepartment (B.S. ME, 1994), I admit that Ididn’t love lab. But as an instructor, it wasreally a wonderful opportunity to work withSastry to renovate and teach it, the waythat I would have liked to have taken it!”Cook, who recently joined the faculty ofMechanical Engineering at DrexelUniversity, continues, “I am lookingforward to using what I learned in myteaching at Drexel.”

Student instructors Fabio Albano and ChrisCadotte and former ME Assistant ResearchScientist Yun-Bo Yi, who recently accepteda faculty appointment at the University ofDenver, were also “terrific, and crucial tothe success of the class,” said Sastry, andAlbano will be using the code that studentsdeveloped as part of his thesis work. Thecourse, she said, was a winner all-around:“in significantly improving a key course, inmentoring graduate students, in applyingresearch done in our own department, andin having undergraduates solve a realengineering problem. I’m very proud ofwhat everyone accomplished. We set thebar high, and the class met us there.”

At the end of the winter semester,students in the newly redesigned

ME 495, ME’s Senior Laboratory, had donemore than earn their grades. The class of113 used a code developed as a Ph.D. thesisproject to improve cell phone batterydesign. Students were asked to survey U-Mundergraduates on cell phone usage, andthen improve the power supplies for fourcommercially available cell phones, creatingsmaller and lower-cost systems.

Professor Ann Marie Sastry redesigned thenew course, and taught it for the first timein W’05, supervising a team of graduatestudent and professional instructors.Though laboratory classes are seldompopular, this course received the highestevaluations in its history, as studentssharpened their statistical skills andapplied them to ‘real world’ problems. Asone student wrote in an end-of-semesterevaluation, “[Sastry] was absolutely thebest professor I have had here...I liked howthe focus was much more onprofessionalism than getting the grade. Ialso appreciated the introduction tostatistical analysis.”

Students worked in groups and didn’t haveunlimited time in the lab, said Sastry. “Theyhad to zero in on experiments that weremost important for their particular userprofiles and they were responsible forconducting the surveys to inform theirwork. For instance, some found that IM(instant messaging) was not as popularamong college students as the media wouldhave you think. Since it was a low componentof power usage, some groups eliminated itfrom their testing. On the other hand,student users used many more talk minutesthan other surveys had estimated.”

The class was also tasked with batterytesting, which meant they needed to learn anew set of terminology and testingprotocols. The doctoral work of KimberlyCook (Ph.D., U-M BME ’04, under Sastry’ssupervision), was the basis for the project,said Sastry. “She built test rigs for thestudents, and they used codes developedduring her doctoral work for data analysis.It turned into a real-world engineering

Professor Ann Marie Sastry (center) with Chris Cadotte (left) and Fabio Albano.


The design of new thermal processesand devices require a strong

understanding of heat transfer and energyconversion at the atomic level. Toward thatend, Professor Massoud Kaviany hasdeveloped a new course, Heat TransferPhysics (ME 599). “The emergence ofmicro- and nanotechnologies offers evenmore opportunities to ME graduates, andwe have to continuously refine our coursesand instructions to prepare our students,”he said.

Applications of heat transfer and energyconversion are wide-ranging and includethermoelectric cooling, solid and gas-phase lasers, laser cooling of solid and gas,thermal photovoltaics, nano and micro-thermo-electro-mechanical devices,molecular design of thermalsuperinsulating and superconductingsolids and heat transfer fluids, includingnanofluids.

This course draws on several disciplines,from solid-state and statistical physics to

molecular dynamics and radiation-optics.As a result, it is a challenging course toteach — and to take, said Kaviany. “It is acombination of survey and more completetreatments; some subjects are quicklyreviewed while we cover others in greatdetail.” Topics include the fundamentals ofatomic presentation of energy and itstransport and conversion, through the fourmicroscale energy carriers, namely,phonon, electron, fluid particle and photon.

Kaviany’s own research and experienceinformed the development of the course.His work examines the transport andtransformation of thermal energy.Currently, his research group isinvestigating the role of molecular andmacro pores on these phenomena, withinnovative use of porous media in newtechnologies. Much of the group’s work isdone using molecular dynamicssimulations and theoretical analysis.However, they also perform experimentson synthesis, characterization, and process

ME 599Heat Transfer Physics

measurements (recent efforts includecollaborative experimental work withChemistry, Electrical Engineering andPhysics).

Despite the demanding syllabus of HeatTransfer Physics, students in the first classwere pleased with the course. Oneevaluator commented on Kaviany’s “uniquevision for how engineering should evolvecloser to science. I really enjoyed and wasenriched by the philosophicaldiscussions.” Another said the class was“one of the most inspiring courses I wasexposed to at Michigan.” And, in what maybe the strongest — if not surprising —endorsement, one student praised theassignment of a final paper as a “greataddition to the course.”

Heat Transfer Physics (ME 599) will betaught again in winter 2006.


The new summer exchange program expands existing collaborativeefforts that the college has with TU Berlin through a formalcooperative agreement. Master’s- and faculty-level exchanges havebeen underway for several decades already, and faculty from bothinstitutions often jointly supervise students.

In addition to his colleague, Sick credits Melissa Eljamal, directorof the International Programs in Engineering Office, and StellaPang, associate dean for Graduate Education, for getting thesummer school program going.

New Summer Exchange Program ReceivesFunding

ME Professor Volker Sick and colleague Frank Behrendt, aprofessor in the Institute of Energy Engineering at Technische

Universität Berlin, have received funding to develop a summerprogram for students. The grant comes from DeutscherAkademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD), or the German AcademicExchange Service, which promotes German universities topromising international students and faculty.

The four to six week program, “Summer SchoolProjektingenieurwissenschaften,” developed by Behrendt and Sick,will give U-M engineering students the opportunity to live abroadand work on research in small teams at TU Berlin, one ofGermany’s largest technical institutes. Participants will choosefrom among 10 projects and work with just three to five otherstudents. “The beauty of this program,” said Sick, “is that studentswill work very closely in U.S.-German teams.” In addition, studentswill be exposed to German culture, history and language. Theprogram may include a travel component too, where U-M studentstour other parts of Germany and Europe.

Unlike other exchange programs which target students in theirjunior or senior years, the professors are hoping to recruit first-year and early-second-year students from departments throughoutU-M’s College of Engineering. “In ENGIN 100, a first-yearengineering required course, students learn essential tools forengineering practice — communication, teamwork, research skills.To that, we want to add international experience. We want toexpose students to an overseas experience early in their academiccareers so that they become more aware of additional internationalopportunities, like summer internships, during their time inBerlin.”

About 15 students will participate during the summer of 2006, andthey will gain much more than technical know-how, added Sick.They will be exposed to different approaches to engineeringeducation and to solving research problems. “The largest benefitswill be the exposure early on to different ways of thinking andapproaching engineering — students need to develop anunderstanding of these differences — and the long-lastingprofessional contacts they’ll make.”

Sick plans to teach accompanying courses in Germany that he andBehrendt intend to develop. Recruitment for the first group ofstudents will begin in fall 2005. Behrendt will visit U-M to assistwith the effort.

A view of the campus of Technical University of Berlin.


Inspiring Girls to Learn About Science

Associate Professor Dawn Tilbury has helped inspire girls ingrades five through eight to explore the world of science by

participating in two Sally Ride Science Festivals. The objective ofthe festivals is to increase the number of girls who have afoundation for and interest in further education in science, mathand engineering.

The festivals are named for astronaut Sally K. Ride, the firstAmerican woman to orbit the earth, and take place around the U.S.They feature lectures and workshops for girls as well as activitiesfor their parents and teachers about how to support girls’ interestsin the sciences and math. Sally Ride gave the keynote address,answering questions about her experiences in space-meeting areal astronaut was a highlight of the day. A street fair with hands-onactivities, music and food contributed to the festival atmosphere.

During the Ann Arbor festivals, students from the NSF EngineeringResearch Center for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systemsdemonstrated the operation of the Reconfigurable Factory Testbed,

giving the girls a firsthand look at how two wax blocks are turnedinto a small toy train.

After the demonstration, girls who attended the workshop alsolearned how to program robots to pick up a racquetball and drop itinto a funnel. Each girl teaches one point in the path, and then theinstructors replay the path on automatic, demonstrating how it canbe sped up or slowed down. “They see the benefits of automation--how fast the robot can move,” said Tilbury. “Of course sometimesthe ball falls out of the fixture, but the robot doesn’t notice andjust keeps moving. So they also get to see the limitations.”

Tilbury plans to assist again at the next Ann Arbor festival to beheld in fall 2005. “I think it’s important for girls to get interested inscience at a young age,” she said, “and that’s why I support theprogram.”

Professor Tilbury demonstrates how to program the robot from the teachpendant.

Professor Tilbury holds the teach pendant whilea young attendee enters robot commands.

Robot programming is fun!


The NSF Engineering Research Centerfor Reconfigurable Manufacturing

Systems (ERC-RMS) recently hosted threestudents participating in the center’s TribalColleges and Universities Partnership(TCUP). The TCUP program was developedby ERC-RMS faculty and staff to increasethe enrollment of Native American studentsin undergraduate and graduate studies inthe College of Engineering at U-M.

One student attends New Mexico StateUniversity, one is from Mendocino Collegein California and the third is enrolled atHaskell Indian Nations University inLawrence, KS. They spent summer 2005 inAnn Arbor as participants in theuniversity’s Research Experience forUndergraduates program, one componentof TCUP. “They’re really here to get asense of the research that’s going on,”said Lenea Howe, education coordinatorfor the ERC-RMS. “We’re working now withadmissions to get them ready to transfer,which they plan to do within the year.”

In addition to conducting researchalongside faculty and graduate students —

“it’s phenomenal what they’re working on,”added Howe — students attendednumerous seminars on presenting theirwork and other topics. They put their skillsto the test with several weeklydepartmental, college, and university-widepresentations. “We do a lot with them —their days are packed,” said Howe. Still, the

group found time to tour the Ford RougeFactory in Dearborn, which “was a hit,” shesaid. The Society of Minority EngineeringStudents graduate component also

They didn’t realizehow versatile a degree

in ME is. But that’ssomething they needto know, and nowthey’re seeing it for

themselves.”

THREE STUDENTS EXPLORE ME OPTIONS THROUGH TRIBALCOLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES PARTNERSHIP

addressed participants, who said thesession was one of the best all summer.

The National Science Foundation funds theTCUP program. The students are applyingfor transfer to U of M to finish their lasttwo years of undergraduate studies here.Those two years will be funded by thegrant. Upon graduation and acceptance intoa U-M graduate engineering program,students receive full funding through thePh.D. level. The long-term goal of the TCUPprogram is to contribute to thedevelopment of a diverse, well-preparedworkforce of scientists and engineers,explained Howe.

“The students have said that theywondered what they would do when theygraduated. ‘I never thought aboutmanufacturing before, but now I knowthat’s what I want to do,’ they’ve told me.When I hear that, I think to myself, Wow, it’sworking. They really didn’t know theoptions. They didn’t realize how versatile adegree in ME is. But that’s something theyneed to know, and now they’re seeing it forthemselves.”

Students in the U-M/TCUP program,Jerrod Begaye (New Mexico State) and

Michael Daugomah (HaskelIndian Nations University)

teamed up with studentsfrom FAMU on a project

for the REU programlast summer.


Outstanding Student Leader Recognized

Each year, the Office of Student Activitiesand Leadership presents its annual

Michigan Leadership Awards to recognizeoutstanding university students, faculty andorganizations for their accomplishments inboth academic and extracurricularendeavors and for their contributions tothe vitality of U-M. The awards have beentailored to recognize the true spirit ofleadership at the University of Michiganthat values integrity, initiative, stewardshipreciprocity and respect. This year, thanks tohis exemplary record of achievement in andout of the classroom, ME alumnus DanielTan received an Outstanding StudentLeader honor.

Tan, a native of Singapore, was thepresident of the Singapore Students’Association (SSA) prior to his graduation inApril 2005. In that role, he was instrumentalin formulating a new vision for theorganization — to foster strongercohesion within the Singaporeancommunity, as well as to reach out to thewider U-M community. In addition toworking on improving the events that havebeen conventionally organized to buildstronger bonds between the organization’s150 members, he led the effort to identifynew events to facilitate the formation ofinterest groups within the community andjumpstart a self-renewing process to bringthe community closer together.

Tan’s efforts were designed to benefit thegreatest number of people in and out ofthe university community as possible.Among his achievements, he arranged forSSA members’ parents to have the optionof applying to the alumni society inSingapore as associate members, with theintention of starting a support group backat home. He also worked on developingnew strategic partnerships with diversegroups on campus to create win-winsituations for everyone involved.

“I worked on developing closerrelationships between the Southeast Asian(SEA) student groups,” said Tan. “Thisincluded the Indonesian Students’Association (PERMIAS), the MalaysianStudents’ Association (UMIMSA) and the

Thai Students’ Association (TSA). Our goalwas to establish networking opportunitiesfor all our members and to promote theSEA culture to the U-M community. To thisend, I founded a new student group, theSoutheast Asian Network, in consultationwith the presidents of these groups.”

That effort led to the establishment of aSEA Culture Night in March 2005 thatshowcased the region’s unique cultures tothe U-M community through food,performances and exhibitions. The eventwas so successful that it was awarded theOutstanding Collaboration Award at the APAAwards 2005.

Tan was also actively involved in SERVE, thestudent-run unit at U-M that works toprovide students with opportunities toaddress serious social issues throughcommunity service and social action. Thegoal is to heighten campus awareness ofsocial issues, increase student involvementin the community, address communityproblems and raise social consciousness.

“I served on the Leadership Team of theAlternative Spring Break (ASB) programwithin SERVE as the only returningmember from last year. I worked with therest of the team to plan 35 service trips todifferent sites across the country. Morethan 400 students across campus went onthese trips during spring break in 2005 foran immersive community serviceexperience. My specific role entailedplanning education and training sessionsthroughout the whole year for our 72student leaders so that they were fullyprepared to lead their respective groups onthe trips. I’m pleased to say that for ASB’swork, we received the Outstanding CampusImpact award at the 2005 Ginsberg Awardsfor Community Service and Social Action.”

In addition to winning the OutstandingStudent Leader honor, Tan had earlierreceived Michigan Campus Compact’s“Commitment to Service” award at theOutstanding Student Service Awards 2004-2005.

“I was thankful, touched and deeplyhumbled,” said Tan of receiving the award.

“It is one of the highest honors to berecognized as a student leader among the‘leaders and best’ and that it must beshared with everyone I have worked withand from whom I have learned so much. Ithink that this honor is not just about what Ihave done, but also about what I can dofrom now on.”

Tan recently completed an internship withBMW in Landshut, Germany, and he’ll beworking toward a master’s degree inmanagement science and engineering atStanford.

Outstanding NewMembers RecognizedTwo ME students, Jason Moscettiand Christopher Worrel, havereceived recognition asOutstanding New Members inApril 2005.

The two were recognized for theirwork with the M-Racing Team andHabitat for Humanity,respectively.

The Outstanding New MemberAward recognizes students whohave exhibited enthusiasm andinitiative, and who have providedformal or informal leadership andservice to the U-M community.

Daniel Tan with the Hmong student he worked withat Wellstone Elementary in St. Paul, Minnesota,during the Alternative Spring Break.

MAKING THEIR MARK 31

Gold Medal Student Athlete

Dan Ketchum (B.S. ME ’04,MSE ME ’05), an ME

alumnus, has earnedsomething few people everdo: an Olympic gold medal.

Ketchum was a member ofthe 4x200-meter freestyleU.S. Olympic relay team atthe 2004 Olympics in Athens.(The team also included six-time gold medalist MichaelPhelps and Peter Vanderkaay,both U-M students.)

Ketchum began swimmingwhen he was seven yearsold. Living in Florida at thetime, “it was the popularthing to do,” he said. Hisfriends were on a club team,so he tried out. “I didn’t do very well thefirst couple of times I swam, but by thethird practice I was doing 200 laps. I didn’tlike being the only one who couldn’t do it.”

Training for the Olympics was intense, hesaid, but not much more so than hisregimen for the U-M team as swimmingand diving senior captain, under thedirection of Coach Jon Urbanchek: at leastfive hours of training daily, four of them inthe water, five days each week. OnSaturdays he’d swim for two hours. Sundaywas his day off.

Winning the gold was always a dream forKetchum, but not necessarily a goal. “Ididn’t start out planning to make theOlympics and earn a gold medal. Over the

last four or five years itstarted to become a goal.And a more realistic one inthe last year or two.”

The experience “made 15years of competing allworth it. There was thisoverwhelming sense of‘Wow, you did it. You’vebeen working for this forso long — you’ve achievedyour dreams, your goals,everything,’” Ketchumsaid.

After earning hisbachelor’s degree,Ketchum interned atGeneral Electric GlobalResearch Center with

fellow Michigan alumnus Marshall Jones(B.S. ME ‘65) in the Laser ProcessingLaboratory. The two met when Jones wason sabbatical from GE in 2004 andconducting research at U-M; Ketchum waswrapping up his undergraduate career andready to find a job.

“Conducting research was not top of mind,for sure,” said Ketchum. But after talkingwith his advisor, Associate Professor AlbertShih, and Jones about “being on the cuttingedge of engineering technologies, itsounded exciting enough to give a shot.”He enrolled in the master’s program andapplied for an internship with GE.

Ketchum said he gained invaluableexperience working with Jones. He not only

learned to use a direct-write machine tosinter microscale conductive lines on chipsbut also got a sense of how to plan projectslong-term.

“Working with Marshall was prettyincredible. He’s one of the premierengineers out there — he knows what he’stalking about, he does it right, and he’salways willing to answer questions.”

Jones, a self-described “sports addict” whowon the intramural wrestling championshipin his weight class while at U-M, speaks justas highly of Ketchum. “He jumped in to hiswork here head first and didn’t back away.”

Jones also noted Ketchum’s maturity andworldliness. “I’d mention a place I traveledto, and Dan would say, ‘Oh yeah, I swamthere in...’ He’s a well-rounded individualand sensitive to others, especially youth.He got involved in the community in AnnArbor, and he got involved here and in otherplaces, talking to students about hisexperiences. He’s always willing to share ofhimself.”

That impressed Jones, who serves as amentor to U-M students and others aroundthe country himself. “On top of that, todevote at least five hours a day to be at thepinnacle of his sport and to do as well as hedid at U-M in an engineering programranked second in the nation, that’s reallysaying something.”

Olympic gold medalist and MEstudent Dan Ketchum.

“To devote at least five hours a day to be at the pinnacle of his sport and to doas well as he did at U-M in an engineering program ranked second in the

nation, that’s really saying something.”


Team MomentUMTeam MomentUM took third place in the2005 World Solar Challenge. The four-dayevent finished in Adelaide, Australia, inSeptember. The 3,000-kilometer race,which traverses the continent from northto south, kept participants and spectatorsalike rapt; competition was dramatic, withthe U-M team alternating between secondand third place throughout the race. Onthe final day, a piece of metal road debrissliced and lodged into MomentUM’sleading edge. “Luckily our strongcomposite body stopped it from enteringthe inside of the car and only cut a fewinches into the body and did very minimaldamage,” reads an entry on the team’srace blog. The driver was not injured, andMomentUM continued to the nextcheckpoint.

Teams from 11 countries participated inthe competition, sponsored by the U.S.Department of Energy, its NationalRenewable Energy Laboratory, and NaturalResources Canada.

“Our students should be commended notonly for their technical abilities but alsofor their stamina and GO BLUE spirit,”said Professor Dennis Assanis,department chair, who also creditedfaculty co-advisors Bob Culver and BrianGilchrist and the team’s loyal sponsors andsupporters.

Charles S. Hutchins WinsDistinguished Service Award

Whether it’s traveling to Australia for a 3,000-km World Solar Challenge race orcalling fellow alumni to inspire their support of the ME department, the college

or the university in some way, Charles S. Hutchins doesn’t think twice. In recognitionof his dedication he earned the 2004 Alumni Society Distinguished Service Award.

Hutchins graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and AppliedMechanics in 1957. A visionary who saw the need for open architecture computernumerical control and real-time data collection on the factory floor, he is recognizedas a pioneer of computer aided manufacturing (CAM). Hutchins lead the developmentof Compact II, a programming language for numerically controlled machine tools, andtwice co-founded companies named Manufacturing Data Systems, Inc., both leaders inthe CAM field.

In addition to having served on the Alumni Society Board of Directors and theExecutive Advisory Board of the ME department, Hutchins has been a sponsor ofevery Solar Car team since the Solar Car Team’s formation in 1989. From waving aMichigan flag at the finish line of a race or facilitating teamwork among students toresolving a technical problem, he consistently shares his time, resources, expertiseand access to an accomplished network of colleagues and friends, according toMichael Brackney, the team’s project manager.

For Hutchins, winning the Alumni Society Distinguished Service Award is “like icing onthe cake.”

“You see the challenges that these kids face, and the pressure of a racing deadline— it’s really a sophisticated car — and how well they pull it all together,” he said.“It’s fun to watch and cheer! Each year the car only gets better. To win four first-placeAmerican Solar Challenge trophies in eight races, that’s no small feat.”

Chuck Hutchins is pictured with grandson Eric C. Montague (far left), son of Linda A. Hutchins,(M ’78 B.S.E CO ENG) and John T Montague, a Stanford EE; grandson Eli S. Skeggs, age 10, sonof Beth L. Hutchins, (M ’82 AB LSA), and Peter Skeggs; and his wife Ann, (M ’57 B.S. DES). Ericwas born during the 1990 Solar Car race that Michigan won. Chuck reports: “When I called Lindato announce the win, I said, ‘When you are nursing Eric, whisper in his ear — Michigan first,Stanford seventh.’ So now at age 15, this is Eric’s fourth time attending a solar car race: 2 daysin 1997 at age 7, a week in 1999, two weeks in 2001, and 19 days in 2005. Eric now feels like ateam veteran, and from my standpoint he couldn’t find a better group of role models. Will he andEli ever become Wolverines? Only time will tell.”


the easy part. Anyone with the righteducation can crunch numbers. The hardpart is making a very unique group ofindividuals work together effectively toachieve a common goal.”

This year’s design featured a three-wheelconfiguration to help meet the goal ofoperating a solar-powered car atapproximately the same speed as a normalcar. The three-wheeled concept emergedfrom a tradeoff study that the teammembers did, where they found that theycould reduce the weight and aero drag of athree-wheeled car, while maintaining thesimplicity of the design. The team tookMomentUM, which weighs just under 650lbs with the driver in it, up to 80 mph. It’sabout three times as aerodynamic as anormal truck, enabling it to go at its topspeeds using approximately the samepower as a toaster oven.

Bragging rights aside, significantengineering advances can emerge from therace. The most practical applications haveto do with the intelligent systems that thecar uses to drive down the road.MomentUM incorporated a microcontrollersystem that is similar to one used on somemilitary helicopters. It runs code that canprovide such things as intelligent cruisethat takes input from the motor itself toreduce energy while maintaining speed,and other power management and powersafety ideas that are or can be used inhybrid-electric vehicles that are inproduction today.

(overseeing power systems,microcontrollers, and real-time telemetrydata), the business team (fundraising,logistical and infrastructure issues), andthe strategy team (energy conservationand strategic use of power). Balogh alsonoted the significant contributions madeby former team members and the team’sadvisors.

“We’ve also worked with graduate studentChris Churchill and several solar caralumni who are now working within theengineering industry. We also have twofaculty advisors, Brian Gilchrist and BobCulver, and Chito Garcia, an experiencedmachinist and also a team mentor.”

One of the strongest motivations this timewas the team’s desire to improve onprevious attempts that were unsatisfactory.That effort encompassed bothdesign/engineering and team coordination.

“Several of us were involved in the lastsolar car project,” said Balogh, “which didnot qualify for this race. There’s been agreat deal of improvement. We’ve alsopassed the qualifier race — the FormulaSun Grand Prix — where we finishedsecond.

“Still, it’s a completely differentenvironment during the race, since there islittle time for actual engineeringdevelopment, and the strengths of theindividual teams are what determineswinners and losers. Since no car runsperfectly, it is the behavior of the team as awhole that determines how much time isspent on the track, and what happens if thecar has to stop racing. The best teamsolves the problems the most quickly, andthis is what keeps the car going. Therefore,what I like to say is that the engineering is

Driving from Austin, Texas to Calgary,Alberta is a snap if you have the time

and money for fuel. It’s more of a challengeif you’re counting on the sun for fuel, as didthe solar-powered cars in the 2005 NorthAmerican Solar Challenge (NASC). But itreally helps if you have MomentUM.

“This victory is the fourth for the Universityin the 15-year history of the event — themost of any school. I know you share mypride in this tremendous accomplishmentthat reflects well on the interdisciplinarystrength of the College and the University,”wrote Ronald Gibala, interim dean of the U-M College of Engineering, in announcingthe results to the College of Engineeringcommunity.

Finishing first proved that MomentUM, U-M’s latest-generation solar car, clearlymet the challenges inherent in the 2,500-mile race held in July 2005. The length ofthe race exceeds the two previous races byover 100 miles and is the longest heldanywhere in the world. This year’s raceattracted some 40 teams, including 10 fromCanada.

ME is proud to have played a significantrole in the team’s success. Race CrewChief Peter Balogh, who just finished histhird year at ME, oversaw all of theengineering on the vehicle. The ME teamwas headed up by ME junior Max Ross andwas one of the larger teams with over 20participants. Other key ME studentsinvolved were junior Mike Adams, andsophomores Brian Ignaut, Doug Lambertand Joe Belter, who was driving whenMomentUM crossed the finish line.

In addition to the ME team, other teamscontributing to the solar car’s overallprogram include the power team

Sun-sational! U-M TEAM WINS SOLAR CAR RACE


On or Off the Road, SAE Leaves Its Mark

“Everyone did such a great job. Our eventscoordinator did tons of work — everyonedid — and we were hoping this would bethe year we’d take first,” she said. “Wetook third last year, and we decided wewere going for everything this year sincethe chapter really grew.”

That growth is no accident, but rather partof the board’s strategy to increasemembership. The chapter organizes manyactivities with that objective in mind: alecture series, a trip to the North AmericanInternational Auto Show, tours of the U-MTransportation Research Institute and jointactivities with other groups, including theUniversity Minority Mechanical Engineers,the campus chapter of the AmericanSociety of Mechanical Engineers and theSAE Detroit Section.

The $1,250 prize will be split with theFormula SAE team and put in the chapter’sgeneral fund to pay for such activities as anexpanded lecture series and car show.

After earning her bachelor’s degree in ME,Karakashian began working forDaimlerChrysler and will pursue a master’sdegree. In addition to making manyprofessional contacts and increasing hertechnical knowledge, she said thatparticipating in the campus chapter gaveher the opportunity to learn how to be aleader. Winning the student competitionwasn’t any less rewarding. “It was a greatway to end the year — it capped off all ourefforts to make the chapter bigger andbetter.”

A Drive to LeadIn January 2005, then ME senior EricRybczynski honed his leadership skills withSAE movers and shakers in theorganization’s first SAE LeadershipDevelopment Program. He was nominatedby Professor Volker Sick.

Rybczynski had been active in the studentchapter, serving on the executivecommittee as treasurer and on theMRacing team. When Sick learned of the

chapter returned to campus from the SAEWorld Congress, held at Cobo Center inDetroit in spring 2005, they came homewith more than sleep deprivation and newprofessional contacts: the chapter wonfirst prize in the annual Detroit SectionStudent Exhibit Competition. The victorybrought with it a financial award of $1,250.

All student chapters were eligible tocompete, and participants “came from asclose as five minutes away from Cobo Hallto halfway around the world. That was kindof cool,” said Kelly Karakashian, thechapter’s immediate past president.

In their allotted exhibit space in theCongress’ exhibition hall, the U-Mstudents displayed posters depicting MSAEevents held over the past year and vehicleteam accomplishments. The Formula SAE2004 Wolverine was on display as well.

Exhibits were judged on technical content,teamwork, project management and overallquality. Each chapter also made a briefpresentation to a panel of judges. Thattook place “bright and early,” one morningof the Congress, said Karakashian, whospoke for the chapter. By mid-afternoonwinners had been announced.

Karakashian was excited when she heardthe news, but not terribly surprised.

The membership of the Society ofAutomotive Engineers numbers more

than 84,000, comprised of engineers,entrepreneurs, executives, educators andstudents from nearly 100 countries. Theyrepresent a variety of disciplines but sharea strong interest in the design andoperation of self-propelled vehicles usedon land, sea and in the air. The U-M studentchapter, MSAE, and its MRacing FormulaSAE and Mini Baja racing teams are noexception.

“The dedication our students have justblows you away,” said Professor VolkerSick, who serves as faculty advisor for thechapter and the Formula SAE MRacingteam. “We’re not lenient here at U-M withstudents in terms of their workload, andthey spend a lot of additional time on SAEactivities. The amount of effort and talentis mind-boggling. From presentation skillsto technical knowledge, they’reunbelievable. They benefit, too, from veryattractive internship and study- or work-abroad opportunities and good job offerswhen they graduate.”

Winning Big at SAE WorldCongress When several ME students from the SAE

Kelly Karakashian in the Formula SAE 2004 Wolverine.


imagination, he added. Work on each year’sformula-style car begins over the summerwith design and simulation work thatincludes research on an enginedynamometer and running data acquisitionon the previous year’s vehicle. Theremaining months are spent manufacturingon campus and outsourcing some parts toprofessional machine shops. Throughoutthe year, the team “pays close attention totime- and money-management and turningout a professional product,” said Campbell.

In 2004-05, under the direction of chiefengineer Jason Moscetti, projectmanager Jeff Lovell and faculty

advisor Professor VolkerSick, the team of

almost

three dozen students designed a car with adry sump oil lubrication system, customsix-piston brake calipers, a carbon fibersteering wheel and launch and tractioncontrol, noted Campbell.

At the competition, the car placed fifth inthe category of acceleration, skid pad andautocross. It also took third place for bestsuspension system design anddevelopment, including outstandingperformance, manufacturing andaesthetics. Overall it placed 40th among 139participating teams.

To place high in the competition, teamsneed experience and motivation, Campbellsaid. “A unique design may score points inthe static judging events, but a fast andreliable car is needed in the dynamicevents,” he said. “MRacing has always donewell in both types, and it’s proven itself oneof the top five dynamic Formula SAE teamsin the world.” �

MRacing Car Shows WhatIt’s Made OfIn May 2005, MRacing Formula SAE carnumber 129 had the chance to strut itsstuff, and it did. The car, fully designed,built and tested by members of theMRacing team, placed so well it will befeatured in the November issue of Road &Track magazine.

The four-day competition held at thePontiac Silverdome is one of seveninternational competitions, butthe Detroit-area event is themost popular, according toDan Campbell, teamcaptain and project

manager. Approximately 140 teamsfrom all over the world compete.“Australia, South Korea, Brazil, Germany,Italy, Sweden...it’s unbelievable to see whatcollege students are capable of building ontheir own,” said Campbell, who hasparticipated in three competitions.

Unbelievable, especially since restrictionson the car frame and engine challengestudents’ knowledge, creativity and

new leadership program, he thought this“engaged student, who’s well-organized inhis involvement” would be a great fit.

So did SAE. Rybczynski was one of just 25students chosen for the two-day program,which took place in San Antonio, Texas. Theevent was designed to further developleadership skills in younger members tofoster high-level participation in SAE aswell as in the mobility industries. Trainingsessions covered presentation skills,career development and mentoring. Thecost of the program and related travelexpenses were paid for by SAE.

Rybczynski said the program was “a greatexperience. It was incredibly beneficial tointeract with students who are excited andmotivated to be a part of the automotiveindustry. The highlight of the program wasjust getting to interact on an informal basiswith fellow students from around thecountry who have strong desires toimprove the industry and who are as crazyabout cars as I am.”

Rybczynski has been involved with MSAEsince freshman year, when he joined theMRacing team. In 2003-04, he served asengine group leader, responsible foroverseeing the race car’s design,purchasing, organization, manufacturingand testing of the engine and relatedcomponents. In the 2004 Formula SAECompetition, the team placed fourth indesign and improved 16 positions from theprevious year’s race.

Rybczynski earned his bachelor’s degreeand is now pursuing a master’s in ME witha focus on fluid mechanics andthermodynamics. He spent a summerworking for Volkswagen Research andDevelopment in Wolfsburg, Germany aspart of a team researching alternativemodes of combustion for gasoline engines.

His experience on the Formula SAE teamand with the U-M SAE student chapter hasbeen “by far the most rewarding here atthe university.” It takes a lot of time, headded, “but in the end I wouldn’t have hadit any other way.”

MRacing Formula SAE car.

Team members prepare the MRacing car for thecompetition.


SAE continued

Sick is currently developing a course tocoincide with the design and developmentof the Formula SAE car. “Students spend alot of time building a new car each year.Why not make their work part of thecurriculum and give them credit for theirextraordinarily high level of engagement?”

Mini Baja: Best in TenThe U-M Mini Baja Team had their bestfinish in ten years at the 2005 Mini Baja Eastcompetition, held in May at the RochesterInstitute of Technology. The off-roadvehicle, designed and built by the team,placed first in acceleration, top speed, hillclimb and cost events; second place in landmaneuverability; and third place in design.It placed third overall among 73participating teams.

Of the three SAE Mini Baja competitionsheld each year, the East competition isperhaps the most challenging. “We had todesign a car that’s capable of floating/propelling/steering across a deep body ofwater,” explained Michael Michaud, teamproject manager. “Essentially we wererequired to drive through about 100 yardsof deep water in every lap of the four-hourendurance race.”

The team’s strong finish is even moreimpressive considering this was only thesecond time it participated in the Eastevent in recent history. “We consider ourperformance particularly exceptionalbecause we were armed only with theknowledge gained from one year ofexperience,” he said.

Michaud attributes the results to the timespent on the car’s flotation system and thecontinuously variable transmission that wascustomized to power train requirements,something few other teams do, he said. Acustom spur gear reduction final drive alsohelped. But the real challenge was time.“Getting the car designed, built and testedbetween September and May requires a lotof planning, hard work and compromise inorder to get projects finished.”

Numerous sponsors supported the team,including GM, DaimlerChrysler, DensoCorporation, Polaris Industries, The TimkenCompany, NSK Ltd., Exhaust Gas

Technologies and others. Faculty advisorAssistant Professor Brent Gillespie alsocontributed to the team’s success, as didME Lecturer Donald Geister, who directsthe Wilson Student Team Project Center.

The team placed fifth overall in the MiniBaja 100, hosted by Caterpillar Inc. in GreenValley, Arizona, and third overall in the MiniBaja Midwest competition, hosted by theSAE Dayton, Ohio, Section.

“Baja has been my life for the past fouryears,” said Michaud, who was offered a jobby one of the team’s sponsors at a MiniBaja competition. “I’ve learned more aboutdealing with real-world engineeringchallenges from being on this team than Iever could learn in a classroom.”

Closeup of the SAE Mini Baja car (top) and team (bottom).


VERNON NEWHOUSE NAMED GEM AWARD WINNER

For the third consecutive year a U-Mstudent has received the prestigious

GEM Black Engineer of the Year StudentLeadership Award. Master’s degreerecipient Vernon Newhouse earned therecognition for outstanding leadership inengineering and his continuing dedicationto education for young minorities.

He received the award at the 2005 BlackEngineer of the Year Awards conferenceheld in Baltimore in February 2005.

“I was honored to receive this award sinceit was recognition on a national level forcontributions during my internship atGeneral Motors,” Newhouse said.

Newhouse’s supervisor at GM, MartinMonte, recognized the exceptional skillsand dedication that Newhousedemonstrated during his internship andnominated him for the award. His work inthe community has been equally exemplary;Newhouse serves as a tutor for other ME

ME STUDENTS REFLECT MLK’S SPIRIT OF GIVING

The MLK Spirit Awards are presentedannually to north campus students

whose leadership and service exemplifiesthe spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.Three ME students received thisprestigious honor in April 2005.

April Bryan is a doctoral candidate, havingreceived her M.S. from ME (2004) and herB.S. in Aerospace Science Engineeringfrom Tuskegee University (1999).

The Trinidad-native was nominated by MEAssociate Research Scientist ZbigniewPasek for her active involvement in theMechanical Engineering section of theDetroit Area Pre-College EngineeringProgram (DAPCEP). The program works tointerest middle-school minority studentsfrom Detroit in mechanical engineeringcareers.

“Martin Luther King Jr. was selfless andsingle-minded in his commitment toimproving the status of minorities in thiscountry,” said Bryan. “While it is always

nice to win awards, I believe that it is thespirit of MLK, more than the award, that isthe most important.”

Vernon Newhouse, who also received theGEM Award in 2005 (see related storybelow), earned his master’s degree in 2005.He previously received a bachelor’s degreein Mechanical Engineering from U-M.

The native of Mount Morris, Michigan, wasnominated by Derrick Scott, program

director of the Minority EngineeringProgram Office, in recognition ofNewhouse’s contributions to the UnifiedMinority Mechanical Engineersorganization, for which he served aspresident.

“I was very humbled by the recognitionfrom the College,” said Newhouse. “I didn’tmake contributions to the College ofEngineering community to gain recognition,but it means a lot that the school makes it apriority to recognize the work people havedone.”

Undergraduate student Lander Coronado-Garcia was also recognized with a 2005 MLKSpirit Award.

students at the Unified Minority MechanicalEngineers study jams and has also tutoredhigh school athletes.

Newhouse has also received the MinorityEngineering Program Office UndergraduateStudent Achievement Award on twooccasions; the Amoco/BP MechanicalEngineering Scholarship; and the DowChemical Mechanical EngineeringScholarship. He’s been recognized as a U-M James B. Angell Scholar.

GEM, the National Consortium for GraduateDegrees for Minorities in Engineering andScience, is a nonprofit network ofuniversities, companies, governmentagencies, alumni and faculty. Its mission isto help students succeed in their quest forgraduate degrees and to increase theparticipation of underrepresentedminorities at the master’s and doctorallevels in engineering and science.

Vernon Newhouse (right) with GM ViceChairman Bob Lutz.

April Bryan Vernon Newhouse

38

Increasing AWAREness

When a half-dozen students from ME589, EcoDesign and Manufacturing,

and ME 450, the capstone design andmanufacturing course, headed to an awardsceremony held at the National Academy ofSciences in May, little did they suspect thatthey would take center stage. The U-Mteam won the Environmental ProtectionAgency’s P3 Award for sustainable design.The term ‘P3’ represents the threecomponents of sustainability: people,prosperity and the planet.

The team won for its AWARE@homesystem, a user-friendly, inexpensive tool forhouseholds to monitor their consumptionof electricity, water and natural gaswirelessly via a home computer.

After installing software on the computer,consumers enter the maximum amountthey’re willing to spend each month onutilities. When it becomes apparent to theAWARE@home system that this amount willlikely be exceeded, the system triggers apop-up window or e-mail notice.Consumers can then make changes,including for example, using less waterwhile washing dishes or turning their heatdown a few degrees.

The system works using standardwireless ‘WiFi’ networks. If ahome does not have a WiFinetwork already in place, aninexpensive USBantenna/transmitter isincluded with thesystem that isplugged in tothe homecomputer.

AWARE@home is also compatible with newdigital utility meters that are being sent tothe field to eliminate the need for in-person readings. Once marketed, thesystem will likely be of interest to propertymanagers and consumers wanting tocontrol their monthly expenses.

In addition to students from the two MEcourses, other participants includedstudents from Civil and EnvironmentalEngineering, Electrical Engineering andComputer Science, and the Ross School ofBusiness.

Sixty-five teams from around the countrycompeted for $10,000 grants to researchand develop their projects during the2004/2005 academic year. On May 16, 2005,all P3 grant recipients set up a displayfeaturing their project on the National Mallin Washington, D.C. The NationalAcademies convened a panel of judges —unidentified to participants and whomingled among the crowds askingquestions of each group — to evaluate the

projects and recommend award winners tothe EPA, which made the final decision.

As for the students’ reactions uponreceiving the award, “It was a blur, ashock,” said Assistant Professor StevenSkerlos, the faculty advisor to the project.“They went there with lots of pride andconfidence, and they knew it was a greatproject, but they didn’t go in expecting towin.”

AWARE@home has been covered widely inthe media and is currently being preparedfor testing in consumers’ homes.“AWARE@home has a real chance. Thesoftware is easy and attractive; thehardware is robust. The system is gettingcloser to becoming a market reality.”

2004-05 MECHANICAL ENGINEERING ANNUAL REPORT

The AWARE@hometeam poses withtheir display at theNational Academyof Sciences.


BLUElab Wins 2005 Elaine Harden Award

For a student-run organization just threeyears old, BLUElab (Better Living Using

Engineering) has already been recognizedfor having had an impact. This year thegroup earned the 2005 Elaine HardenAward, which honors engineering studentsocieties that best exemplify leadershipand service. BLUElab, formerly EngineersWithout Borders, is dedicated tosustainability in both developed anddeveloping regions of the world. Though anindependent organization, it works closelywith Engineers Without Borders andEngineers for a Sustainable World.

The award was well-deserved, according toAssistant Professor Steven Skerlos,BLUElab faculty sponsor and recipient ofthe 2004 College of EngineeringOutstanding Student Group Advisor. “Theprograms these students are carrying outserve as models for changing therelationship between the engineer and thegreater society he or she serves,” he said.“I’m glad they were recognized. For a youngorganization it means they’re on the righttrack.”

One of the group’s main ongoing projects istaking place in the Dominican Republic andinvolves testing novel water purificationtechnologies, looking at how they can bemanufactured locally and understandinghow the involved communities use andinteract with them. The project goesbeyond engineering and cost concerns,considering the relationship createdbetween the technological design and theuser.

BLUElab members are also involved indesigning educational programs closer tohome. “They’re working to introducesustainable design principles into all of theengineering disciplines,” said Skerlos. Casein point: a seminar series and certificateprogram on socially responsibleengineering that included lectures byfaculty from U-M as well as otheruniversities on sustainable development,the role of the engineer in society, eco-design, engineering ethics andenvironmental justice.

BLUElab’s education committee is alsodeveloping modules to be incorporatedinto introductory engineering classes totrain students to see the strongconnection between the decisions theymake as engineers and the environment.One such module demonstrates thelinkages between vehicle design-mass andaerodynamic coefficient, for example-andair pollution levels in different parts of thecity of Ann Arbor. The model showsstudents how the levels fluctuate withdesign changes, current weatherconditions and other factors. “Theexample shows how even modest changesin engineering design, and the vehiclespeople buy, can have a significant impacton the air we breathe on campus and intown.”

The $500 cash stipend that accompaniesthe Elaine Harden Award will assist thegroup with its programs. Other fundraisingactivities include events such as the OneWorld, One Slice pizza fundraiser anddonations from a Pfizer, Inc., matchinggrants program, Michigan alumnus KevinOlmstead, the College of Engineering andthe University.

CoE students investigate a possible drinkingwater source for the community of Rancho alMedio in the Dominican Republic.

But it’s not about the prize, said Skerlos.“They would have done all of this anyway. Ina time when there is a lot of societalinterest in environmental and sustainabledesign, but not much financial supportfrom government, the recognition of theirleadership is a nice boost — it’s areaffirmation of their passion.”

U-M students from LS&A, School of Public Health, Medical School and CoE all participated in a week-long trip to assess and improve the health conditions in the village of Rancho al Medio in the southernDominican Republic.


NSF Recognizes ME Students

Four ME students have earned GraduateResearch Fellowships from the National

Science Foundation. The GraduateResearch Fellowship program providesthree years of support for graduate studyleading to research-based master’s ordoctoral degrees. Awards include an annualstipend of $30,000 and a cost-of-educationallowance of $10,500 per academic year.

KiranD’Souza

Kiran D’Souza received his B.S. in ME andhas just completed his second year in thePh.D. program. He’s carrying on a familytradition as his three brothers, Vinay,Deepak and Arun, all received theirbachelor’s degrees at U-M in MechanicalEngineering.

D’Souza’s decision to specialize innonlinear dynamics and vibrations,specifically damage detection in nonlinearsystems using vibration-based methods,originated when he took ME240 (Dynamicsand Vibrations) as an undergraduate withProfessor Noel Perkins. His senior designproject was a flycasting robot he worked onwith two other students.

His current research focus is anaugmented linear system to model atrajectory of a nonlinear system usinganalysis techniques and theories hedeveloped with current advisor AssistantProfessor Bogdan Epureanu. “We haveused our methodology successfully withnonlinear systems containing Coulombfriction and cubic spring nonlinearities,”D’Souza said.

Prior to receiving the NSF grant this year,D’Souza received an honorable mention in2004. He also has been recognized with the2003 Mildred and Steele Bailey Prize fromthe College of Engineering, for academicexcellence and outstanding leadership andservice to the college and community, andthe 2002 A.D. Moore Award. He received the2002 Melvin R. Green Scholarship fromASME International and a 2001 ASMEFoundation Scholarship.

D’Souza, from Troy, Michigan, creditedEpureanu for his success in receiving thefellowship. “Professor Epureanu helpedme revise my 2005 application, and his driveto have me excel in my research in generalwas very helpful in giving me a shot at theaward.”

ScottGreen

Scott Green is returning to academic lifeafter several years as a design engineer forKalamazoo-based Stryker Instruments, aleading manufacturer of medical devices.Previously he received his B.S.ME from theRose-Hulman Institute of Technology inTerre Haute, Indiana. In addition tograduating Summa Cum Laude, he receivedthe Heminway Medal for highest cumulativeGPA and the Cummins Award foroutstanding graduating mechanicalengineer.

Although Green originally received the NSFGraduate Fellowship in 2003, he waiteduntil 2005 to begin his studies. “Aftergraduating I decided to accept an offer

from Stryker to see if being a designengineer truly appealed to me. A fewmonths after I accepted the offer, I wasnotified by the NSF that I had received thefellowship.”

Green’s research focus isMEMS/Microsystems. “For the past fouryears every engineering situation I havebeen in has been or could be augmentedprofoundly with the use of an appropriateMEMS device. The technology isfundamentally cross-disciplinary, whichaligns well with my desire to expand myknowledge beyond the mechanicalengineering world.”

Green acknowledged the assistance ofmany people—faculty, researchers andpeers—who he said “unknowingly” helpedhim fashion and fine tune his vision forgraduate study. He also reserved praise fora trusted professor who critiqued hisapplication and the writers of his letters ofrecommendation. “These outstandingscholars helped illustrate my potential in away I never could have expressed.”

As for his decision to attend the Universityof Michigan, the choice was simple for thenative of Davison, Michigan. “The Universityof Michigan is my choice first and foremostbecause of its outstanding cross-disciplinary MEMS/Microsystems program.Secondly, as a native Michigander, I havealways been partial to U-M. Go Blue!”


DaneseJoiner

Danese Joiner is heading into her secondyear in the ME Ph.D. program after earninga bachelor’s in mechanical engineeringfrom Rutgers University. Her decision tocome to U-M was prompted in part by thewealth of interdisciplinary research andacademic opportunities.

“The university has a great reputation, andwhen I visited I felt the administratorsreally wanted me here and were willing tomake an investment in me.”

Joiner plans to focus her research inbiomechanics, particularly orthopedics. She first became interested in orthopedicresearch during high school, when sheworked part-time in an extended carefacility.

“I witnessed countless bedridden andwheelchair-bound patients who needed tobe escorted by an aide to perform basicdaily tasks,” said Joiner. “I wished therewere something I could do to improve theirquality of life. During my undergraduateacademic career, I took courses inbiomechanics and biomechanical systemsand realized that there is something I cancontribute. While a great deal of researchhas been conducted on fracture fixation,bone remodeling and bone deterioration,important aspects of these areas remainunexplored.”

A native of St. Louis — she grew up inTinton Falls, NJ — Joiner has receivedother prestigious awards in addition to theNSF Fellowship. She has been named aGEM Research Fellow and received aRackham Engineering Fellowship. She was

also named a Ronald E. McNair Scholar, aDouglass College Scholar and a JamesDickson Carr Scholar. Joiner participated inthe Douglass Project for Women in Math,Science and Engineering and graduatedMagna Cum Laude.

In addition to crediting her advisors andcolleagues for their assistance, Joinernoted that her mother helped prepare herapplication. “My mom read over my essaysto make sure someone with a non-technicalbackground could understand them. Thathelped me make sure that what I wanted tosay was clear.”

ErinMacdonald

Erin Macdonald is returning to schoolfollowing a five-year hiatus, during whichshe worked as a product developer at anoutdoor gear company designing tents andsleeping bags. It was there that she noticedthe challenges of designing products fromdifferent perspectives and in combiningquantitative and qualitative approaches inproduct design. She became determined toreturn to graduate school in order to findbetter ways.

After receiving her master’s in mechanicalengineering in 2004, she is now a pre-doctoral candidate. Her primary researchwill be on interdisciplinary and eco-friendlydesign of consumer products.

“Optimizing products in an interdisciplinaryand holistic fashion leads to betterproducts,” said Macdonald, who works inthe Optimal Design Lab headed byProfessor Panos Papalambros. “I am

approaching the design process from anumber of different disciplines—engineering, marketing and psychology—simultaneously in a quantitative fashion.”

Macdonald, who received her B.S. withhonors in Materials Science andEngineering from Brown University in 1998,is the recipient of numerous awards andhonors. She was a member of team thatwon one of seven awards at the recentEnvironmental Protection Agency’s P3(People, Prosperity and the Planet)competition. In 2003 she received aRackham Engineering Award and earned anhonorable mention from the NSF.

Macdonald holds a patent on a sleeping bagaccessory that extends the size of the bagto larger girths. She received thePresident’s Award from AmericanRecreation Products/Sierra Designs in 2002and the Composite Material Design Awardfrom the Metals, Minerals, and MaterialsSociety in 1998.

Macdonald, who grew up in Vestal, NewYork, noted that this was the third time shehad applied for the NSF Fellowship, andshe gave credit to her advisors,Papalambros, ME Assistant ProfessorSteven Skerlos, and Richard Gonzalez,psychology department chair and professor.“Like one of my professors told me,persistence is the key in academia.”


GRADUATE STUDENT AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS

DEPARTMENT AWARDS

GRADUATE STUDENTSYMPOSIUMsymposium Posters Mohammed Shalaby, 3rd/KAISTAward

symposium PresentationsDesign & Manufacturing: Karlin Hamza, 1st/Session IAHonghai Zhu, 2nd/Session IAMohammed Shalaby,

1st/Session IB Shingo Takeuchi, 2nd/Session

IB

BioMechanics:Jiro Doke, 2nd/Session I Sachin Goyal, 1st/Session I

Materials & BioMaterialsSung-Tae Hong, 1st/Session I

Solid Mechanics & MaterialsJiayin Li, 1st/Session IJonathan Kadish, 2nd/Session I

Fluid Mechanics & HeatTransfer: Aristotelis Babajimopoulos,

1st/Session IAmit Dhingra, 1st/Session IIJonathan Hagena, 2nd/

Session IIXiulin Ruan, 2nd/Session II

Dynamics, Systems &Controls: Dongsoo Kang, 3rd/Session IIADenise McKay, 1st/Session IIBBryon Sohns, 1st/Session IIA Ardalan Vahidi, 1st/Session IKyung Won Suh, 2nd/Session IIJing Zhou, 2nd/Session I

FELLOWSHIPSAWARDED BY MEDepartmental FellowshipKagya AmoakoChristopher ChurchillBaoling HuangSerge Li Hoi Foo-GregoryTodd LillianRobert LittrellJeremy MayerPatrick Owens

Rackham EngineeringAwardWilliam HarrisonDanese JoinerErin McIntyreScott Norby-CedilloTahira ReidVioleta TayehDiane Wiener

Dean’s FellowshipStephen BuschBart FrischknechtJerry FuschettoAmit JainDavid PekarekDavid Twardowski

Regent’s FellowshipRichard HillHui Wang

Recruitment FellowshipLi JiangAndrew MaddenBrendan O’ConnorRyan VignesAbhishek YadavYuanyuan Zhou

Block Grant FellowshipRoss Mackenzie

Medtronics FoundationFellowshipGregory Sommer

Robert M. Caddell MemorialAward for Graduate Student& Faculty MemberKatsuo Kurabayashi and Yi-Chung Tung

Toyota FellowshipJason Martz

FELLOWSHIPSAWARDED BY RACKHAMBarbour FellowshipShiyao Bian

Predoctoral FellowshipKyoo-Sil ChoiSachin GoyalYi-Chung Tung

FELLOWSHIPSAWARDED BY THECOLLEGE OFENGINEERINGInternational ExchangeTuition-FellowshipFabian SchulzeBin ShenJia Tao

Ford Fellowship through CEWJessamyn Margoni

EXTERNALFELLOWSHIPSFulbright ScholarshipLuis Izquierdo

Microsystems & EngineeringSciences ApplicationsFellowshipTroy Lionberger

National consortium forGraduate Degrees forMinorities in Engineering &Science FellowshipRapheal BollarBrian ConserJoseph CullenJessica GarrettVera Simms

National ScienceFoundation FellowshipKiran DsouzaDanese JoinerTroy LionbergerRobert LittrellErin MacDonald

Ronald E. McNairFellowshipHung Nguyen

Vietnam EducationFoundation FellowshipVan-Xuan Tran

RACKHAM AWARDSDistinguished DissertationAlan McGaughey

COLLEGE OFENGINEERING AWARDSDistinguished AchievementXiulin Ruan

Distinguished LeadershipHonghai Zhu

Elaine Harden AwardBLUELab (Assistant ProfessorSteve Skerlos, advisor)

MINORITYENGINEERINGPROGRAM OFFICEAWARDSMaster AchievementApril BryanBrian ConserClaudia FajardoNia HarrisonSerge Li Hoi Foo-GregoryVernon NewhouseAdrianne Prysock


UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

BP America Daniel Minnich

Caterpillar Karan SethJoseph Ypma

Daimler Chrysler Kenya AgeeAmy KopinDavid Ohrin

DeVlieg FellowshipAngela Engel

Eli Lilly ScholarshipHamed BazazJoseph ChengDannielle SitaRebecca Stoloff

GM Engineering Kenya AgeeLaura Stojan

GM Vehicle BasedEngineering Michael Michaud

Guidant Foundation Lisa Radak

Honeywell ScholarshipDanielle Boyle

Lubrizol ScholarshipMark AngThomas Eason

Michael KorybalksiEndowment FundDannielle Sita

NASA Glen Lander Coronado-Garcia

R&B Machine Tool AwardCristiana DiehrDennis LeeNicholas Sochacki

Robert M. Caddell MemorialAward for UndergraduateStudentPortia Peters

COLLEGE OFENGINEERING HONORSAWARDS & PRIZES

Cooley Writing PrizeAndrew Becker (fiction)Jonathan Yung-Hsin Ho (essay)

Distinguished AchievementAwardAzwan Ashari

Distinguished LeadershipAwardSteve DockstaderAlberto LopezDanielle Sita

Hugh Rumler DistinguishedClass PrizeLisa Radak

J.A. Bursley PrizeLaura Stojan

Outstanding New MemberJason Moscetti (Habitat for

Humanity)Christopher Worrel (M-Racing

Team)

Roger M. Jones FellowshipAdam Dick

Tau Beta Pi First-YearStudent AwardDaniel Gally

William H. Mack MemorialEngineering PrizeJohn Nanry

MINORITYENGINEERINGPROGRAM OFFICEAWARDS

Undergraduate AchievementKenya AgeeElliot AlvarezAndrew BishayDanielle CendrowskiLander Coronado-GarciaJames ForehandRory FragaMichele GoeTommaso GomezIan HannaAlberto LopezDavid OhrinPortia PetersJonathan QuijanoDanielle SitaRaymond Smith II

Rising StudentAchievementDarrell FordSophia Reyes

New Student AchievementRennel MelvilleIyabo Williams


ME Enrollment Trends

1999 2000 2001

BSE 639 596 538

PhD 189 199 192

700

500

400

300

200

100

0

600

MSE 168 192 193

2002

536

232

235

2003

531

256

194

2004

548

211

289

2005

604

190

295

ME Degrees Conferred Trends

02–03 03–0498–99 99–00 00–01 01–02

BSE 209242228 293 258 250

PhD 362733 42 39 39

350

250

200

150

100

50

0

300

MSE 127

04-05

229

47

12511680 85 92 115

Following a few years of steadyenrollments, our undergraduatepopulation is currentlyexperiencing a significant growth.With incoming freshmen declaringME as their most preferred choiceamong the CoE programs, weexpect that the increase in ourundergraduate enrollment willcontinue in the future. In parallel,we continue to see high interest inour Master’s and PhD programs,which has bucked the overallnational trend of decliningadmissions in such programs. Thepopularity of our programsreflects both the strong jobprospects for our graduates andthe excellent quality of ourprograms.

Degree production surged in 2004-05. We expect this trend tocontinue at the Bachelor’s level.Last year, we also graduated thelargest number of PhDs in adecade, almost one per facultymember. A large number of ourdoctoral graduates acceptedacademic positions at prestigiousacademic institutions (see pages46-49). The foundation laid in ourcurriculum has allowed ourgraduates to be successful beyondtheir Michigan experience, and wewish all of them well in their newendeavors.


Ph.D. Degrees Conferred

Fall 04Junseok ChangThermal Characterization andHeat Transfer Study of aGasoline Homogeneous ChargeCompression Ignition EngineVia Measurements ofInstantaneous WallTemperature and Heat Flux inthe Combustion ChamberCo-chairs: Dennis Assanis &Zoran Filipi

Joseph ClementSmart Attachment MechanismsChair: Diann Brei

John Harder IIIControlling Thermally InducedBearing Loads to ImproveSpindle PerformanceCo-chairs: Jeffrey Stein &Sinan Badrawy

Brian JensenMulti-Physics Modeling andExperimental Investigation ofLow-Force MEMS SwitchContact BehaviorChair: Katsuo Kurabayashi

Hashem MahmoudA Continuum Approach to theModeling of MicrostructuralEvolution in PolycrystallineSolidsChair: Krishna Garikipati

Sripriya RamamoorthyPassive and Active StructuralAcoustic Filtering in CochlearMechanics — Analysis andApplicationsChair: Karl Grosh

Ramanan SankaranA Computational Study of Auto-ignition and Flame Propagationin Stratified Mixtures Relevantto Modern EnginesChair: Hong Im

Prabhjot SinghA Framework for ReverseEngineering Using Feature-Based GeometryReconstruction and Multi-Directional LayeredManufacturingChair: Debasish Dutta

Paul TortoraElectrical-ImpedanceTomography for theQuantitative Measurement of Solids Distributions in Gas-Solid Riser FlowsChair: Steven Ceccio

Bing-Shiang YangControl of Frontal-PlaneBalance on a Laterally-Compliant Raised StructureChair: James Ashton-Miller

Winter 05Aristotelis BabajimopoulosDevelopment of Sequential andFully Integrated CFD/Multi-zone Models with DetailedChemical Kinetics for theSimulation of HCCI EnginesChair: Dennis Assanis

Melinda ChinElectrical Contact Resistanceof Anisotropic ConductiveAdhesive (ACA) Assemblies inMicro-Scale PackagingCo-chairs: Jack Hu & KaushikIyer

Luciana DaSilvaIntegrated MicroThermoelectric Cooler Theory,Fabrication andCharacterizationChair: Massoud Kaviany

Ronald GroverA Methodology for CFDPredictions of Spark-IgnitionDirect-Injection Engine ConicalSprays Combining Improved

Physical Submodels andSystem OptimizationChair: Dennis Assanis

Youngwon HahnDevelopment of Mixed ShellElement for 7-ParameterFormulation and IdentificationMethods of LowestEigenvaluesChair: Noboru Kikuchi

Sung-Tae HongMechanical Behavior ofAluminum Honeycombs UnderMultiaxial Loading ConditionsChair: Jwo Pan

Timothy JacobsSimultaneous Reduction ofNitric Oxide and ParticulateMatter Emissions From aLight-Duty Diesel Engine UsingCombustion Development andDiesel Oxidation CatalystChair: Dennis Assanis

Hamed KhalkhaliModeling and Design ofCompact Thermosyphons forElectronic CoolingChair: Katsuo Kurabayashi

Taeyong KimThe Role of Jelly Coats in SeaUrchin Egg Fertilization: ACombined Experimental andNumerical InvestigationChair: Ann Marie Sastry

Sang-Ho limDynamic Analysis and DesignStrategies for Mistuned BladedDisksCo-chairs: Christophe Pierre &Matthew Castanier

Jie LuoMachining of ElastomersChair: Albert Shih

Yuan-Hung MaOperation of Manufacturing

Systems With Work-in-ProcessInventory and ProductionControlChair: Yoram Koren

Jeremy MichalekPreference Coordination inEngineering Design Decision-MakingChair: Panos Papalambros

Tiffany MillerCombustion Synthesis ofMetal/Metal OxideNanocomposite MaterialsChair: Margaret Wooldridge

Volkan PatogluGuaranteed Stability forCollision Detection andSimulation of Hybrid DynamicalSystemsChair: R. Brent Gillespie

Huan QiSynthesis of DesignedMaterials by Laser-BasedDirect Metal DepositionTechnique: Experimental andTheoretical ApproachesCo-chairs: Noboru Kikuchi &Jyotirmoy Mazumder

Zimin YangDynamic MaintenanceScheduling Using OnlineInformation About SystemConditionChair: Jun Ni

Cetin Yilmaz Analysis and Design of UniaxialPassive Vibration IsolatorsConsidering Stiffness andBandwidth LimitationsChair: Noboru Kikuchi

Fu ZhaoMicrofiltration Recycling ofSemi-Synthetic MetalworkingFluids: Models, Formulation,and System DesignChair: Steven Skerlos


2004-05 Graduates Receive FacultyAppointments

ME alumni have been appointed tofaculty positions at prestigious

institutions around the country, and theworld. Recruited for their achievements intheoretical as well as experimentalresearch and industry experience, they nowhave the opportunity to educate the nextgeneration of engineers.

KIMBERLY COOKAssistant ProfessorDrexel University

Kimberly A.Cook assumed afaculty positionas an assistantprofessor ofMechanicalEngineering atDrexelUniversity onSeptember 1,2005. She

earned her bachelor’s in ME from U-M in1994, a master’s in ME from Stanford in1995 and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineeringfrom U-M in 2005.

Cook’s attraction to Drexel was threefold,she said: its strong academic reputation inengineering; its location in a major urbancenter that affords numerousopportunities for collaboration; and the co-op programs it offers students. “This typeof learning environment not only equipsstudents with a tool set for working inindustry; it also makes them fun andchallenging to teach,” she said.

Cook’s research focuses on the design ofhomogeneous and hybrid power supplysolutions for applications that span microto macro scales, specifically applicationsfor power generation and regeneration,storage and distribution of energy viaimplementation of alternative regenerativeenergy and design optimization techniques.She currently is researching power supply

design strategies for wireless and portableelectronics, locomotives for publictransportation and power grids.

“My years as a student at U-M molded meinto the person and engineer I am today,"she said. “My professors, including myresearch advisor Professor Ann MarieSastry, taught me that teaching difficultmaterial in a manner that challenges andinspires young people is crucial during theearly stages of undergraduate education.My professors helped me navigate arigorous engineering curriculum by beingaccessible and dedicated. They fostered myrespect for talent from all walks of life andcultivated my desire to perform research tosolve problems that benefit society as awhole.”

BRIAN JENSENAssistant Professor Brigham Young University

Brian D. Jensen(Ph.D. ME ’05)has joined thefaculty ofBrigham YoungUniversity,where heearned hisbachelor’s andmaster’sdegrees in

mechanical engineering. He assumed theposition of assistant professor in January2005.

“I was attracted by the department’s anduniversity’s commitment to high-qualityundergraduate education while performingand publishing high-quality research,” hesaid. “I love teaching and research, so thisemphasis on both is satisfying to me.”Jensen will teach courses in mechanicaldesign, optimization, computer-aidedengineering and dynamic system modeling.

He will also test and expand some of theideas he developed while at U-M working

with his advisor, Assistant Professor KatsuoKurabayashi, on the design anddevelopment of micro-electro-mechanicalsystems, particularly micro-switches. Thefocus of his work has been on finding waysto improve the reliability of micro-switchesand to understand the physics andchemistry of micro-switch contacts. AtBrigham Young, he has already started newprograms focused on developing low-friction-factor microchannels for fluid flowand high-resolution micro-force sensors.

Jensen credits his time at U-M, where heearned a second M.S. in electricalengineering and a Ph.D. in ME, for havinghad such a “strong effect on the directionand quality of my work” and for the senseof confidence he gained in investigatingnew research problems and areas.

SANGWON LEEResearch Assistant ProfessorSungkyunkwan University, SouthKorea

Sangwon Leeearned his Ph.D.in ME from theUniversity ofMichigan in 2004and a bachelor’sand master’sdegree inmechanicaldesign andproduction

engineering from Seoul National Universityin Seoul, South Korea. Currently he is aresearch assistant professor of CREDITS(CREative Design and Intelligent TutoringSystems) Research Center ofSungkyunkwan University in Suwon, SouthKorea. He will assume an appointment asan assistant professor in the school ofmechanical engineering beginning in March2006. Lee will teach courses such asCreative Engineering Design, Design forManufacturing, Manufacturing Process andSystems, and Mechanical Vibration.


“I have dreamed of life as a teacher andresearcher ever since I graduated fromhigh school,” said Lee. “This is a perfectjob to realize my long-cherished dream. Asa teacher and researcher in engineering, Ienjoy digging up new and challengingresearch areas, which can be used toimprove the quality of human life. Inaddition, Sungkyunkwan University is one ofthe top five universities in South Korea andrapidly growing.”

Lee’s research focus has been micromanufacturing, specifically the design anddevelopment of a meso-scale machine toolsystem and novel geometric errormeasurement system using lasers. During apost-doctoral research fellowship at U-M,he studied the feasibility of a new dryelectrical-discharge machining (EDM)technology for the manufacture of micro-scale components.

Working in the S.M. Wu ManufacturingResearch Center at U-M, and with Jun Ni,center director and professor, gave Lee“lots of valuable knowledge andexperience. “He helped me mature as aresearcher and teacher. As a matter of fact,life at U-M prepared me for successfullystarting my new career in academia.”

KERR-JIA LUAssistant ProfessorGeorge Washington University

Kerr-Jia Lu(Ph.D. ME ‘04,M.S. ME ‘99)has joined thefaculty ofGeorgeWashingtonUniversity inthe School ofEngineeringand Applied

Science. Her appointment as an assistantprofessor in the Department of Mechanicaland Aerospace Engineering began in fall2004.

Lu teaches introductory courses inmechanical engineering as well as severaldesign courses. She says she accepted theposition with George Washington Universitybecause of the size of its engineeringprogram, which allows for close interactionbetween students and faculty. And itslocation “provides great opportunities forcollaboration with many nearby federalresearch labs. I’m looking forward toinspiring my students and to developingexciting research here.”

She will continue her research in the areaof nature- and bio-inspired designs, smartstructures and compliant mechanismsynthesis, which she began while agraduate student at U-M and researchassistant to Professor Sridhar Kota. In theCompliant Systems Design Laboratory, Ludeveloped and implemented a systematicapproach for morphing compliantmechanisms involving discrete/continuousoptimization, finite element analysis andbasic pattern recognition methods. Shealso developed a novel parameterizationscheme using load paths to representvarious structural topologies and ensurestructural connectivity.

Teaching isn’t new to Lu, who served as agraduate student instructor for three MEcourses while at U-M: Design andManufacturing III (ME 450); MechanismDesign (ME 551); and Design forManufacturability (ME 452). “I learned a lotfrom those experiences and found helpingthe students learn very fulfilling. That’s partof the reason why I decided to pursue acareer in academia.”

ALAN MCGAUGHEYAssistant Professor Carnegie Mellon University

Alan McGaughey (Ph.D. ME ‘04) began anappointment as an assistant professor inthe Mechanical Engineering department atCarnegie Mellon University in August 2005.

His researchinterests arethe atomic-levelmodeling of thetransport ofheat, mass andmomentum insolid and fluidphases. The MEdepartment atCMU is strong,he says, with

increasing emphasis on diverse and non-traditional areas of research. “I feel itscollaborative and multidisciplinary naturesuit me very well.”

His work in this area began while amaster’s candidate at the University ofToronto working with Professor CharlesWard and while earning his Ph.D. at U-Mwith thesis advisor Professor MassoudKaviany. “My advisors gave me a significantamount of freedom to explore, whichhelped me to develop the ability to doresearch independently while stillbenefiting from the expertise of a mentor.”His Ph.D. dissertation, “Phonon transportin molecular dynamics simulations:Formulation and thermal conductivityprediction,” was awarded the DistinguishedDissertation Award from Rackham for 2004.

Between earning his Ph.D. and beginninghis appointment at CMU, McGaugheyconducted post-doctoral work at theUniversity of Florida, Gainesville, in theMaterials Science and Engineeringdepartment. With researchers at theUniversity of Pittsburgh, he worked on thedevelopment of molecular dynamicsimulations that will allow for the modelingof different materials — metals, oxides,covalent structures — at the same time.The availability of such techniques islimited, and “I saw this as both an excellentopportunity to learn something new andalso as a way to gain a collaborator inPittsburgh before even moving there.” �


JEREMY “J.” MICHALEKAssistant ProfessorCarnegie Mellon University

Jeremy “J.”Michalek (M.S.ME ‘01; Ph.D.ME ‘05),assumed afacultyappointment atCarnegie MellonUniversity as anassistantprofessor in fall 2005.

Michalek completed post-doctoral work inthe Optimal Design Laboratory in U-M’s MEdepartment, where he coordinated modelsof stakeholder preferences with modelsused in engineering design decision-making. He served as education chair forBLUElab, formerly Engineers WithoutBorders.

Michalek says it was his advisor, ProfessorPanos Papalambros, who “encouraged meto push disciplinary boundaries” and whoencouraged working with experts in otherfields. Michalek’s cross-disciplinaryinterest in design optimization and social,economic and policy perspectives ondesign led to his decision to join theCarnegie Mellon faculty. “It’s a wonderfulfit for my interests. CMU has a strongrespect for design research, a tradition ofinterdisciplinary research and teaching, andresearch centers for complex engineeredsystems, computational design, theenvironment, and engineering and publicpolicy.”

Plenty of teaching experience in the MEdepartment also influenced his decision tojoin CMU. Michalek co-developed a newinterdisciplinary course, Engineering forCommunity (ENGR 490), which earned anMLK Spirit Award in 2004, and AnalyticalProduct Design (ME 499/599), which grewin part out of techniques developed in hisdissertation. He has served as course aid,graduate student instructor and GSImentor. “I hope that through teaching I canencourage my students to continuouslyconsider the impact of their decisionswithin the context of the society aroundthem.”

TIFFANY A. MILLERAssistant ProfessorDrexel University

Tiffany A. Millerhas beenappointed anassistantprofessor ofmechanicalengineering andmechanics atDrexelUniversity. Sheearned herbachelor’s

(2001), master’s (2002) and doctoral (2005)degrees in Mechanical Engineering from U-M.

Miller will teach MEM 320: Fluid Dynamics Iduring the fall and spring terms and co-teach TDEC 202: Energy II, which covers theapplication of conservation-of-energyprinciples to the analysis of engineeringproblems, in the winter term. Her researchprogram will expand on work begun at U-Mwith her advisor, Associate ProfessorMargaret Wooldridge, on the developmentof nanocomposite powders usingtechniques such as combustion synthesisand the examination of scaling possibilitiesfor such systems.

“I also have a strong interest in developingmaterials such as biosensors and sensorarrays, catalysis development and pollutionmitigation, and energy storage andconversion,” she said. “To name a few,materials for toxic gas sensors, solar cells,and hydrogen storage, transport anddelivery systems, all can be advanced —and revolutionized — by the application ofnanoscience.

“Drexel is a smaller institution thanMichigan, with both strong undergraduate,graduate and research programs. Thecollege and university are bothexperiencing a period of growth anddevelopment, which I know will allow formany unique research and teachingopportunities in my areas of interest.”

KATHERINE S. PETERSONAssistant ProfessorPurdue University

Katherine S.Peterson joinedthe faculty ofPurdueUniversity inJune 2005 as anassistantprofessor in theSchool ofMechanicalEngineering.She is teaching

ME 575: Control Theory and Design, a first-year graduate course.

An interdisciplinary approach to researchand plans for several new researchfacilities are what drew Peterson to the job,she said. “My time at U-M taught me theimportance of collaboration. During myPh.D. work I had the good fortune to workclosely with several faculty members inaddition to my advisor, Associate ProfessorAnna Stefanopoulou. Even though I havejust started here at Purdue, other facultyand I have already begun talking aboutpossible collaborations.”

The focus of Peterson’s research at U-Mwas on developing controllers for valvetiming. Her work resulted in one patent andseveral citations in the academic andpopular presses. After earning her Ph.D.,she spent time in Australia, where sheworked on control of active magneticbearings and flexible structures, and sheworked with researchers in Sweden onextremum seeking control. Currently she islooking at the control of medical devices,specifically how to control a self-propelledendoscope.

ARDALAN VAHIDIAssistant Professor Clemson University

Ardalan Vahidi accepted an appointment asan assistant professor of mechanicalengineering at Clemson University, wherehe will teach control and automotivecourses and continue his research onautomotive and energy systems. He earnedhis Ph.D. in ME in 2005.

Graduates continued


One of Vahidi’sresearchinterests is inthe applicationof moderncontroltechniques toresourcemanagementof energy-generating andstorage

devices. In automotive and transportationsystems, his focus has been on activesafety and driver-assist system design, andhe continues to work in this area ondevices and methodologies that enabledeployment of active safety systems.

Vahidi says it was his experiences at U-Mthat led him to Clemson. “Working with anexcellent body of students and faculty,including my advisors Professors AnnaStefanopoulou and Huei Peng, broadenedmy vision about research. Excellentclasses, and being a graduate studentinstructor, gave me a good start in teachinghere at Clemson. The interactions withresearchers from other universities wasalso a fantastic opportunity.”

He expects that new opportunities await,including those resulting from aninternational automotive research centerthat Clemson is establishing in closecollaboration with BMW, Michelin, Timkenand other automotive companies. “This hascreated a lot of interest in the universityand nationwide,” he said. “When Iinterviewed here I really liked themomentum.”

DUNG-AN WANGAssistant ProfessorNational Chung Hsing University,Taiwan

Dung-An Wanghas joined thefaculty ofNational ChungHsingUniversity inTaichung,Taiwan, as anassistantprofessor inthe Institute of

Precision Engineering. He will be teachingcourses in precision manufacturing, thedesign of MEMS and the Engineeringsciences in MEMS.

Wang earned his Ph.D. in ME from U-M in2004. He worked as a teaching andresearch assistant in the ME departmentwhile pursuing his degree and held theposition of project engineer of advancedengineering analysis at National Steel nearDetroit.

Wang says he chose National Chung HsingUniversity for its top-notch experimentalfacilities and motivated student body. Hehas already established research projectsin the areas of bulk assembly anddisassembly of micro-scale components,where he is developing a new method foron-substrate fine positioning of microscaleand mesoscale discrete components;failure mechanisms of friction stir spotwelding; and the constitutive modeling offoams.

From his time at U-M, Wang says he gainedinsightful research experience workingwith his advisor, Professor Jwo Pan, and aninvaluable “dedication to work.”

ROBERT WHITEAssistant ProfessorTufts University

Robert White,who earned hisPh.D. in ME in2005, recentlyjoined themechanicalengineeringfaculty of TuftsUniversity. Hewill teachgraduate and

undergraduate courses on dynamics,vibration, acoustics and MEMS. Hisresearch interests include the design,modeling and fabrication of micro- andnanosystems, and he has already startedprojects in the areas of MEMS acousticssensing, thin film material characterizationand chaos in MEMS.

White chose a career in academic teachingand research because of the chance tointeract with students, stay current in hisfield and “be part of the advancement of

engineering science in areas I findinteresting and important.” He says hechose Tufts specifically because of itscommitment to “cutting-edge research in avariety of disciplines and its involvement ofboth undergraduates and graduates inresearch. Tufts is committed to effectiveand relevant teaching and really caresabout its students.”

White is excited to move forward in hisareas of expertise, honed through workwith his advisor at U-M, AssociateProfessor Karl Grosh. “Earning my Ph.D. atU-M was critical in developing skills inmicrofabrication, acoustic and multiphysicsnumerical modeling and acoustics/vibrationtesting. I also gained an interest incochlear mechanics and RF MEMS systemsand had the opportunity to participate inmany academic conferences and seminarsthat helped me develop public speakingand technical writing skills.”

OTHER RECENTAPPOINTMENTSJamie Camelio (Ph.D. 2002),Assistant Professor, MichiganTechnological University

Theodore Freiheit (Ph.D. 2003),Assistant Professor, University ofCalgary, Canada

Mahmoud I. Hussein (Ph.D. 2004),Research Associate, University ofCambridge

Harrison Kim (Ph.D. 2001), AssistantProfessor, University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign

Valerie Maier-Speredelozzi (Ph.D.2003), Assistant Professor, Universityof Rhode Island


Two New Faculty Join ME

Nikolas Chronis has been appointedAssistant Professor of Mechanical

Engineering. He will join the department infall 2006.

Chronis’ research focuses on thedevelopment of bio-MEMS systems. He hasdeveloped and demonstrated for the firsttime novel polymer micromachined‘amphibious’ actuators that operate in bothair and physiological media. Using theseactuators, he fabricated polymermicrogrippers for single cell manipulation,which can be used in various applications,including as microsurgical tools inside thebody.

He has also developed a TIR — or totalinternal reflection — based biochiputilizing silicon micromirrors and polymer-filled cavities integrated with microfluidics.The resulting micro-optical system haspotentially single-fluorescent moleculedetection capabilities for ultrasensitive,high-throughput screening applications.

To explore how information is processed incomplex neuro circuitry, from the sensoryto the interneuron and motor neuronlevels, Chronis fabricated a newmicrofluidic ‘worm trap and fluidic delivery’chip that enables researchers to recordactivity from interneurons in the wormC.elegans. His work has yielded detaileddata about the role and function of specificneurons involved in the worm’s olfactorycircuit.

A faculty position at U-M “offers twoelements that a junior faculty member islooking for,” said Chronis of his decision toaccept the job at U-M: “an excellentacademic environment with well-established faculty, an outstanding studentbody and top-notch facilities andinfrastructure, such as state-of-the-artMEMS/NEMS fabrication labs for high-endresearch.”

He is also excited about the myriadopportunities for multidisciplinary work andplans to establish an interdisciplinary bio-MEMS laboratory that focuses on systemintegration of micro-optical andmicrofluidic elements for lab-on-a-chipapplications and point-of-care diagnostics.“The top-rated departments of biology andbioengineering and the University ofMichigan Medical School will provide thechance to develop unique and successfulcollaborations,” he said.

Given his research interests, Chronis willteach graduate courses in MEMS/NEMS andbio-MEMS/NEMS as well as undergraduatecourses in fluid dynamics and heat transfer.

Currently Chronis is completing post-doctoral work at RockefellerUniversity. He earned hisdoctoral degree from theUniversity of California atBerkeley (2004) and hisbachelor’s degree fromAristotle University inThessaloniki, Greece(1998).

Angela Violi has been appointed AssistantProfessor of Mechanical Engineering. Shewill assume the position in January 2006.Currently she serves as an adjunctprofessor in the ME department.

Violi’s research focuses on nanoparticlegrowth and self-assembly, nanoparticleinteractions with biomolecular systems,molecular modeling of complex systemsusing atomistic models, applied chemicalkinetics and aerosols.

Particulate emissions on the nanoscalerelate to two pressing environmentalproblems: the health impact of fineparticles and global warming, according toVioli. The goal of her research is tocharacterize organic pollutants of highmolecular mass both chemically andphysically and to study their interactionwith the environment and living organisms.

She is working toward the development of atheoretical nano-science program throughthe use of novel simulation methodologiesat disparate spatial and temporal regimessuch as Molecular Dynamics and MonteCarlo. The objective is to develop atomistic

approaches to study the formation andfate of carbonaceous material

since size, chemicalfunctionalities and watersolubility play a role in theinteractions of aerosolswith human lung tissue.Also as nanoparticles age,cyclodehydrogenationreactions lead to the

From left to right: Nikolas Chronis and Angela Violi

EARNING ACCOLADES 51

formation of ‘graphitic’ domains thatfurther enhance absorption, a processrelevant to understanding global warming.

Since her research has evolved fromexperimental combustion to molecularmodeling of complex systems usingatomistic methodologies and nanoparticleinteractions with biomolecular systems,she plans to teach a graduate course at U-M that draws on these areas with respectto molecular dynamics and appliedchemical kinetics.

Violi earned her B.S. (1994) and Ph.D.(1999) in chemical engineering from theUniversity of Naples Federico II. Sheconducted post-doctoral research at theUniversity of Utah, where she currentlyserves as joint research assistant professorin the Departments of ChemicalEngineering and Chemistry.

She is looking forward to continuing herwork at U-M. “The University of Michiganhas one of the strongest engineeringschools in North America. I’m excited bythe opportunity to work with such highquality students and faculty. Ann Arbor is agreat place to live, and I’ll be close enoughto industry and other top institutions that Iexpect to have no difficulty cultivatingrewarding collaborative relationships bothon and off campus.”

Wei-Hsuin Yang Retires

Wei-Hsuin Yang, professor of applied mechanics, retired from activefaculty status on May 31, 2004.

A native of Taiwan, Yang received his B.S.c degree from National Cheng KungUniversity in 1958, his MSc degree from the University of Washington in 1962,and his Ph.D. degree from Stanford University in 1965. He joined the U-Mfaculty in 1965 as an assistant professor and was promoted to associateprofessor in 1969 and professor in 1975.

Yang’s research focused on the mathematical foundation of plasticity theory,and he played a large role in introducing numerical methods into mechanics.In the later years of his career, he was very proud of his association with thedistinguished Professor L. Cesari at the University of Perugia, Italy, ontheorems for variational calculus.

He developed a generalization of the well-known Hölder inequality andapplied this generalization to problems of minimal surfaces, plasticity andoptimal designs. The practical impact of this research to industrialmanufacturing processes and structural designs is only now being realized.His research interests extend further to solid mechanics, appliedmathematics, numerical analysis, structural optimization, manufacturingprocess optimization, structural crash worthiness, optional design of wheelsand welding, and resulted in more than 65 publications.

Yang was a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, theSociety of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the scientific researchsociety, Sigma Xi. He served on numerous departmental, College andUniversity committees, including the Senate Assembly, the College’sCoordinating Committee on Mechanics, and the Department’s graduate,curriculum, admissions and financial aid committees.

A popular teacher, Yang mentored 19 Ph.D. students. He was also a visitingscholar at many institutions, including the Courant Institute of MathematicalScience at New York University, Stanford University, the University ofStuttgart in Germany and the University of Perugia.

Yang and his wife have retired to the Bay Area to be with family and friends.

FACULTY PROMOTIONSEllen Arruda, ME, from AssociateProfessor to Professor with Tenure

David Dowling, ME, from AssociateProfessor to Professor with Tenure

Hong Im, ME, from AssistantProfessor without Tenure to AssociateProfessor with Tenure

Huei Peng, ME, from AssociateProfessor to Professor with Tenure

Ann Marie Sastry, ME, from AssociateProfessor to Professor with Tenure

Volker Sick, ME, from Associate Professorto Professor with Tenure

Nick Vlahopoulos, NA ME, from AssociateProfessor to Professor with Tenure

Zoran Filipi, from Associate ResearchScientist to Research Associate Professor

Michael Kokkolaras, from AssistantResearch Scientist to AssociateResearch Scientist

Zheng Dong Ma, from AssociateResearch Scientist to ResearchScientist

Zbigniew Pasek, from AssistantResearch Scientist to AssociateResearch Scientist


After a four-decade career, AssociateProfessor Bruce Karnopp is retiring.

Sort of. While Karnopp was namedAssociate Professor Emeritus ofMechanical Engineering at the end ofAugust 2004, he adds “and counting” whentallying the years he’s spent teaching — 38of them at U-M. He will continue to servethe ME department and College ofEngineering.

Karnopp joined the ME faculty in 1968 afterspending three years as an assistantprofessor at the University of Toronto. Heearned his bachelor’s degree fromMassachusetts Institute of Technology, hismaster’s from Brown, and his Ph.D. inEngineering Mechanics from the Universityof Wisconsin. He has distinguished himselfin the field of dynamics, written the widelypublished textbook, “Introduction toDynamics,” and developed software tosolve problems in dynamics, strength ofmaterials, applied mathematics andvibrations. The focus of his own researchhas been vibrations and vibration analysisand damping capacity.

At U-M, Karnopp was promoted toassociate professor in 1973 and wasgranted tenure in 1974, a milestone thatstill stands out in his mind amongnumerous professional accomplishments.

Another, he says, was being namedassistant dean of the college in 1983. Heheld that position for six years, duringwhich time he developed and institutedrecruiting programs for underrepresentedstudents. He recruited minority studentsthrough the Ford Fairlane Mansion in

Dearborn and students from rural areasthrough his Alpena Project. He served onthe university’s Admission’s AdvisoryCommittee from 1987 to 1996 and, as chair,drafted a mission statement galvanizing theuniversity’s commitment to diversity.

But Karnopp didn’t stop with recruitingstudents and writing mission statements.He put principles into action byparticipating in the College’s SummerEngineering Academy, where he helped

prepare incomingstudents to enter —and excel in — thecollege’s engineeringprograms. For morethan 15 years, he’s alsoserved as the facultycontact for the collegeorientation program, inwhich each enteringclass of about 1,000students and theirparents participate.“These students arefresh out of high schooland have little or nounderstanding of theengineering field,” saysKarnopp, which is why

“it’s important to give them an idea of thecourses they’ll take and the opportunitiesavailable to them. The experience they getat orientation motivates them.”

In the classroom, where Karnopp taughtintroductory and intermediate dynamics atboth the graduate and undergraduatelevels, his teaching evaluation scoreaveraged 4.71/5.0. Over the years Karnoppsays students have told him they’veappreciated his punctuality andpreparedness. Recently a student from1979 sent Karnopp an email after finding anold faculty directory. “I enjoyed your courseand text immensely. (I still refer to the textmany times.) It was all laid out sobeautifully and clearly, and all we had to dowas study.” The former student, JohnMoskwa, also fondly remembers Karnopp’smusical quips.

Fifteen years ago Moskwa founded thePowertrain Control Research Laboratory atthe University of Wisconsin. The labdevelops variations of high bandwidthtransient test systems and does controland modeling research with these tools.And he credits Karnopp with providing him“the solid foundation in dynamics, which isindispensable to the work we do.”

Karnopp has been formally recognized asan outstanding educator several times. Heis a recipient of the Amoco Teaching Award,the Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship, theCollege of Engineering Teaching ExcellenceAward and the Michigan Association ofGoverning Boards of State UniversitiesDistinguished Faculty Award. He also wasselected as the Professor of the Term sixtimes by the U-M chapter of Pi Tau Sigma.

Karnopp has seen plenty of changes sincehe began teaching at U-M in 1968. “Decadesago, many students came from workingclass or farm backgrounds. They had lifeexperiences that dovetailed withengineering. Today our students are smartbut often have never held a drill or wrenchin their hands. All too often, these studentsare unsure what a career in engineeringwould entail.” The change in technology, headds, is “dramatic. We’ve gone from slide

Bruce Karnopp Retires

Over the years, some15,000 students have

benefited fromKarnopp’s commitment

to education andlearning.

Associate Professor Emeritus Bruce Karnopp with family membersduring a celebration held in honor of his retirement.


rules to personal computers, from rotaryphones to omnipresent cell phones.”

Karnopp is likely to continue to see morechanges on campus since, despite his“emeritus” title, he will remain active inthe department and plans to finalize a setof computer programs to be incorporatedinto his second book.

Over the years, some 15,000 students havebenefited from Karnopp’s commitment toeducation and learning. It’s a commitment,and philosophy, that he applies to his ownlife as well. In addition to looking forwardto spending more time with his wife,children and grandchildren now that he has less of a workload, he’s also anxious to learn a new skill. “It’s often said thatengineers should look forward to lifelonglearning if they are to remain in theprofession. My wife gave me a 4x5 super-graphic camera for my 66th birthday andretirement. Going from roll film, which Ihave used for 50 years, to sheet film hasput me on the earliest part of the learningcurve. This is both exciting and frustrating,but to have the time to work on it gives mea great deal of enjoyment.”

As Moskwa joked in his email to Karnopp,“You are much more than a one-dimensional engineer.”

Celebrating the Life ofProfessor Gerard M. Faeth

Professor Gerard M. Faeth unexpectedly passed away in his home on Monday,January 24, 2005.

Faeth was known internationally for his numerous, diverse and lasting research andeducational contributions to engineering and the sciences. His research involvedmultiple disciplines — physics, chemistry, and aerospace and mechanicalengineering — and advanced the work of other researchers and practicingengineers.

Faeth was the Arthur F. ModineDistinguished University Professor, aProfessor of Aerospace Engineeringand Mechanical Engineering and Headof the Gas Dynamics Laboratories atU-M. Since 1959, he had enjoyed astellar career in teaching and researchon combustion, transport, and fluiddynamics at two of the nations’premier universities, Penn State andU-M. He was a highly devoted teacherand an excellent research mentor whograduated more than 50 Ph.D. studentsand 30 post-doctoral research fellows.Greatly influenced by his outstandingmentorship, many of his students haveemulated his footsteps and havepursued their own academic careers.

Faeth’s seminal researchcontributions to the fundamentals ofcombustion and heat transfer are ofexceptionally high quality. He is widely recognized as the leading and most citedresearcher in the area of spray breakup and soot formation fundamentals. He hasalso made broader impact through the application of his fundamental findings topractical industrial problems, such as those found in gas turbine combustors, internalcombustion engines and paint sprays. He was the author or co-author of more thanfive hundred journal articles and papers, which have shaped the field.

Faeth dedicated a great deal of his energy to render extensive and truly outstandingservice to academia and his professional community, where he served as editor-in-chief of the three most prestigious journals: the AIAA Journal, Combustion andFlame, and the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer. Faeth received numerous honorsthroughout his career, culminating with his election as a member of the NationalAcademy of Engineering in 1991. In 1993 he received the College of Engineering’sStephen S. Attwood Award, the highest honor the college can bestow on a facultymember. He was scheduled to give his lecture as the Arthur B. Modine DistinguishedUniversity Professor of Aerospace Engineering. The Distinguished UniversityProfessorship is one of the highest honors a Michigan faculty member can receive.

The ME Department will gravely miss Professor Faeth as a colleague, teacher, mentorand friend.

Professor Karnopp prepares to cut the cake.

Gerard M. Faeth


Prized Professor

ME Professor Huei Peng and ME Associate Professor AnnaStefanopoulou have earned 2004-2005 Outstanding

Achievement Awards.

Peng has been working on a three-year project funded by theNational Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standardsand Technology and Daimler-Chrysler on the water managementof fuel cell stacks. He is using relative humidity sensors andneutron beam techniques to detect dryness and moisturerespectively. The measurements obtained will enable predictivemodeling and control strategies for the fuel cell stack humidity.

Stefanopoulou has been working on the development ofcontrollers, fault detection methodologies and diagnosticalgorithms for the regulation of reactant flow and pressure, andtemperature in fuel cell stacks and fuel processors for hydrogengeneration. The work is funded by the National ScienceFoundation and leveraged through summer internships fromUnited Technologies Corporation.

Working as a strong team, the two established the Fuel CellControl Systems Laboratory in 2001, with support from theNational Science Foundation and the U-M Automotive ResearchCenter. The laboratory is unique among academic institutions, andthe models and controllers developed there are already used bymany academic and industrial research groups worldwide. TheFuel Cell Control Laboratory “fills in the critical gap ofexperimental verification and availability of public-domain data,”Stefanopoulou said.

TEAMWORK LEADS TOOUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT

Professor Huei Peng and Associate Professor Anna Stefanopoulou with theirresearch group. From left (front) are Stefanopoulou, Denise McKay, KatherinePeterson (now at Purdue), Ardalan Vahidi (now at Clemson), Kyung-Won Suh,Ming-Joon Kim, Peng, Vera Simms; and (back) Ray Chiang, Vasilis Tsourapas,Vernon Newhouse (now at GM), Jeff Everett.

Associate Professor AnnaStefanopoulou has earned the

2005 Henry Russel Award, conferredin recognition of “distinguishedscholarship and conspicuous abilityas a teacher.” The award is one ofthe highest honors the Universitygrants to faculty with less than sixyears’ tenure.

The Henry Russel Award and theHenry Russel Lectureship wereestablished with a bequest from thelate Henry Russel, a U-M alumnusand former vice president of thenow-defunct Michigan CentralRailroad.

Stefanopoulou’s work focuses onautomotive powertrain control

systems and architectures, vehicleand transportation control, thecontrol of advanced automotiveengines, fuel cell power andhydrogen reforming, control ofbreathing through valves, vanes, andmembranes and development ofmodular controller architectures.

She has earned numerous honors,including the Society of AutomotiveEngineers’ 2002 Ralph R. TeetorEducational Award, which recognizesengineering educators for teachingand curriculum and professionaldevelopment. She is the recipient offour Ford Innovation awards and wasnamed one of the ‘World’s Top 100Young Innovators’ by MIT TechnologyReview. She holds eight patents.

Anna Stefanopoulou at Manly Beach, Sydney, Australia — 3rdIFAC symposium on Mechatronics.


GOLDSTEIN ELECTED TO THE NATIONALACADEMY OF ENGINEERING

Professor Steven A. Goldstein has beenelected to the National Academy of

Engineering, the highest professionalrecognition to be bestowed upon an engineer.Membership in the academy honors engineersfor their contributions to engineeringresearch, practice or education.

Goldstein serves as Henry Ruppenthal FamilyProfessor of Orthopaedic Surgery and holdsjoint appointments as Professor of BiomedicalEngineering and Professor of MechanicalEngineering. He was recognized for furtheringthe profession’s understanding of bonemicromechanical and remodeling behaviorsand their translation into new therapies forrepair and regeneration.

Goldstein’s work examines how bothmechanical and biologic factors influence boneformation, repair and adaptation. “Bone is atruly smart material,” he explained. “It has theability to continuously sense its chemical,biological, and most importantly, its mechanicalenvironment.” That ability to sense themechanical environment and reactappropriately, he said, is at the root of normalbone function, and “if we understood thefundamental control mechanisms, we couldthen identify the biofactors and genes thatmight be dysfunctional in disorders and designrationale strategies for their repair orreplacement.”

His research has included both fundamentaland applied research toward the ultimategoals of treating and preventing bonedisorders, enhancing post-trauma healing andmaintaining structural integrity associated

with the aging process. He has designed newsurgical instruments and a unique artificialjoint that can be biologically anchored in bone,which increases longevity and functionality. Healso co-developed a methodology for usinggene therapy to alter the wound healingresponse in bone as well as other tissues,including skin, cardiac muscle and tendon. Aclinical trial using the technique for healingdiabetic ulcers is underway.

Goldstein said he was both excited andhumbled by his election to the NAE. But it maybe the accomplishments of the students hehas worked with since he joined the U-Mfaculty in 1981 of which he’s most proud. “Ihave had the privilege of working with afabulous group of trainees. Many of mygraduates are doing spectacularly well inindustry while a large number holdappointments at prestigious universitiesaround the world, performing pioneeringscience and publishing outstanding papers.Sometimes what you’re most proud of areyour children.”

Goldstein credits mentor Professor EmeritusLarry Matthews of the Department ofOrthopaedic Surgery, with having influencedhow he approaches his bioengineering work.“He taught me to step back and to try andsimplify the problems, to approach them morestraightforwardly. That often works and letsyou unravel complex phenomena.”

Upon learning she earned the HenryRussel Award, Stefanopoulou saidshe “felt indebted to all of thecolleagues who worked hard togather the material necessary for theaward nomination. During the awardceremony I looked at the list offormer recipients with awe.”

The greatest reward, however,remains the interaction withstudents and “their transformationinto confident, curious researchersand well-respected engineers andeducators at top academicinstitutions.”


nonlinear modal analysis and dynamics ofmistuned bladed-disks and dry-frictiondamped systems.

Pierre is excited about his new role atMcGill, particularly because of itsinternational reputation for academicexcellence. “I think McGill is ideallypositioned to leverage its location in such amulticultural city to build productivepartnerships with institutions in both theUnited States and Europe,” he said.

During his Michigan tenure, Pierre earnedawards for excellence in teaching, researchand service, and plans to maintain some ofhis collaborations. He has built strongrelationships with companies such as Prattand Whitney, General Electric, and Snecmaand will continue working with U-M’sAssociate Research Scientist MattCastanier on the modeling of structuraldynamics of turbine engine bladed disks(see story on page 4) through GETransportation’s USA Program.

Christophe Pierre, formerly the StephenP. Timoshenko Collegiate Professor of

Mechanical Engineering, has joined thefaculty of McGill University in Montreal asdean of the faculty of engineering,professor in the Department of MechanicalEngineering, and holder of the CanadaResearch Chair in Structural Dynamics andVibration.

Pierre joined the U-M faculty in 1985, afterearning his Ph.D. from Duke University. Heheld a joint appointment as associate deanin the Horace H. Rackham School ofGraduate Studies and served as associatedirector of the Automotive ResearchCenter. He was the director of theStructural Dynamics Laboratory in the MEdepartment, where his research focus hasbeen aerospace and automotiveapplications of structural and nonlineardynamics, localization in disorderedstructures, mid-frequency vibrationtransmission in complex structures,

CHRISTOPHE PIERRE NAMED DEAN AT MCGILL UNIVERSITY

Pierre says that although he will miss AnnArbor and U-M, he’s pleased bothpersonally and professionally to move withhis family to Montreal. “It’s a truly vibrantcity — coming here, and to McGill, is agreat opportunity.”

STEVEN L. CECCIO APPOINTED TO OVPR

Professor Steven L. Ceccio has beenappointed Associate Vice President for

Research in the Office of the VicePresident for Research (OVPR) for athree-year term.

Among his chief responsibilities will beacting as OVPR liaison to other U-M unitsinvolved in scholarly and creative activitiesin the natural and physical sciences andengineering, according to Vice Presidentfor Research Fawwaz Ulaby. Ceccio willalso lead task forces, develop initiatives,study policy issues and evaluate researchproposals.

One year into his term, he is enthusiasticabout his role, particularly “the opportunityto have a broader, bird’s eye view of all themultidisciplinary activity that’s going onthroughout the research community here.It’s always exciting to experience firsthandthe breadth of the university.”

Ceccio joined the U-M faculty in 1990 andbecame a professor in 2003. He holds ajoint appointment in Naval Architecture andMarine Engineering, and his research focusis fluid mechanics and understandingmultiphase flow processes. He currentlyheads two large multidisciplinary studieson the dynamics of cavitation and thereduction of flow-induced friction drag. His efforts span several departmentswithin the College.

“Professor Ceccio has devoted himself topromoting collaboration in his departmentand the college. He will now be able to helpfoster more cooperative ventures on alarger scale, both across campus and withother institutions,” said Ulaby.

Christophe Pierre

Steven L. Ceccio


related research, development andmanufacturing.

It’s not everyday that Associate ProfessorDawn Tilbury travels in a KC-135 with an

F-14 Tomcat escort. Or jumps from a 34-foot tower at Fort Bragg. For a participantin the Defense Science Study Group,however, such unusual experiences are the norm.

Under the auspices of the Institute forDefense analysis and the Defense AdvanceResearch Projects Agency, the DSSG wasdesigned to introduce young faculty toissues of national defense. Membersspend more than 20 days over the courseof eight sessions learning the ins and outsof national security. They interact withsenior officials from government agenciesand tour military bases, defense labs andindustrial facilities to learn about defense-

Not a Typical Day: DEFENSE SCIENCE STUDY GROUP TEACHES THROUGH EXPERIENCE

This spring Associate Professor DiannBrei boarded a bus with 23 University of

Michigan colleagues. The group was boundfor a five-day tour of the state as part ofthe Michigan Road Scholars Program.

Developed and run by the University’sOffice of State Outreach, the programgives participants firsthand experiences ofthe state’s economy, politics, culture,history and geography to increase mutualunderstanding among the U-M communityand residents. Faculty learn how they canaddress state issues through theirresearch, scholarship and creative work.

Day one had participants touring Detroit,nonprofit organizations and the GM Truckand Bus Plant; day two, the Michigan StateCapitol in Lansing; day three, a furnituremanufacturing plant and correctionalfacility near Grand Rapids; day four, acherry farm in northern Michigan. On dayfive, the group met with The Sault Tribe ofChippewa Indians in the Upper Peninsula.

BREI TOURS STATE WITH MICHIGAN ROAD SCHOLARS PROGRAM

The experienceimpressed Brei.“Everyone we metwas just soinspiring.”

Equally inspiringwere conversationswith fellow travelers,“musicians, a poet,an architect, nurses,engineers. You had24 differentperspectives. Youlearn about otherprojects going on atthe University, thingsyou have in commonwith others andareas that presentunique challenges.You learn where you can bridge the gaps.”

Brei also gained an appreciation of someof the challenges facing the state. “Peopleare losing their jobs, and its clear thatinnovation and new technology are needed.

In 2004-2005, 14 faculty representinginstitutions around the U.S. covered a lot ofterritory, stopping in ten states from Alaskato Washington, D.C. The group boarded theUSS Saipan, a Norfolk, Va.-basedamphibious assault ship; took targetpractice with the Army National Guard atthe Battle Command Training Center at FortLeavenworth; flew a Super Cobra helicoptersimulator; and toured the Naval SubmarineBase in Kings Bay, Georgia, among otheractivities.

“We all learned so much about nationaldefense and the challenges,” said Tilbury.“And getting to know the other 13professors from a wide range of scienceand engineering disciplines only added toan incredibly valuable experience.”

We’re the perfect people to help.” Sheplans to emphasize that message withstudents too. “As part of the professionthey can do something–they don’t evenhave to wait until they’re out of college.”

Associate Professor Diann Brei (front row standing, far left) withcolleagues participating in the Michigan Road Scholars Program.

Associate Professor Dawn Tilbury jumps from a34-foot tower at Fort Bragg during activities withthe Defense Science Study Group.

students connect withappropriate faculty for researchand fellowship opportunities. Inaddition, Isaac watchesapplication and enrollmenttrends and conductsbenchmarking with otherinstitutions.

This spring, Isaac introducedthe email Peer Mentor programwhere new students werematched with mentors whoserve as a resource forinformation and advice. “Suchmeasures,” says Isaac, “go along way in providing critical

information in a timely manner and allow for a smootheradjustment to campus upon arrival.

“Our graduate program has been ranked fourth in the nation by US News and World Report. We have some stiff competition, and Iwant to do my best to make Michigan the number one choice.”


Once again, a member of the ME staffhas been recognized for exceptional

service to the College of Engineering. InMay 2005, Technical Services SupervisorSteve Erskine received an Excellence inStaff Service Award from former College ofEngineering Dean Steven Director.

CoE’s Excellence in Staff Service AwardProgram was established to recognize thevital contributions staff make to theCollege’s success and prominence.Recipients are chosen for exemplary workand/or special achievements and receiveboth a cash award and a citation.

Erskine has been a member of the MEstaff for more than 21 years and hadpreviously been recognized with anEngineering Research Center Staff Award.

In making the presentation, Director notedthat Erskine has ensured the steadyfunctioning of the NSF EngineeringResearch Center for ReconfigurableManufacturing Systems through hisexceptional problem-solving andinterpersonal skills and willingness to take

initiative. He cited the time Erskinecoordinated the disassembly,transportation and reassembly of the ERC’sReconfigurable Machine Tool fordemonstration at the InternationalManufacturing Technology Show in Chicago.

This was no small feat — the machine is12-1/2 feet tall and weighs 12,000 lbs.

Erskine remained characteristically modestabout the award. “It was an unexpectedsurprise,” he said. “I thought it must be amistake.”

STAFF EXCELLENCE RECOGNIZED IN ME

Since Smriti, also known as Simmi, Isaac joined the MEdepartment in December 2004, she has had a full plate. The new

graduate admissions coordinator in the Academic Services Officecame on board in the midst of the fall 2005 application reviewprocess, which she coordinated before hosting two groups ofprospective students. At present she is developing the nextorientation program for 160 students. “It’s been a busy time,” she said.

Isaac earned a master’s degree in higher education administrationfrom U-M and has worked at the University since 1998. Prior tojoining the Mechanical Engineering department, she worked in theInternational Center for six years where she assisted theUniversity’s large population of international students, scholars,faculty and staff with employment and immigration advising andadjustment issues. Earlier in her career, she worked in admissionsand recruiting at King College and Carson-Newman College inTennessee.

Isaac manages the recruitment and admissions process, includingrelated events for promising domestic and international students.The efforts generate between 800 and 1,000 applications annually tothe department’s masters and doctoral programs. She helps

MEET SIMMI ISAAC, GRADUATE ADMISSIONS COORDINATOR

Steve Erskine with former ME Associate Research Scientist Zbigniew Pasek (left) and NSF ERC-RMSDirector Professor Yoram Koren.

Simmi Isaac


Faculty Honors and Awards

James Ashton-Miller• Fellow, American Institute for Medical and

Biological Engineering, 2005

James Barber• Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship, 2005

Diann E. Brei • Michigan Road Scholar, 2005• Invitee to National Academy of Engineering

Frontiers in Engineering Program, 2004

Suman Das• Invitee to National Academy of Engineering

Frontiers in Engineering Program, 2005• Listed in Who’s Who Among America’s

Teachers, 2005• Article, “Bone Tissue Engineering Using

Polycaprolactone Scaffolds Fabricated viaSelective Laserintering,” (co-authored by acollaborative effort between the researchgroups of Das and Professor ScottHollister) featured as a top 25 article by theJournal of Biomaterials, 2005

• Literati Club 2005 Highly Commended Awardfor the article “Direct-Write Deposition ofFine Powders Through Miniature Hopper-Nozzles for Multi-Material Solid FreeformFabrication” published in the RapidPrototyping Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2004

Bogdan Epureanu • Invitee to National Academy of Engineering

Frontiers in Engineering Program, 2004

Zoran Filipi • University of Michigan Research Faculty

Recognition Award, 2005

Steven A. Goldstein • Member, National Academy of Engineering

Tom Gillespie • Outstanding Distant Learning Faculty Award,

GM Technical Education Program

Charlie Hasselbrink • Article, “Rapidly Prototyped Three-

Dimensional Nanofludic Channel Networksin Glass Substrates,” featured on the coverof Analytical Chemistry, 2005

Scott Hollister• Article, “Bone Tissue Engineering Using

Polycaprolactone Scaffolds Fabricated viaSelective Laserintering,” (co-authored by acollaborative effort between the researchgroups of Hollister and Assistant ProfessorDas) featured as a top 25 article by theJournal of Biomaterials, 2005

Gregory M. Hulbert • Fellow, International Association for

Computational Mechanics, 2004

Yoram Koren• Paper, “Manufacturing Investment and

Allocation in Product Line Design Decision-Making,” (co-authored with JeremyMichalek, Oben Ceryan and PanosPapalambros) was selected to receive theASME 2005 Design Automation Best PaperAward. The work is based on Michalek’sPh.D. work at the ERC-RMS

Katsuo Kurabayashi • Robert Caddell Memorial Award, 2005• Co-author of SPIE Best Student Paper (with

Yi-Chung Tung), “Nano-Imprinted Strain-Controlled Elastomeric Gratings for OpticalWavelength Tuning with Visible Light,” 2004

Jwo Pan • Certificate of Recognition for organizing

various symposiums, Society of AutomotiveEngineers, 2004

Panos Y. Papalambros • Distinguished Achievement Award in

Systems and Design, Japan Society ofMechanical Engineers Fifth Internationalsymposium on Tools and Methods ofCompetitive Engineering, 2004

• Paper, “Manufacturing Investment andAllocation in Product Line Design Decision-Making,” (co-authored with JeremyMichalek, Oben Ceryan and Yoram Koren)was selected to receive the ASME 2005Design Automation Best Paper Award. Thework is based on Michalek’s Ph.D. work atthe ERC-RMS

Huei Peng• Best Paper Award, 7th International

Symposium on Advanced Vehicle Control,2005

Ann Marie Sastry • University of Michigan Faculty Recognition

Award, 2005• Fellow, American Society of Mechanical

Engineers, 2004• Presidential Citation for Outstanding

Achievement, University of Delaware, 2004

Anna Stefanopoulou• Outstanding Young Investigator, American

Society of Mechanical EngineersInternational Dynamic Systems and ControlDivision, 2005

• Henry Russel Award, 2005

Jeffrey L. Stein• Fellow, American Society of Mechanical

Engineers, 2005

Michael Thouless • Joint work (with Shu Takayama from

Biomedical Engineering) on “Fabrication ofreconfigurable protein matrices by cracking”appeared on the cover of Nature Materials,2005

• Professor-of-the-term, Pi-Tau-Sigma, 2005• David E. Liddle Research Excellence Award,

2004

Galip A. Ulsoy• Outstanding Investigator Award, American

Society of Mechanical Engineers DynamicSystems & Control Division, 2004


Charles M. Vest Honored with AlumniSociety Medal

Charles M. Vest earned the 2004 AlumniSociety Medal for his distinguished

four-decade career in teaching and highereducation administration. Most recentlyVest served as the 15th president ofMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Hestepped down in December 2004 after a 14-year tenure. He is also a member of themechanical engineering faculty at MIT withresearch interests in the areas of thermalsciences, lasers and coherent optics.

Prior to assuming the presidency of MIT in1990 Vest was provost and vice presidentfor academic affairs at U-M. He held theposition of dean of engineering from 1986to 1989. He joined the ME faculty in 1967,after earning both his master’s and Ph.D. inME at U-M. He received his bachelor’sdegree from West Virginia University andholds seven honorary doctorates.

Since stepping down as president, Vestcontinues to serve on the President’sCouncil of Advisors on Science andTechnology, which he has done since 1994.In early 2005, he completed service as amember of the Robb-SilbermanCommission on Intelligence Capabilities ofthe United States Regarding Weapons ofMass Destruction.

In fall 2005, he will visit U-M for two weeksas Towsley Policy Maker in Residence at theGerald R. Ford School of Public Policy,where he will offer a mini-course on theimpact of the events of September 11, 2001on U.S. science policy.

Vest also works with three committees ofthe National Academy of Engineering and

the National Academy of Science andserves on two corporate boards. “It hasn’tbeen the quiet year of contemplation andwriting I had anticipated, but it has beenvery interesting, and I’m certainly learning alot,” he said.

U-M played a key role in his success. “Myeducation, teaching and administrativeexperiences there and my interactions withmany colleagues and friends across theUniversity taught me how to analyze

problems, value diversity of people andideas, and to occasionally take the ‘roadless traveled’.”

The Alumni Society Medal is the highesthonor bestowed by the Engineering AlumniSociety Board of Governors. It recognizesCollege of Engineering graduates who haveattained extraordinary achievement andwho have brought distinction to themselvesand the College.

“My education, teaching and administrative experiences there and myinteractions with many colleagues and friends across the university taught mehow to analyze problems, value diversity of people and ideas and to occasionallytake the ‘road less traveled’.”

Former College of Engineering Dean Stephen Director (left) congratulates Chuck Vest onwinning the Alumni Society Medal.

GIVING BACK 61

TIMOTHY M. MANGANELLORECEIVES 2005 ALUMNI SOCIETYMERIT AWARD

Timothy M. Manganello, who earnedboth his bachelor’s and master’s

degrees in ME in 1972 and ’75respectively, has won the 2005 AlumniSociety Merit Award from thedepartment for outstandingprofessional achievement. Manganellohas been the chairman and chiefexecutive officer of BorgWarner Inc.since 2003. The company, founded in1928, designs and produces advancedpowertrain components and systems.

Manganello has held a variety ofpositions with BorgWarner since hejoined the company in 1989, includingpresident and general manager ofBorgWarner TorqTransfer Systemsand vice president of operations forBorgWarner TorqTransfer Systems’Muncie, Indiana facility. Prior tojoining the company, Manganello held product engineering managementpositions at Chrysler Corporation and sales management positions at PTComponents-LinkBelt.

It was his education at U-M, said Manganello, that prepared him for thebreadth of positions he has held. “When it comes to my education as amechanical engineer, the analytical thought process, the approaches and toolsI learned while at the College of Engineering have remained priceless. It isdifficult to stay at the top of your field as a practicing engineer--science,discovery and innovation move too fast. Over time I evolved from a practicingengineer into other career areas such as sales, manufacturing and seniormanagement. But it was my engineering foundation, created at U-M, that gaveme the skills to be equally or more successful in these other occupationalareas.”

In addition to chairing the board of directors of BorgWarner, Manganello is amember of the board of directors of Bemis Company, Inc. He also serves onthe executive committee of the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI and is a memberof the Society of Automotive Engineers and of the Governor’s Board of theWorld Economic Forum. He serves on the University of Michigan College ofEngineering National Advisory Committee.

Winning the Alumni Society Merit Award from the Department “creates a greatsense of pride for me,” he said. “My wife and I are both U-M graduates, andfor me to be recognized with this award is totally unexpected and one of thetop highlights of my career.”

ALUMNI AWARDNOTESJianmin Gu (Ph.D. 2000), was a member of aFord Motor Company team that received the2004 SAE Henry Ford II Distinguished Award forExcellence in Automotive Engineering. For hisexceptional contributions, he was promoted byFord in June 2005 to the position of TechnicalExpert for Vehicle Shift Quality CAE. He waspreviously recognized by Ford as the Engineer of the Month, CAE and Durability Engineering,(March 2005) and received the VehicleEvaluation and Verification Achievement Awardin 2004.

Mahmoud I. Hussein (Ph.D. 2004), receivedthe top prize in the 17th annual Robert J. MeloshMedal competition for the Best Student Paperon Finite Element Analysis at a ceremony atRensselaer in April 2005. The competition issponsored by Department of Civil andEnvironmental Engineering at Duke University,the Scientific Computation Research Center atRensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Elsevier.

John R. (Chip) Keough (B.S.E. ME and B.S.E.MM ’77), has earned an Alumni Society MeritAward from the department of Materials Scienceand Engineering, University of Michigan, for hisexceptional professional accomplishments.Keough is the chief executive officer and ownerof Applied Process, Inc., a heat treating facilityspecializing in the Austempering process.

Wei Li (Ph.D. ME ’99), assistant professor ofMechanical Engineering at the University ofWashington, Seattle, has been awarded aprestigious 2004 Presidential Early Career Awardfor Scientists and Engineers. The award waspresented at a ceremony at the Department ofthe Treasury in Washington, D.C.

Jeremy Michalek (M.S. ME ’01; Ph.D. ME ’05),co-authored a paper, “Manufacturing Investmentand Allocation in Product Line Design Decision-Making,” (with Oben Ceryan, Yoram Koren andPanos Papalambros) that was selected toreceive the ASME 2005 Design Automation BestPaper Award. The work is based on Michalek’sPh.D. work at the ERC-RMS.

Timothy M. Manganello


ME Welcomes Perspectives from ExternalAdvisory Board

ME’s External Advisory Board isdesigned to provide insights from

industry professionals to help guide thedepartment’s efforts to prepare studentsfor careers in the field. The most recentadditions to the EAB, Ashok Nayak, PaulNuyen and Alan Woodliff are welcomecontributors to the continual improvementprocess for ME.

Dr. Ashok L. NayakSince joining Alcoa as a Director at theAlcoa Technical Center in 1997, Dr. Ashok L.Nayak has advanced rapidly in the company.In the first four years since he joinedAlcoa, he held positions of increasingresponsibility, including Vice President ofBusiness Development of Alcoa MillProducts and General Manager of Alcoa’sAutomotive Closure Panel Operations. Hewas elevated to the position of ExecutiveDirector, Development & AppliedEngineering, Alcoa Technical Center in2001, and he is currently the Director,External Innovations and TechnologyStrategy at the Alcoa Technical Center.

Prior to joining Alcoa, Nayak had beenDirector of Technology at CorningIncorporated, where he worked in severalof the company’s business units. In his roleas Director of Technology, he wasresponsible for many of the firm’s product,process, and manufacturing developments.During his career at Corning, he wasrecognized with several awards, includingthe company’s Best Idea Award in 1986. Healso holds three patents.

These and other honors are evidence ofhis ability to see a problem and solve it.Nayak has been recognized throughout hiscareer for innovation, and it is this blend ofsolid engineering and creative approachesthat make him a valuable member of theEAB.

Nayak completed his undergraduate workat the Indian Institute of Technology. Heearned his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering

from the University of Hawaii and a Ph.D. inMechanical Engineering from theUniversity of California at Berkeley.

Paul D. NuyenIn his role as Director-Auburn, Paul Nuyenis responsible for manufacturingoperations at the Auburn, Washington site,which is part of the Boeing CommercialAirplane company’s Fabrication Division. Inthis role, he oversees the EmergentManufacturing Facility, IntegratedAerostructures, Auburn Machining, andTube and Duct Center ManufacturingBusiness Units. These ManufacturingBusiness Units produce components andassemblies for all current Boeing Aircraftin production. While his Boeing positionmight seem to tie him more closely toaerospace engineering than mechanicalengineering, he sees it as an excellentopportunity to build on theinterconnections between severalengineering disciplines.

“Of course, Boeing is known for its aviationexpertise,” said Nuyen, “and ME’shistorical expertise has been inautomotive, but we hire many mechanicalengineers, and it’s important to us as acompany and to me as an individual that wework together as closely as possible toprepare students for their professionalcareers.”

Nuyen’s ties to U-M — he earned a B.S. inMechanical Engineering 1980 — made hima natural choice to be Boeing’srepresentative to U-M. In that role, hevisits the campus regularly, and has led thepartnership in several areas.

“Boeing has had many interactions with MEover the years and most recently becamean industry partner with the [NSF]Engineering Research Center forReconfiguarable Manufacturing Systems,”said Nuyen. “We also have been providingscholarships to the College of Engineering,so as a company, we are quite familiar withthe quality of the students here.”

Being asked to join the EAB was an obviousextension of the existing relationship, anda welcome one for Nuyen. “I was quitepleased and honored to be invited to jointhe EAB,” he said. “It’s a honor to be ableto give back to a school that has given meso much. On a professional level, Iappreciate the opportunity to presentBoeing’s views about what ME can do tomake the program even stronger. I thinkit’s always important to be able to see andhear different perspectives in order todetermine the best course of action.”

That course of action, in his eyes, shouldbe all encompassing. “We need to talkabout how ME can contribute in areas likeenergy, the environment and ecology,” hesaid. “Most important, we need toconcentrate on educating students not onlyin technical terms, but also in the need tohave a continuing thirst to learn and to putthat knowledge to work in practical terms.”

In addition to his degree from U-M, Nuyenalso completed the Executive Program atthe HAAS School of Business at theUniversity of California at Berkeley in 1992.

Dr. Alan WoodliffDr. Alan Woodliff, Director of AdvancedBusiness Development at Visteon, hasbeen actively involved in maintaining a tightconnection between ME and theautomotive design and engineering firm.Since 2003, he has been instrumental inbuilding the relationship between ME andVisteon through the company’s program tosupport its connections to leadinguniversity automotive departments. Hewelcomed the invitation to serve on theEAB as a way to further develop thatrelationship.

“We are involved in working with andrecruiting from many universities,” saidWoodliff. “We determined that we shouldfocus on working with the best, and,naturally, that led us to concentrate onschools like the University of Michigan.”

GIVING BACK 63

Woodliff’s relationship with the universitydates from his student days. When Visteonestablished its corporate/universityrelationships committee, of which he is theco-chair, he was a natural choice for role of“executive champion” for the U-M SteeringCommittee. He credits Daryl Weinert,Visteon’s Director of CorporateRelations/College of Engineering, and MEChair Dennis Assanis for their work inhelping him achieve his goal ofstrengthening the ties between the twoorganizations.

“I was quite honored when Dennis askedme to join the EAB,” said Woodliff. “I seecommonality in how Visteon moves forwardin its business growth and how the MEDepartment moves forward in its growth. Isee my role as being a bridge for bothorganizations to grow together.”

In his role at Visteon, Woodliff leads aglobal team responsible for ensuring thatthe company’s key new technologydevelopments are customer driven and

become commercialized with an emphasison speed to market. This provides him witha focus that emphasizes the practicalaspects of mechanical engineering and theway students are prepared to enter thefield.

“I see my role as one of advisor andmentor,” he said. “As an advisor, I expectto be able to help guide the MEdepartment in terms of future roles,curriculum and research in terms of whatindustry would expect. As a mentor, Iexpect to be able to offer direct help fromVisteon in terms of initiatives in the MEdepartment, and the College ofEngineering as an extension of that.

“Ultimately, I would like to see the MEdepartment continue to be regarded asone of the premium programs in thecountry, if not the world, and to see itsstudents continue to excel in their abilityto contribute to technical development,whether in industry, academia orelsewhere. I am proud to be able to help inthat effort.”

The 2005 ME External Advisory Board: Chuck Hutchins, Richard Heglin, Roger McCarthy, Roberta Zald (seated), Marshall Jones, Professor Dennis Assanis,Walt Bryzik, Paul Kern, Ward Winer, Paul Nuyen, David Pekarek (ME student), Alan Woodliff, Mike Korybalski, and Eric Dayringer (ME student).

Woodliff holds a B.S. in AerospaceEngineering, an M.S. and Ph.D. inMechanical Engineering, and an M.S. inBusiness Administration, all from U-M.


The Fourth Korea Advanced Institute ofScience and Technology-University of

Michigan Joint Workshop on EmergingTechnologies in Mechanical Engineeringdrew nearly two dozen faculty and stafffrom both universities. The group met inSan Francisco to discuss common researchareas and opportunities for continuedcollaboration.

“It was a great experience for everyone,”said ME Associate Professor Hong Im,program coordinator along with ProfessorSang Yong Lee in the KAIST MechanicalEngineering Department. The format ofthis year’s meeting facilitated the highdegree of interaction and learning. Eachparticipant joined forces with at least onecolleague from the other institution topresent an overview of state-of-the-artresearch. During the course of the two-dayworkshop, eleven presentations weremade.

Papers presented were: CombustionCharacteristics in Near-ExtinctionConditions for Micro-CombustorApplication by Associate Professor Sejin

Kwon (KAIST) and Associate ProfessorHong G. Im (U-M); Fuel Cells and FuelProcessing: Research Opportunity andCurrent Research at KAIST and U-M byAssociate Professor Joongmyeon Bae andProfessor Jing Sun (KAIST) and ProfessorHuei Peng and Associate Professor AnnaStefanopoulou (U-M); Vibrations,Acoustics and Microsystems by ProfessorYang-Hann Kim (KAIST), AssistantProfessor Katsuo Kurabayashi andAssociate Professor Karl Grosh (U-M); andRecent Advances in Electrokinetic Pumpingfor Microfluidic Systems by ProfessorSungjin Kim (KAIST) and AssistantProfessor Charlie Hasselbrink andProfessor William Schultz of U-M.

One of the most significant results of theannual events, explained Im, is that severalactive, meaningful collaborations havedeveloped among faculty and theirgraduate students from both schools. “I’mgetting more and more feedback fromcolleagues these days about how mutuallybeneficial their work together has been.The program began just a little over four

Fourth Annual KAIST — U-M JointWorkshop a Success

years ago, and I think those commentsreflect great success.”

Another emerging opportunity is theforthcoming launch of the AutomotiveTechnology and Management Program atKAIST. “In our department at U-M, we havethe perfect model of an interdisciplinaryprogram (InterPro) specialized in theautomotive engineering, so this is a chancefor us to offer the experience andexpertise that we’ve developed in distancelearning and other areas.”

Students from both universities willorganize a joint graduate symposium forthe second time, to be held at U-M inOctober 2005. “It’s an entirely student-ledconference, which is an excellent learningexperience for them about taking theleadership in a scientific community,” Imsaid.

Im expects active collaborations willcontinue on many levels. “We’ve come tothe point where we can all see the tangibleoutcomes of our synergistic efforts.”

Participants in the Fourth Annual KAIST–U-M Joint Workshop.

University of MichiganCollege of EngineeringDepartment of Mechanical Engineering2250 G.G. Brown Laboratory2350 Hayward StreetAnn Arbor, MI 48109-2125

http://me.engin.umich.edu

Phone: 734-764-2694Fax: 734-647-3170

Executive EditorDennis N. Assanis

Managing EditorsChris AfricaMarcella Brighton

WritingOutword Professional Writing, Kim Roth

DesignBMC Media, Kathy M. Moody

Photo CreditsFaculty portraits and photos not listed below weretaken from the ME image archive.

Special thanks to the following individuals andgroups for their contributions:

William Lim (p. 2, 6, 8 photo, 31); Matt Castanier (p. 4); Zoran Filipi (p. 5); Volker Sick (p. 7); ArisBabajimopoulos (p. 8 graph); Jun Ni (p. 9,64); RodHill (p. 10-11, 29); Muammer Koç (p. 12); AshishDasgupta (p. 13); Edgar Meyhöfer & Noel Perkins(p. 14-15); Karl Grosh & Robert White (p. 16 photo);PNAS (p. 16 image); Johann Borenstein (p. 17);Diann Brei (p. 18); Noel Perkins (p. 19); Kevin Pipe(p. 20); Kazu Saitou (p. 21); U-M Photo Services (p. 24, 55, 58, 60, 63); Massoud Kaviany (p. 26);Technical University of Berlin (p. 27); Dawn Tilbury(p. 28); Daniel Tan (p. 30); Chuck Hutchins (p. 32);Solar Car Team MomentUM (p. 32-33); Formula SAE& SAE Mini Baja Teams (p. 34-36); VernonNewhouse (p. 37); Steve Skerlos (p. 38-39); AndresClarens & Manuel Hernandez (p. 39); Kiran D’Souza

(p. 40); Danese Joiner & Erin Macdonald (p. 41);Kimberly Cook, Brian Jensen & Sangwon Lee (p. 46);Kerr-Jia Lu & Alan McGaughey (p. 47); JeremyMichalek, Tiffany Miller & Katherine Petersen (p. 48);Ardalan Vahidi, Dung-an Wang & Robert White (p. 49);Nikolas Chronis & Angela Violi (p. 50); Bruce Karnopp(p. 52-53); Anna Stefanopoulou (p. 54); Annie I. Antón& Diann Brei (p. 57); Timothy M. Manganello (p. 61).

Regents of the UniversityDavid A. Brandon, Ann Arbor; Laurence B. Deitch,Bingham Farms; Olivia P. Maynard, Goodrich; RebeccaMcGowan, Ann Arbor; Andrea Fischer Newman, AnnArbor; Andrew C. Richner, Ann Arbor; S. Martin Taylor,Grosse Pointe Farms; Katherine E. White, Ann Arbor;Mary Sue Coleman, ex officio

Affirmative ActionThe University of Michigan, as an equalopportunity/affirmative action employer, complieswith all applicable federal and state laws regardingnondiscrimination and affirmative action, includingTitle IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 andSection 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. TheUniversity of Michigan is committed to a policy ofnondiscrimination and equal opportunity for allpersons regardless of race, sex,* color, religion,creed, national origin or ancestry, age, marital status,sexual orientation, disability, or Vietnam-era veteranstatus in employment, educational programs andactivities, and admissions. Inquiries or complaintsmay be addressed to the Senior Director forInstitutional Equity and Title IX/Section 504Coordinator, Office of Institutional Equity, 2072Administrative Services Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan48109-1432, 734-763-0235, TTY 734-647-1388. For otherUniversity of Michigan information call 734-764-1817.

* Includes discrimination based on gender identityand gender expression.

me.engin.umich.edu

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