Category Archives: Engineering
Bacterial biofilm functionalization through Bap amyloid engineering | npj Biofilms and Microbiomes – Nature.com
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Earth is suddenly rotating faster and the shortest day just recorded – Interesting Engineering
Believe it or not, but you actually gained an extra 1.59 milliseconds to your day. We hope you spent it wisely!
But why? Well, according to TimeAndDate.com, on that day, our planet, as far as scientists can tell, set a new record for the quickest time to complete one rotation. In other words, while you "received" 24 hours that day, you only "spent" 24 hours less 1.59 milliseconds.
Bargain!
But what? Isn't the Earth's day exactly 24 hours? Actually, no, well, not quite.
The first thing to note is that there are actually "kinds" of days, depending on your definition.
What did you do with your extra time?
The first, a solar day, is a period of 24 hours during which the Earth rotates so that the Sun appears at the same location in the sky. However, a sidereal day, which is defined as 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.091 seconds, is the time it takes for Earth to complete one full rotation on its axis with respect to distant stars.
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Earth is suddenly rotating faster and the shortest day just recorded - Interesting Engineering
Eugene city engineer ‘epitome of a leader,’ selected for national award – The Register-Guard
When people describe Jenifer Willer, they use words like driven, committed, supportive and caring.
Eugenes city engineer, they say, has an infectious laugh and tireless spirit and has shown a career-long dedication to public service.
Willer, whos worked for the city for nearly two decades, is set to be honored in August during the American Public Works Associations national conference. She was one of 10 selected as a top leader by the organization earlier this year.
In a nomination packet, the president of the Oregon chapter of the national organization writes that Willer is successful in her role because of her commitment to the city, community and to her profession.
In my opinion, Jenifer is the epitome of a leader in that she brings excellent ideas, comes ready with justification to support those ideas, often has resources to realize the ideas and is supportive through to execution, wrote John Lewis, who leads the state chapter and is public works director for Oregon City.
Willer shows incredible leadership in the city and does work that makes life better for people in Eugene, said Matt Rodrigues, Eugenes public works director.
Though Willer started her engineering career in the private sector, she grew up with family in public service and developed a passion for it.
After a handful of years with a private consulting firm, Willer started with the city as a civil engineer in early 2005. In February 2016, she was promoted to principal civil engineer, first in an acting capacity then officially in early 2017.
After more than three years in that role, she was promoted again to city engineer in an acting capacity. Shes had the role in an official capacity since the start of this year.
As city engineer, Willer manages 84 full-time equivalent positions, a division operating budget of about $15 million, and a capital budget of around $33 million.
She enjoys working directly for the people that Im working for and having a direct connection that lets her see the impact of her job.
In a typical day, Willer will coordinate with other divisions, departments and local governments, and she gives the final stamp of approval to projects.
With capital projects at an all-time high, theres a lot to do, she said.
It shows, Willer said. You drive around town, and you see construction.
Willer loves her job. Living and working in Eugene is exciting, she said, and people have a lot of passion about the work she does.
Everything that we do is personal to somebody, Willer said.
She added while emotions sometimes run high, she knows its important to play a part in something thats personal and means something to people.
Willers favorite part of the job is her team, who she credits for most of the recognition shes received over the years.
But she also simply likes the work she loves that its all about making things work that we all depend on every single day.
Willer particularly likes projects where shes able to talk to residents and figure out how to make things better, whether thats safer pedestrian crossings, a new facility or some other project.
Its complicated but its really rewarding to be part of that, she said of the job overall.
While Willer loves her career, she knows its a path that few people, especially woman, realize is an option, and shes enthusiastic about promoting it as something that others can do.
Her passion, advocacy for women in public works and engineering, and willingness to mentor all stood out to people who wrote letters or sent comments as part of her nomination.
Lewis said she has an amazing amount of drive, and its clear she loves what she does.
Drake McKee, who works with the Oregon Department of Transportation, said Willer backs up her project managers and is there to mentor young engineers.
Rodrigues added she rises to meet challenges and opportunities with grace, purpose and dedication and is a highly capable and caring leader who is deeply committed to the work while putting people first.
Their comments echoed others in a nomination that got Willer selected as a top 10 leader by the national organization that has around 30,000 members.
Willer was humbled and touched to even be considered and said it took her a minute to find her voice when she got a call from the national president informing her shed received the award.
She stressed that the award isnt about her individually but about her team and beyond.
The recognition is really about the city of Eugene.
Contact city government watchdog Megan Banta at mbanta@registerguard.com. Follow her on Twitter @MeganBanta_1.
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Eugene city engineer 'epitome of a leader,' selected for national award - The Register-Guard
Movers and shakers: Biggest construction and engineering appointments in July 2022 – New Civil Engineer
July saw notable appointments at major firms including Mott MacDonald, Tilbury Douglas, Arcadis, while National Highways has made an intriguing new appointment from the tech world to support its digital technology transformation.
A round up of the biggest moves and appointments during July is below. To feature on next months appointments roundup email catherine.kennedy@emap.com.
Motts makes trio of changes
James Harris has been appointed as the new Mott MacDonald Group executive chair, succeeding Mike Haigh who had been with the company for 42 years. Harris moves up from Group managing director, where he was a key player in Motts strong operational performance worldwide, especially in leading its successful response to COVID-19, as well shaping its award-winning approach to equality, diversity and inclusion.
Moving up into the Group managing director role vacated by Harris is Cathy Travers, who was previously Motts managing director for the UK and Europe region. This previous role saw her lead a team of 8,000 employees in delivering infrastructure projects across transport, water, energy and the built environment. She joined the consultancys executive board in January this year where she has continued to promote a culture of inclusivity, champion our wellbeing and mental health programmes and play a leading role in developing our early career professionals.
And, filling in the role left behind by Travers, Richard Risdon will be taking over the role of managing director of Motts UK and Europe region. Risdon moves over from Mott MacDonald Bentley contracting business, where he was operations director.
Tilbury Douglas brings in new chief operating officer
Craig Tatton has been brought into Tilbury Douglas as chief operating officer. He moves across from Bouygues UK, where he held the same title. In his 35 years of experience in the industry, including more than 15 at board level, he has held senior roles at Willmott Dixon, ISG, Miller and Laing ORourke.
To support this change, Tilbury Douglas has made three internal appointments into the new role of Regional Building Managing Directors, reporting into Craig. These are John Gittins, Managing Director - Building North, Simon Butler, Managing Director - Building Central, and Richard Boeg, Managing Director - Building South.
Cowi looks to boost commercial and procurement offering with industry expert hire
Dave Hull has been appointed as commercial director at Cowi. He as moved over from National Highways where he spent the last five years in the role of commercial programme director for the complex infrastructure programme. He has led delivery on major projects like Lower Thames Crossing and A303 Stonhenge tunnel.
New leadership group appointments for Railway Industry Association North
RIA North has bolstered its leadership group with the addition of David Maddison as vice chair, among other appointments.
Maddisons new role as vice chair sits within Alstoms Digital, Infrastructure and Systems business unit and he will work with RIA North chair Justin Moss to set the strategic direction of the group. He is a chartered project professional and a fellow of the Association of Project Management, with over 20 years experience of delivering complex multi-disciplinary projects within the rail environment.
Other appointments to RIA Norths leadership group are:
Arcadis hires new global service director
Having started her career through Arcadis graduate scheme, Kayleigh Owen has now been appointed as the firms global service director for cost and commercial management (CCM). Through her progress in the company, Owen has become a key part of the companys CCM community, accruing a wealth of experience working across multiple sectors including infrastructure investment, retail banking, lenders & investors, corporate real estate, health and education.
She has been a consistent champion for CCM as a discipline, as both a service leader for complex programs with global clients, such as HSBC, and a commission manager for the ambitious 1bn Transformation Programme at Manchester Airport.
UK Power Networks hires new director
David Mitchell has been appointed as director of UK Power Networks, taking up the mantle from Ian Smyth who will shift over to chief executive officer at Electricity North West later this year.
Mitchell has been working for UK Power Networks for over 40 years, having joined as an apprentice in 1980. His most recent role was head of client delivery, where he was responsible the delivery of major projects for key clients including works at Hinkley Point C, Great Western train line and London Underground.
WSP accelerates business growth with new strategic growth director
James Rowntree has joined WSP as strategic growth director with the mission of driving growth in the utilities, water, industrial and energy sectors.
He brings with him experience of being vice president at Jacobs European Leadership Team and of being seconded to HS2 Ltd as programme director, delivery partner.
Farrans in-house design team to be lead by new head of engineering
Farrans Construction has appointed Ross McWha into the newly created role of head of engineering for the civil engineering division. McWha has been with the company for 20 years, having joined as a graduate engineer with the estimating department. He has progressed through site engineering and pre-construction to his previous role as design manager.
McWha has worked on some of Farrans most prestigious projects across core sectors including the M80 Stepps to Haggs, A6 Randalstown to Castledawson Dualling, Cobh Lower Harbour Drainage Scheme and most recently Gull Wing bridge in Suffolk.
Experienced tech director becomes non-executive director at National Highways
National Highways has brought in Deigo Oliva as a non-executive director. He has previously worked for six years at Facebook as regional director of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He is also the co-founder and chief executive officer of Glue, a company which connects physical devices to the internet, all collecting and sharing data.
Olivas appointment signals National Highways intention to use digital technology to transform how it builds, maintains, operates and uses roads. It will also play a vital role in making them safer, greener and cleaner.
New director of infrastructure appointed at Rendel
Multidisciplinary design and engineering consultancy Rendel has announced the appointment of Virginie Lanfrey as its new Infrastructure Business Unit director and operational board director.
Lanfrey established Rendels office in Sydney, Australia in 2018 and contributed to successfully delivering some of Australias largest infrastructure projects including Sydney Gateway, Melbourne Metro Tunnel and the Port Rail Transformation project.
She is a chartered engineer with 20 years of experience in managing and delivering infrastructure projects of all sizes for state and local governments, and for contractors in design and build and PPP environments.
Rendels Infrastructure Business Unit is currently engaged on large and complex projects in the UK including the HS2 Colne Valley Viaduct, HS2s Chiltern Tunnels and Coventry Very Light Rail.
Top (from left): Craig Tatton, Dave Hull, Cathy Travers, David Mitchell / Bottom (from left): Diego Oliva, James Rowntree, Kayleigh Owen, Richard Risdon
Global engineering consultancy Meinhardt continues expansion in West Midlands
Nathaniel Gregory has been appointed as Meinhardt regional director for the West Midlands. The news comes as the consultancy announces that Birmingham will become its new hub for the delivery of integrated design management services, supporting 50 Meinhardt offices worldwide.
Gregory is a chartered civil engineer, who has transitioned into the role of leading Meinhardts engineering design and project management services in the UK. He has almost a decade of expertise in leading the delivery of large-scale multidisciplinary projects and complex master planning schemes, both in the UK and internationally.
Caddick Construction welcomes new managing director
Caddick Construction has appointed Paul Dodsworth as its new managing director, and he will be head of all construction companies within Caddick Group.
Dodsworth has more than 40 years experience in construction and joins from Wates Group, where he was regional managing director in the north. In his new role will be tasked with continuing Caddick Constructions vision for strategic geographical and sustainable growth across its divisions.
Civic Engineers restructures to mature and evolve
Civil, structural and transport engineering practice Civic Engineers has announced a reorganisation of the business and broadened expertise on the board with the appointment of a new non-executive director.
To help with the restructure and new vision for Civic Engineers, the firm has appointed Dominic Miller as a non-executive director. Miller is a co-founder and former chief operating officer of Fishawack Health, a global commercialisation partner for the biopharmaceutical, medical technology, and wellness industries, predominantly based in the US and UK.
The practice has created a parent company, with a board made up of chief executive Stephen O'Malley, chief operating officer Julian Broster, a new chief financial officer and non-executive directors.
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PERSPECTIVE: Take the Leap More Women Should Be Engineers – HS Today – HSToday
The words diversity and equality are often mentioned in a corporations credo, but rarely do organizations create significant actions and initiatives that invite everyone to the table equally. Although there have been great strides to be more inclusive and tolerant in the industry, the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) field remains heavily dominated by men. Personally, I have pursued STEM since I was a young girl, with a passion for math and science, eventually leading me to a career in electrical engineering.
Women deserve all the same opportunities as their male counterparts in engineering, and for that to happen it initially requires an open mind with a willingness to listen. Leaders are responsible for the work environments they create and nurture. When an organizations culture is curated with tolerance and understanding that promotes diversity, leaders tend to see engagement that supports innovative ideas and solutions for businesses. From my experience, diverse teams produce more out-of-the-box solutions, resulting in successful organizations. Forming positive initiatives for all women from any background creates opportunity, providing proof that women are wanted and belong in STEM-driven careers.
Sometimes, you just need to take a leap of faith. That leap may entail switching jobs, changing industries, or fighting for what you deserve, but never forget to believe in yourself and the value of your contributions. As rewarding as engineering positions can be, they can also be quite intense, requiring advanced levels of understanding of multiple technical systems. Maintaining mental and social flexibility is key for well-being, reducing the chance of finding yourself in a situation where you feel cornered or out of resources. This is where positive support systems are key to a successful career.
The support systems help level the playing field and allow aspiring professional women to succeed in their goals and careers. Mentors, compassionate leaders, advisors, and advocates can help improve a womens career in engineering as drastically as it did mine. Ambitious women should use all the tools and resources at their disposal to advance their careers in STEM. Listening to encouraging words from a fellow female professional or leader can be just what you need. Relying on mentors, role models and compassionate leaders can help improve a womens career in engineering as drastically as it did mine. Constructive and fair criticism should be welcomed and appreciated. No one is perfect and that is what makes us all beautiful.
I praise the women around the world tearing down barriers within their industry. Diversity, representation, and inclusion are the key pillars to a positive, compassionate, and productive work environment. I highly encourage any woman to be open to opportunity, be agile, be tenacious, be bold, explore numerous career paths in engineering and inspire others to pursue a career in engineering. Women belong in engineering, period.
The views expressed here are the writers and are not necessarily endorsed by Homeland Security Today, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints in support of securing our homeland. To submit a piece for consideration, email Editor@Hstoday.us.
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PERSPECTIVE: Take the Leap More Women Should Be Engineers - HS Today - HSToday
It’s time to leave the leap second in the past – Facebook Engineering
The leap second concept was first introduced in 1972 by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) in an attempt to periodically update Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) due to imprecise observed solar time (UT1) and the long-term slowdown in the Earths rotation. This periodic adjustment mainly benefits scientists and astronomers as it allows them to observe celestial bodies using UTC for most purposes. If there were no UTC correction, then adjustments would have to be made to the legacy equipment and software that synchronize to UTC for astronomical observations.
As of today, since the introduction of the leap second, UTC has been updated 27 times.
While the leap second might have been an acceptable solution in 1972, when it made both the scientific community and the telecom industry happy, these days UTC is equally bad for both digital applications and scientists, who often choose TAI or UT1 instead.
At Meta, were supporting an industry effort to stop future introductions of leap seconds and stay at a current level of 27. Introducing new leap seconds is a risky practice that does more harm than good, and we believe it is time to introduce new technologies to replace it.
One of many contributing factors to irregularities in the Earths rotation is the constant melting and refreezing of ice caps on the worlds tallest mountains. This phenomenon can be simply visualized by thinking about a spinning figure skater, who manages angular velocity by controlling their arms and hands. As they spread their arms the angular velocity decreases, preserving the skaters momentum. As soon as the skater tucks their arms back in the angular velocity increases.
So far, only positive leap seconds have been added. In the early days, this was done by simply adding an extra second, resulting in an unusual timestamp:
23:59:59 -> 23:59:60 -> 00:00:00
At best, such a time jump crashed programs or even corrupted data, due to weird timestamps in the data storage.
With the Earths rotation pattern changing, its very likely that we will get a negative leap second at some point in the future. The timestamp will then look like this:
23:59:58 -> 00:00:00
The impact of a negative leap second has never been tested on a large scale; it could have a devastating effect on the software relying on timers or schedulers.
In any case, every leap second is a major source of pain for people who manage hardware infrastructures.
More recently, it has become a common practice to smear a leap second by simply slowing down or speeding up the clock. There is no universal way to do this, but at Meta we smear the leap second throughout 17 hours, starting at 00:00:00 UTC based on the time zone data (tzdata) package content.
Lets break this down a bit.
We chose a 17-hour duration primarily because smearing is happening on Stratum 2, where hundreds of NTP servers perform smearing at the same time. To ensure that the difference between them is tolerable, the steps must be minimal. If the smearing steps are too big, NTP clients may consider some devices faulty and exclude them from quorum, which may lead to an outage.
The starting point at 00:00:00 UTC is also not standardized, and there are many possible options. For example, some companies begin smearing at 12:00:00 UTC the day before and throughout 24 hours; some do so two hours before the event, and others right at the edge.
There are also different algorithms on the smearing itself. There is a kernel leap second correction, linear smearing (when equal steps are applied), cosine, and quadratic (which Meta uses). The algorithms are based on different mathematical models and produce different offset graphs:
The source of the leap indicator differs between GNSS constellations (e.g., GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou). In some cases, it is broadcast by satellites several hours in advance. In other cases, time is propagated in UTC with the leap already applied. In different constellations, the leap second value differs depending on when it was launched.
All of this requires the nontrivial conversion logic inside of the time sources, including our very own Time Appliance. Loss of a GNSS signal during such a sensitive time may lead to a loss of a leap indicator and a split-brain situation, which could lead to an outage.
The leap event is also propagated via tzdata package months in advance, and for ntpd fans, via a leap second file distributed through the Internet Engineering Taskforce (IETF) website. Not having a fresh copy of the file may lead to forgetting about a leap second and causing an outage.
As already mentioned, the smearing is a very sensitive moment. If the NTP server is restarted during this period, we will likely end up with either old or new time, which may propagate to the clients and lead to an outage.
Because of such ambiguities, public NTP pools dont do smearing, sometimes passing a leap indicator to the clients to figure this out. SNTP clients usually end up stepping the clock and dealing with the consequences described earlier. Smarter clients may choose a default strategy to smear the leap locally. All in all, this means big players like Meta, who perform smearing on public services, cant join the public pools.
And even after the leap event, things are still at risk. NTP software needs to constantly apply offset compared to the source of time its using (GNSS, TAI, or Atomic Clock), and PTP software needs to propagate a so-called UTC offset flag in the announce messages.
The leap second and the offset it creates cause issues all over the industry. One of the simplest ways to cause an outage is to bake in an assumption of time always going forward. Say we have a code like this:
start := time.Now()
// do something
spent := time.Now().Sub(start)
Depending on how spent is used, we may end up in a situation relying on a negative value during a leap second event. Such assumptions have caused numerous outages, and there are plenty of articles that describe these cases.
Back in 2012, Reddit experienced a massive outage because of a leap second; the site was inaccessible for 30 to 40 minutes. This happened when the time change confused the high-resolution timer (hrtimer), sparking hyperactivity on the servers, which locked up the machines CPUs.
In 2017, Cloudflare posted a very detailed article about the impact of a leap second on the companys public DNS. The root cause of the bug that affected their DNS service was the belief that time cannot go backward. The code took the upstream time values and fed them to Gos rand.Int63n() function. The rand.Int63n() function promptly panicked because the argument was negative, which caused the DNS server to fail.
Its worth mentioning that Go, in particular, relies on a monotonic clock, and in most cases, is less susceptible to such issues.
Leap second events have caused issues across the industry and continue to present many risks. As an industry, we bump into problems whenever a leap second is introduced. And because its such a rare event, it devastates the community every time it happens. With a growing demand for clock precision across all industries, the leap second is now causing more damage than good, resulting in disturbances and outages.
As engineers at Meta, we are supporting a larger community push to stop the future introduction of leap seconds and remain at the current level of 27, which we believe will be enough for the next millennium.
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It's time to leave the leap second in the past - Facebook Engineering
Engineering works on Greater Anglia and c2c during August Bank Holiday – RailAdvent – Railway News
Services are likely to be disrupted on the Greater Anglia and c2c network during August Bank Holiday from Saturday, 27th to Monday, 29th August whilst Network Rail carries out essential maintenance to the tracks, signalling, and overhead lines.
The work is essential to keep services running safely and reliably.
Rail-replacement bus services will be in place and passengers are advised to check before they travel. No full-size bikes or e-scooters can be carried by rail replacement buses.
Work taking place includes:
Passengers should check National Rail Enquiries for the latest information on which trains will be running.
Ipswich to Ely/Cambridge North
Liverpool Street to Cheshunt (Local Diversions)
Fenchurch Street to Shoeburyness via Ockendon
Fenchurch Street to Shoeburyness via Rainham
Between Broxbourne and Hertford East
Between Stratford and Meridian Water
The rest of Anglias rail network, including the main lines, will be open as normal.
Ellie Burrows, Network Rails route director for Anglia, said:
Were carrying out renewal and upgrade works across the network to improve reliability and prevent delays now and in the future. Passengers are advised to check before they travel. Id like to thank passengers for their patience while we carry out this essential work.
Jamie Burles, Greater Anglia managing director said:
Were very sorry for any inconvenience caused by these projects, but its essential so that we can run our new longer trains.
Customers should check before they travel and allow more time for their journeys.
Where we are able to run rail replacement buses, they will be fully accessible with extra staff on hand to make the transition between train and bus as easy as possible.
Customer reaction to our new trains has been fantastic. With their plug and USB points, fast free Wi-Fi, air conditioning, improved accessibility features, dedicated cycle spaces and better passenger information screens, our new trains offer a much better travel experience.
c2cs MD Rob Mullen, said:
The work Network Rail is carrying out over the August Bank Holiday is essential in keeping services running safely and reliably in the longer term.
Some of our services will be operating differently than normal with rail replacement in operation on parts of our route. We would ask that our customers check before they travel over the summer bank holiday.
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Engineering works on Greater Anglia and c2c during August Bank Holiday - RailAdvent - Railway News
What is Engineering? – TeachEngineering
Engineering is all around us, so its often taken for granted. Ask yourself, what do I touch that is not engineered? Engineers develop and deliver consumer goods; design the transportation network of highways, air and rail travel; create and improve the internet; mass produce antibiotics; create artificial heart valves and other life saving medical devices; build lasers; and make wonders such as imaging technology and conveniences like microwave ovens and compact discs even possible. In short, engineers make our quality of life possible.
Engineering is the ultimate human endeavor, creating solutions to the worlds challenges and designing the products that support our quality of life. TeachEngineering makes engineering easy and hands-on for students of all grade levels and in any setting. Browse our extensive curricular collection, learn about the different types of engineering, or watch our YouTube videos that provide step-by-step guidance on how to teach hands-on engineering to anyone, in any setting!
Scientists investigate what is; they discover new knowledge in the universe by peering into the unknown. Engineers design and create what has never existed before.
Why Teach Engineering in K-12?
Explore the Various Types of Engineers!
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College of Engineering awarded $5.1M to advance nuclear energy | The University Record – The University Record
The College of Engineerings Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences has received $5.1 million funding for three projects to advance nuclear technology.
The department also is collaborating on three more of the 74 projects that the U.S. Department of Energy is supporting with a total of $61 million.
The biggest project U-M leads funded with $4 million from the Integrated Research Projects program is focused on compact heat exchangers, which would transfer heat from a nuclear reactor to the systems that use the heat directly or convert it to electricity. They are much smaller and thus less expensive than traditional designs.
Diffusion bonding, the process used to create compact heat exchangers, involves stacking grooved plates and pressing them together, causing the grooves to form channels. This new manufacturing technique creates a large number of small channels, which maximize the contact between the metal and the heated fluid, allowing more heat to pass through than in conventional heat exchangers.
However, high temperatures weaken the bonds between plates, limiting the heat exchangers to a lower temperature and eliminating the gains made by making them small. This projects goal is to improve the knowledge of the bonding process to enable strong bonds at high temperatures.
By bringing together the top experts from around the country, the research from this project will improve our ability to make lower-cost and efficient heat exchangers that will decrease the overall costs associated with nuclear energy, said Todd Allen, principal investigator of the project, professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences, and the Glenn F. and Gladys H. Knoll Department Chair of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences.
Another U-M contributor is Fei Gao, professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences. The project includes collaborators at the University of Wisconsin, Idaho National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Electric Power Research Institute and engineering firm MPR.
Funded with $600,000 by the Nuclear Energy University Partnerships program, Brendan Kochunas, assistant professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences, will lead an effort to speed up the modeling of neutron physics for the software tools developed under the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation program.
Determining the distribution of neutrons in a reactor is critical to understanding the energy output, including how to ramp it up and how to shut it down.
Kochunas and his team will focus on developing new simulation methods that can be applied to advanced nuclear technologies based on SPn theory. The renewed interest in the almost 60-year-old SPn method comes in part from recent theoretical breakthroughs that improve the methods accuracy.
lt is humbling, and I feel grateful for this opportunity to lead an outstanding team of researchers in developing the next generation of SPn methods, Kochunas said.
If successful, the new methods could substantially reduce advanced reactor design cycle times and lead to safer designs. Other U-M contributors are Brian Kiedrowski, associate professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences, and Krishna Garikipati, professor of mechanical engineering and mathematics. The project includes collaborators at the Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Naval Nuclear Laboratory.
Funded with $500,000 from the Nuclear Energy University Partnerships program, professor emeritus Gary Was and associate professor Kevin Field, both of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences, lead a study of how radiation damage evolves through creep, which can shorten the lifespan of a nuclear power plant by potentially affecting all components of a nuclear reactors core.
Coupled with heat and neutron radiation in the reactor core, the mechanical stress causes metal components to slowly deform by a process known as creep. Because of these contributing factors, creep is extremely difficult to assess, and traditional testing cannot assess them independently. This project will use ion beam experiments to develop an understanding of how each individual factor affects creep, which will provide guidelines for the development of creep-resistant alloys.
Thermal and irradiation creep are deformation mechanisms that can limit the long-term sustained operation of a nuclear power plant, Was said. However, traditional irradiation creep testing using neutron beams involves high costs and long lead times.
The advantage of ion beams is that they can produce radiation damage much faster, and with additional computer modeling and simulation, they enable industry to predict when and how creep damage will progress. While data exists to make these predictions about radiation creep for current reactors, this project will produce both data and an understanding of radiation creep that is applicable to advanced reactor applications, for which the data is largely absent.
Other U-M contributors on this work are Fei Gao, professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences, and Priyam Patki, a former U-M postdoctoral research fellow and current process engineer at Intel Corp.
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College of Engineering hosts Plastic Characterization Workshop – University of Rhode Island
KINGSTON July 18, 2022 The College of Engineering hosted a workshop recently for researchers and industry leaders that showcased the advanced capabilities of its core research facilities that can be used for plastic characterization.
Irene Andreu, an adjunct professor of chemical engineering and the director of Operations for the Rhode Island Consortium for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, organized the event.
The key thing about this workshop was that it [focused] on the type of material so when I say polymers and plastics, Im saying that very deliberately because if youre a company that makes plastics, or if youre doing pharmaceutical research, you refer to them as polymers, she said.
The public associates plastics now as a bad thing because of micro plastics, so if youre doing research on micro plastics, you talk to them about plastics, she said, but the thing is that the characterization techniques are the same for microplastics and manufactured polymers. So what I [wanted] to do with this workshop is bring people together that are looking at the exact same material, but from two different points of view.
Andreu invited experts from Shimadzu Scientific Instruments (the manufacturer of most of the equipment in the core facilities), the American branch of the Japanese Shimadzu Corporation, to the event to speak about how others in the field are using these instruments.
The presenters from Shimadzu and their topics were: Alan Owens, the use of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry for microplastic research; Gilbert Vial, the use of Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy microscopy for plastic identification; Evan Moreira, the mechanical testing of composite materials; Meagan Moore, the use of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry for polymer additives in the food industry; and Laura Mohanty, the thermal analysis of polymers.
We have a great relationship with the people at Shimadzu, so Im very glad they came in-person, Andreu said. It was the first time she had met many of them in-person, and it was the first time they had been able to see the facilities in-person as well.
They were happy that the instruments have found a nice new home, she said, and they seem to be happy with the way that the facilities are managed and how the instruments are maintained.
One of Andreus goals is to provide access to the facilities for students, researchers, a variety of industries, other academic institutions and government agencies to work on important issues like plastic and other types of pollution; pharmaceutical development, food testing, forensic toxicology, live cell imaging, fracture and stress analysis, among many others.
In addition to the team from Shimadzu, there were three presenters from URI: Vinka Oyanedel-Craver, a professor and associate dean of research for the Department of Civil and Environmental engineering, who gave the opening remarks; Tania Silva de Oliveria, a Ph.D. candidate in chemical engineering who does research in nanotechnology and colloidal science, who discussed atomic force microscopy to test the interaction of microplastics with bacteria; and Ph.D. candidate Sarah Davis.
Davis, who began her Ph.D. studies in biological and environmental sciences on the ecology and ecosystem sciences track last fall, explained how her team uses Raman spectroscopy for its research on environmental microplastics.
The focus of my research is investigating the presence, movement and impacts of microplastics in Rhode Islands waterways, primarily in Narragansett Bay, she said. [We look at] pollutant transport in the bay, so waters like rivers and watershed areas surrounding the bay, and isolated freshwater areas as well. So just kind of getting a baseline understanding of whats in the water, and on top of that, doing work to understand how its impacting the organisms.
To get the samples that they use in the Raman microscope, Davis and her team take a 330-micron net which is about a third of a millimeter or about a third of the size of the tip of a sharpened pencil into the Bay and scrape the surface of the water. They then take the particles and put them under a high-resolution microscope to get a better view of what they look like, and then take a hot needle and poke them to see if they melt. If they do, then the sample is likely plastic, as opposed to other human-made products like spun cotton, or natural particles like rocks.
After looking at the samples, the team takes a random sample of 20% of them to the Raman microscope. The researchers put the sample under the microscope and they can view it on a computer screen. Once its focused, the machine shines a laser on the object and produces a spectrum readout. Based on that readout, theyre able to identify the specific plastic in the sample.
In total, 55 people attended the event, including four from outside of the University, Andreu said.
One attendee, Ire Asojo, is a rising sophomore in the Brown University/Rhode Island School of Design dual degree program. Asojo, who is studying the effect of input materials (different clays and burnout ratio) on ceramic water filters performance (strength and bacteria filtration), was interested in the event because she wanted to learn more about scientists work concerning microplastics.
What interested me was knowing more about microplastics and the different ways of working
with and testing them. she said. I feel like I learned a lot. Its very helpful to see what other people are working on, the different ways to analyze microplastics, and what applications these analyses have depending on what field youre in.
It was really cool, Davis said, it was neat to hear the different applications for the types of machines that are in the core facilities.
Davis also was glad for the opportunity to see how these machines can be applied to other fields, such as polymer manufacturing, and how that could be applied to her field.
Its neat to hear what has already been done with those machines and how we might be able to sneak in our environmental stuff as well, in particular theres the LC-MS (liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry), and we heard how they were testing for additives in wines and beers and different alcohols, she said. My mind was just asking can we put some seawater in this? Can we do that with sea water samples?
During the breaks people were chatting with each other and discussing their projects with researchers that they would not have met otherwise, Andreu said, Im hoping that we get some new collaborations happening because of this.
People told me that they liked to see all of these techniques in context, and they got some ideas on doing things or using instruments that they hadnt thought could be used for their research, she said. I think based on the feedback, well try to host something like this again.
The facilities are open to researchers and the general public both within and outside of the University, Andreu said, and she shared that shed love to speak with people who are interested in learning more about them.
If anybody ever wants to come and see the lab, whether its in the context of plastics or something else, or if people are just curious about the core facilities, they can contact me or come to the College of Engineering, she said, Id be happy to show anybody around and talk about microscopes.
Andreu can be reached via email at iandreu@uri.edu or by phone at 401-874-6885.
Mary Lind, a graduate student who works in URIs Department of Marketing and Communications, wrote this release.
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College of Engineering hosts Plastic Characterization Workshop - University of Rhode Island