Texas A&M Engineer 2010

ENGINEERING research at Tex as A&M University

Say No to Cracks CONCRETE GOES HIGH-TECH

Hybrid Tissues for Stubborn Injuries DEVELOPING TISSUES TO REBUILD BODY PARTS

Global Quest for Energy Conservation LINKING THE WORLD’S TOP RESEARCHERS

2010

Building

Excellence From the eye of an engineer, few things matter as much as materials — in both the broadest and the most specific of terms.

Materials are the cornerstone of engineering and, one could argue, society at large. We name different eras of civilization by the materials they used for tools: Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age and so on. Advances in materials science continue to influence modern civilization with similar and increasingly rapid significance.

In this issue of Texas A&M ENGINEER, we feature several faculty focused on contributions in materials.

From the macro to the atomic scale, from piezoelectrics to polymers, our faculty have a long history of scholarly work in materials and the enabling technologies they produce.

This field is inherently interdisciplinary, and with 12 departmental disciplines, Texas A&M is an ideal environment for collaborative work.

I sincerely hope the research topics that this magazine covers will inspire ideas and motivate further collaborations.

Please read on and enjoy.

G. Kemble Bennett, Ph.D., P.E.

Vice Chancellor and Dean of Engineering Director, Texas Engineering Experiment Station Harold J. Haynes Dean’s Chair Professor Texas A&M University

ENGINEERING research at Texas A&M University

2010

Vice Chancellor and Dean of Engineering

G. Kemble Bennett, Ph.D., P.E. Assistant Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs

Marilyn M. Martell director of communications

Pamela S. Green editorial

Gene Charleton Marissa Doshi Ryan Garcia Lesley V. Kriewald Lindsey Preble Tim Schnettler Kara Socol Cassidy Thomas Kristina Twigg Antonio Villarreal Gabe Waggoner

ON THE COVER A flame-resistant polymer coating developed by Jaime Grunlan, mechanical engineering associate professor, could help prevent fire-related deaths.

More on page 16.

ART DIRECTION

Matt Zeringue GRAPHIC DESIGN

Charlie Apel Audrey Guidry Online & Interactive design

Donald St. Martin Production & distribution

Jennifer Olivarez Christina Mitchell

Texas A&M Engineer is published by Engineering Communications in the Dwight Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University to inform readers about faculty research activities. This issue was published in September 2010.

Opinions expressed in Texas A&M Engineer are those of the author or editor and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Texas A&M University administration or The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents.

Media representatives: Permission is granted to use all or part of any article published in this magazine.

Appropriate credit and a tearsheet are requested.

Contact us: Editor, Texas A&M Engineer Texas A&M Engineering Communications 3134 TAMU College Station, TX 77843-3134

engineeringmagazine.tamu.edu engineeringmagazine@tamu.edu Not printed at state expense.

EC10_1340 9/10 5M

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MATERIALS MATTER...

4QA FOR TRANSPORTATION 6 BUILDING MATERIALS GO HIGH-TECH 13 LIGHTER CARS, MORE EFFICIENT CARS &

Ibrahim Karaman, Materials Science and Engineering Chair

Advancing high-tech materials for better roads, bridges and buildings

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Exploring how lightweight structural materials may help cars run more efficiently

FOR HEALTH

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HYBRID TISSUES FOR STUBBORN INJURIES

Developing hybrid tissues to help rebuild body parts that might otherwise be beyond repair

PLUGGING ANEURYSMS WITH POLYMERS

Designing advanced polymers to treat potentially deadly cerebral aneurysms — without surgery

FLAME-RESISTANT MATERIALS FOR PROTECTION Developing a polymer coating that could buy time and protection during a fire

FOR ENERGY

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THE GLOBAL QUEST FOR ENERGY CONSERVATION Linking some of the world’s top researchers to harness the power of “wasted” energy

HARVESTING PERSONAL POWER

Researching the properties of piezoelectrics so that electronic devices can power themselves

HAIYAN WANG: THIN-FILM STAR Rising star in materials

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RESCUE ROBOTICS

Pioneering research to find survivors after a disaster

KEEPING THE TURBINES TURNING

Creating models to help the wind energy industry decide when expensive, complicated machinery needs maintenance

UNCONVENTIONAL GAS:

Applying North American Experience to the Rest of the World, by Stephen A. Holditch

ENERGIZING ENERGY RESEARCH

Bringing together the varied energy-related resources scattered across The Texas A&M University System

RETHINKING NUCLEAR WASTE

Redesigning nuclear reactors and fuels to change the way we think of nuclear waste

MINDING THE WIRELESS GAPS

Improving communications by taking advantage of unused gaps in the wireless spectrum

GETTING THE GOODS FROM PLANTS

Manufacturing biopharmaceuticals such as vaccines and cancer drugs from plants more efficiently

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STUDENT NEWS LEADERSHIP DISTINGUISHED FACULTY HONORS & AWARDS CHAIRS & PROFESSORSHIPS RESEARCH FACTS

with Materials Program Chair

Ibrahim Karaman

The Materials Science and Engineering Program at Texas A&M is an interdisciplinary program between the Dwight Look College of Engineering and the College of Science. The program has more than 50 faculty from many disciplines, including aerospace engineering, biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, chemistry, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, nuclear engineering and physics. About 100 graduate students, mostly Ph.D. students who are funded as graduate research assistants, are working on a wide range of materials-related interdisciplinary research projects.

Why is materials research important? Why is there so much research funding going into it?

Materials provide enabling technologies. There are two major aspects for developing an entirely new technology: There is the design process, when you bring in new technologies, but there’s also the materials aspect, which can allow for functions that may not otherwise be possible through the design process. Sometimes you need new materials to enable new functions and whatever it is you are trying to accomplish.

For example, efficient materials for energy conversion: How can you capture the energy from electromagnetic waves, such as sunshine? There are indirect ways to convert that energy, which may not depend on advanced materials, but if we follow what nature does, such as in plants, the key factor is new and advanced materials. We need materials that directly convert certain energy forms into power with relatively high efficiency to allow for completely new technologies.

Or let’s consider challenges in oil exploration. There is an ever-increasing demand for drilling deeper and deeper into the Earth where high temperatures, high pressures and extremely corrosive environments bring new materials challenges.

So materials research is is the key for developing new enabling technologies.

What are some of the biggest areas of emphasis in materials research right now?

In the United States, most materials research is driven by the defense and biomedical industries, and another new field is the materials for energy applications. For example, right now in the military, one of the most urgent needs is lightweight equipment and vehicles. You can design vehicles that will provide protection from bullets and improvised explosive devices, but is that equipment lightweight and mobile enough? You can make a new vehicle, one that has metal or ceramics as armor, but you need a really lightweight material for speed. Another example of the need for materials in the defense industry comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which aimed to harvest energy while soldiers walked or moved, and to develop refrigerated jackets to help keep soldiers cool. DARPA wanted to make small refrigeration units, but the biggest problem was materials and fabrication issues.

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There is also a new demand for nuclear energy and new reactors that are more efficient, affordable, smaller and environmentally safe. This demand requires the development of enabling materials to make the new reactors a reality.

In the medical field, most of the new engineering technologies are based on the characteristics of the materials used. Most people are familiar with dental implants or orthodontic wires. The same materials used in those are also used for arterial stents or guide wires for arthroscopy and endoscopy. We can do all those things because of the materials. We can send cameras into arteries with lots of 90-degree corners because we have these somewhat rigid — yet flexible — materials.

Materials are also being used in cancer therapy where functionalized nanoparticles target cancer cells. Or in diabetes patients where a biocompatible tissue scaffold placed near the pancreas can help grow healthy cells faster to reduce the amount of insulin the patient is required to inject. Similarly, various active and passive tissue scaffolds can allow for the growth of artificial skin, and materials technologies can make it possible for stem cells to differentiate into different cell types.

Talk about the materials program at Texas A&M. Our graduate program is relatively new, having been established in 2003. This fall, the Materials Science and Engineering Program will have about 100 graduate students, most of them Ph.D. students. This is large compared to many graduate programs in the country, and most are funded as research assistants rather than teaching assistants. That’s really impressive.

During the faculty reinvestment [during which the Dwight Look College of Engineering hired more than 100 faculty in five years], we hired a lot of young faculty in the materials area. Right now, if I look at our young faculty, the future looks really bright. They have been successful, and we need to keep them here because they will continue to be successful. My expectation is that most of this young faculty will grow together, collaborating with each other, and they will form a center of excellence in several research areas. When you consider all the materials-related faculty members in engineering and in the College of Science, we have more than 50 faculty members, which is about the same size as a large department.

What I see is different among materials faculty is that we collaborate a lot with each other, since materials research really requires interdisciplinary research collaboration. So that collaboration brings more recognition to our research and is beneficial for new discoveries. I am optimistic that if we can retain this faculty and if we can slowly and continuously invest in infrastructure and technical support staff, within 5–10 years I don’t see why we can’t be ranked as a good materials program.

That is my dream.

Dr. Ibrahim Karaman Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor 979.862.3923 ikaraman@tamu.edu

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engi neeri ngmagazi ne.tam u .edu

MATERIALS FOR

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Advancing high-tech materials for better roads, bridges and buildings

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SAY NO TO

CRACKS Using carbon nanotubes for stronger, more flexible crack-free structures

By Lindsey Preble

C

oncrete is the most used synthetic material in the world, but civil engineers have struggled with the problem of cracks and increasing the tensile strength (measure of how much a material can be stretched before it breaks) of concrete while maintaining its ductility (the ability of the material to significantly deform or elongate) in tension. Instead of trying to improve traditional strategies, Texas A&M civil engineering Assistant Professor Rashid Abu Al-Rub says he looked outside the field of civil engineering to find inspiration.

“I looked into the literature to see what had been done in enhancing the mechanical properties of materials, and I found in the areas of aerospace engineering and military applications and mechanical engineering systems that they use a certain type of reinforcement that had been discovered 20 years ago. And that reinforcement is carbon nanotubes,” Abu Al-Rub says.

benefits that this may offer to the U.S. and world infrastructure by making concrete stronger, lighter, safer, more durable and more economical,” Abu Al-Rub says.

CNTs typically come in two formulations: singlewalled nanotubes, in which a single layer or sheet of carbon atoms is rolled into a tube, and multiwalled nanotubes, in which multiple sheets of carbon atoms are folded into a cylindrical tube. Abu Al-Rub says that by incorporating single- or multiwalled CNTs into concrete mixtures, the construction industry could reduce or eliminate cracks and steel reinforcements in concrete structures such as bridges, roads and buildings.

Abu Al-Rub says this new technology could easily be commercialized.

“Imagine what potential benefits that this may offer to the U.S. and world infrastructure by making concrete stronger, lighter, safer, more durable and more economical.”

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are microscopic molecules that contain bonds so strong relative to their size that they are used in nanotechnology; sports equipment, such as tennis rackets; and light bulb filaments.

But despite their small size (10 × 10 –9 meters in diameter, or 10 nanometers), CNTs are about 100 times stronger than steel.

“Imagine a concrete material that has comparable compressive and tensile strengths without the need of steel reinforcements. Imagine what potential

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“The process is much simpler than incorporating CNTs into polymers, metals or ceramic materials.

We put [the CNTs] in water, and then we mix them in a sonicator so they can be uniformly distributed. Then we add the cement powder.

The process is very simple, so if we need to commercialize this it would be very easy to do on a large scale.”

In early feasibility studies, Abu Al-Rub says he demonstrated a 200 to 300 percent increase in strength and ductility of concrete with nanotubes.

His lab tests have shown that using CNTs and carbon nanofibers (which are slightly larger than CNTs) in concrete has reduced the sizes

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Bryan Tyson, a graduate student in Abu Al-Rub’s lab, holds a jar of CNTs in solution. The nanotubes are added to concrete to make the material stronger and more resistant to cracks.

of macro- and microcracks to nanosized cracks.

Reducing the size of the cracks will increase the carrying load capacity and the life of concrete structures.

“If you have a crack that is starting to propagate inside nanocomposite concrete material, it will encounter a carbon nanotube. This crack will try to go around the carbon nanotube, but it will not be able to because other carbon nanotubes will be right nearby. So, in a sense, it will arrest the crack propagation, so you will keep the size of the crack very, very small,” Abu Al-Rub says.

Abu Al-Rub says CNTs significantly increase concrete’s strength and ductility, which could eliminate the use of steel bars in concrete structures.

“When a load is applied to concrete that has been reinforced by carbon nanotubes, the load is transferred from the surrounding material to the carbon nanotubes. Therefore, carbon nanotubes work as reinforcements similar to steel bars in traditional reinforced-concrete structures,” Abu Al-Rub says.

“The idea behind this transition from using steel bars to using nano reinforcements is that the tensile strength is developed from millions of very small fibers distributed within concrete rather than a few pieces of steel. This delays crack formation and reduces the sizes of cracks from centimeters in traditional concrete to micro- and nanometers in nano composite concrete. This could provide crackfree concrete structures.”

CNTs could also enhance the multifunctionality of concrete.

“Because carbon nanotubes have very high conductivity, concrete becomes a very high conductive material, [so the electric field] will create a kind of shielding around the steel reinforcements in reinforced-concrete structures that will significantly reduce corrosion damage and cracking due to shrinkage.” It will prevent ions or other chemical materials from penetrating the steel bars, he says.

Abu Al-Rub says that incorporating CNTs enhances the electrical and thermal conductivity of concrete.

The electrical conductivity prevents ions or other chemical materials from penetrating the structure’s steel reinforcements, and the increased thermal conductivity could “make concrete a self-heating material, a smart material, which would help melt ice and snow on roads, which could reduce the number of accidents and increase the security of road travelers.”

This innovation has an environmental benefit, too.

Concrete production amounts to more than 5 percent of total carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.

Because CNTs can enhance concrete’s strength, building a structure will require less concrete, which would reduce carbon emissions and make concrete a more ecofriendly material.

Dr. Rashid Abu Al-Rub Civil Engineering Assistant Professor 979.862.6603 rabualrub@civil.tamu.edu

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Benjamin Garza, a student from Texas A&M University–Kingsville who worked in Abu Al-Rub’s lab in Summer 2010, tests the strength of a cement rod that has been reinforced with CNTs.

While concrete is mixing, the water and the cement naturally release CO2, a greenhouse gas that is speculated to contribute to global warming.

“Using cement in huge quantities is responsible for about 5 to 10 percent of carbon emissions all over the world. So if you make concrete stronger, it means you can use less concrete. Using less concrete means reducing the amount of carbon emissions and making concrete more environmentally friendly,” Abu Al-Rub says.

Unfortunately, using CNTs for construction purposes is still very expensive. However, Abu Al-Rub says he believes that the cost will drop if CNTs begin to be used on a large scale and that incorporating CNTs into concrete is simple and could easily be commercialized.

“Once you get the large integration of carbon nanotubes in certain industries like concrete, eventually they will get very, very cheap because everyone will be manufacturing them. That’s our vision about carbon nanotubes. Yes, right now

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they are expensive, but if a construction industry like concrete started using carbon nanotubes, the cost would go down significantly. This is similar to the large-scale integration approach that is being followed by the electronics industry in promoting new technologies.”

“If you make concrete stronger, it means you can use less concrete.

Using less concrete means reducing the amount of carbon emissions and making concrete more environmentally friendly.”

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Cementing the future Understanding the mechanical properties of cement for better concrete

By Cassidy Thomas

E

ach year more than 5 billion cubic yards of concrete is used in buildings, bridges, roads and countless other structures. That’s enough to fill 166,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

With concrete in such high demand, researchers are constantly working to improve its main ingredient, cement paste. Cement paste forms when cement reacts with water, along with other ingredients such as gravel, sand or crushed stone.

Zachary Grasley, assistant professor in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M, is one of those researchers.

Abu Al-Rub is working with other Texas A&M Engineering faculty on this research, including civil engineering’s Zachary Grasley, who received the NSF CAREER Award for his research on how nanoscale properties within cement enhance concrete’s performance, and mechanical engineering’s Jaime Grunlan, head of Texas A&M’s Polymer NanoComposites Lab. Abu Al-Rub says that “civil engineers are very late in coming to this technology” and that other countries have researched incorporating CNTs into concrete, with disappointing results.

“These studies could not achieve noticeable enhancements in the mechanical properties of concrete,” Abu Al-Rub says, “and there are not very many in the United States pursuing this research.

But we have demonstrated a two- to threefold increase in strength and ductility of concrete using nanotubes, and computational modeling will help us determine how to proceed in this inquiry.” O

Grasley’s research focuses on cement-based materials, and one current project earned Grasley the prestigious National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award in 2009.

“Concrete is the most widely used material in the world after water. So it is pretty important. It has a huge impact on societies.”

Grasley is measuring the mechanical properties — such as stiffness, or viscoelasticity, which incorporates aspects of both fluid behavior (viscosity) and solid behavior (elasticity) — of the nanometer-scale phases inside cement-based materials. He will use the measurements to develop a computational model to predict the properties of the bulk material used in construction.

Materials with viscoelastic properties can relax away a force that is exerted upon them. This is one reason that viscoelastic properties in concrete are important. If concrete is designed with significant

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Grasley holds a puck made of cement paste fixed in epoxy.

The atomic-force microscope measures the viscoelastic properties of the cement in the puck and generates images such as this one below. This is one of the first attempts to measure these properties at this scale, Grasley says.

viscoelastic properties, then it will be able to relieve stresses and in the end reduce the risk of cracking and damage.

“The idea here is primarily to develop a predictive model,” Grasley explains. “The tests to characterize viscoelastic properties of cement-based materials are difficult, so it would be very nice to be able to predict those properties simply by considering the chemistry and other properties of the cement that is used in concrete.”

However, Grasley points out that sometimes having high viscoelasticity can be too much of a good thing.

“If you have a column on a bridge and you’ve got a viscoelastic material — concrete — that column will get shorter with time because of the mass that is sitting on it,” Grasley explains.

Dr. Zachary Grasley Civil Engineering Assistant Professor 979.845.9961 zgrasley@civil.tamu.edu

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The project is nearing the end of the first of three stages. During this part of the project, tests measure the viscoelastic properties of the primary reaction phase of cement-based materials, the calcium– silicate–hydrate phase.

To do this, Grasley uses an atomic-force microscope. The microscope has a probe with a tiny tip that is inserted into a puck of hardened cement paste fixed in epoxy and polished to a shiny, smooth finish. He can estimate the viscoelastic properties of the cement paste from the applied force and the

resulting gradual displacement of the probe tip into the sample.

Grasley says this is one of the first attempts to measure the viscoelastic properties of cement paste at this length scale.

Once the properties of the materials are known, stage two can begin. In this phase, the properties are entered into Grasley’s computational model.

The model includes individual reaction products, but Grasley is trying to find out the property of the entire model, not just the products or smaller phases.

“We expect concrete to be in service for years, decades even,” Grasley says. “But concrete is constantly changing and chemically reacting, which changes its properties. We’d like to be able to predict viscoelasticity on the macroscale over a long time scale.”

After the computational model is complete, stage three, testing, begins. The goal of stage three is to test the computational model for accuracy.

“Since much of the concrete construction in the world is publicly funded by taxpayers, everyone has the potential to benefit from concrete with improved design,” Grasley says. “Concrete is the most widely used material in the world after water. So it is pretty important. It has a huge impact on societies.” O

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LIGHTER CARS, MORE EFFICIENT CARS Exploring how lightweight structural materials may help cars run more efficiently

fuel

By Antonio Villarreal

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ost of the time, when we think of ways to make new cars more efficient and environmentally friendly, our ideas focus on advanced battery technologies, fuel cells or new hybrid power systems.

Jyhwen Wang thinks about steel.

These aren’t just idle daydreams. In 2010, the federal Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency have issued new rules calling for improved fuel economy and, for the first time, national standards for greenhouse gas emissions. Automakers will be required to raise the average gas mileage their vehicles get from 27 miles per gallon to 34 miles per gallon by 2016.

Electric or hybrid cars offer promising routes to lower emissions and higher gas mileage, but they’re not the only way to get there.

Another way is to reduce the vehicle weight.

Electric or hybrid cars offer promising routes to lower emissions and higher gas mileage, but they’re not the only way to get there, says Wang, an associate professor in Texas A&M’s Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution.

“Another way is to reduce the vehicle weight,” says Wang, a mechanical engineer by training and a specialist in manufacturing processes and material response to those processes. “In this case, we have different alternatives.”

Much of his research is centered on the steel that automakers use to build automobile bodies and the interaction between the properties of the metal and the processes used to form it into auto body parts. One of the major challenges in using new materials, especially advanced varieties of steel, to build automobile body parts is that the properties of

the steel that allow for lightweight auto bodies often make it difficult to process. Advanced steels also are often more expensive than conventional steel.

From his former experience as a research engineer in the steel industry, Wang acknowledges that materials have to be strong and ductile, but more important, the price must be reasonable.

Wang is taking a two-pronged approach to achieve this goal. On one side, materials scientists are trying to develop materials that are formable, strong and cheap, Wang says. On the other, manufacturing engineers are trying to develop techniques to make products that use these materials.

The first approach would require improving advanced steels while making the new material affordable for mass production. The alliance of advanced steel with other metals is a key part of this process.

To reduce the vehicle weight, a great deal of the research is focused on aluminum, which seems like a perfect partner for advanced steels. From an economic standpoint, the price is competitive and stable. From a material standpoint, aluminum is resistant and three times lighter than steel. And it has an environmental asset: It can be 100 percent recycled with a low energy demand and without losing any quality in the process.

Again, many ways exist of reducing the weight of a car’s body, and Wang’s team is currently following a more experimental line of research. It consists of attaching polymer foam to the sheets of metal in order to increase their stiffness: “a metal–polymer sandwich,” as Wang defines it. His preliminary results suggest that, in several years, this metal– polymer sandwich could also be feeding the industry’s voracious appetite for new materials.

At right, Wang holds a piece of steel that was formed to make a section of tailpipe for a Volvo by using hydroforming.

Dr. Jyhwen Wang

Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution Associate Professor 979.845.4903 jwang@tamu.edu

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Wang uses simulations, such as the one to the left, to help predict how materials will form during the hydroforming process.

engineeringmagazine .tam u .edu

MATERIALS FOR

TRANSPORTATION The second approach is equally challenging and focuses on the industrial process of making the parts of the car.

In Wang’s words, “We can replace components with different types of material, but we also need to look into how to produce these components.”

Once they have created the right material to turn their brightest idea into a real product, they next develop the best process to give the product a shape without damaging the material.

“In the past, this has been done by stamping,” Wang says.

In fact, researchers are using hydroforming to shape their materials into different parts, either sheets or tubes of metal. Hydroforming consists of a die in which the material is formed inside a negative mold after the injection of a high-pressure hydraulic fluid, thus allowing more complex shapes and producing lighter and stronger products.

The use of this process also involves predicting the formability of the material, Wang says.

“We want to know how far we can stretch the material, but we also want to know what could happen if we change the material,” he says, and whether that change would also require modifying the manufacturing process. O

Texas A&M leads MURI for new materials to improve aircraft speed The Dwight Look College of Engineering was selected in 2009 as the Department of Defense Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative Program (MURI) Topic 18: Synthesis, Analysis and Prognosis of Hybrid-Material Flight Structures.

The award, which will provide $7.5 million over five years, supports research by teams of investigators that intersect more than one traditional science and engineering discipline in order to accelerate both research progress and transition of research results to application.

Mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering faculty members from Texas A&M will participate with colleagues from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Virginia Tech, Stanford University and the University of Dayton.

Their principal goal is the development of a novel multifunctional ceramic–metal–polymer hybrid composite system for high-temperature aerospace applications. The researchers plan to use modern material design concepts, including functionally graded materials, interpenetrating phase composites, high-temperature polymer matrix composites, actively cooled polymer matrix composites, multiscale simulations and multiscale characterizations.

“This focused research effort on multifunctional hybrid composites will provide the tools to design and synthesize hightemperature structural materials for reentry vehicles and jet engines, of great importance to the Air Force and our national security,” said Dimitris Lagoudas, head of the aerospace engineering department and PI on the project. “It will also create the opportunity for many graduate and undergraduate students to pursue research on challenging problems with a multidisciplinary, multiuniversity environment.” O

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HYBRID tissues for stubborn injuries

by Gene Charleton

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Developing hybrid tissues to help rebuild body parts that might otherwise be beyond repair

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t’s a long step from the latest generation of jet airliners or an earthquake-resistant office building to a blown-out ACL in your knee or a clogged artery in your heart; aircraft and buildings don’t seem to have much in common with ligaments and blood vessels.

Unless you’re an engineer.

For biomedical engineer Elizabeth CosgriffHernandez, applying the same engineering principles to building new tissues for ligaments and blood vessels that her colleagues in other engineering specialties use to design airplanes or buildings makes perfect sense.

Cosgriff-Hernandez is one of a new breed of engineers who are developing new methods and materials that one day will help our bodies heal better and more quickly than before.

“Tissue engineering aims to bridge the gap between organ transplants and medical devices,” says CosgriffHernandez, an assistant professor in Texas A&M’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. “We want to combine what the body knows how to do with natural materials with the mechanical properties, availability and tunability of synthetic materials.”

Take the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), for example, the cordlike ligament that holds the knee joint in position. If you follow collegiate or professional sports, you know that athletes damage their ACLs with painful frequency. Treating a ruptured ACL almost always involves replacing it with tissues taken from elsewhere in the body or transplanted from a cadaver. Both approaches work, but neither is perfect.

Research turns personal

One of Cosgriff-Hernandez’s major research efforts is developing a synthetic replacement for an injured ACL that will support the injured knee while the body is being nudged to grow a new ligament.

It’s more than an interesting research project: It’s personal. She knows firsthand what’s involved in repairing a torn ACL. She tore her ACL in a collision with another player during an Ultimate Frisbee game.

The approach Cosgriff-Hernandez and her students are taking to the ACL problem runs along several parallel tracks. They’re investigating new synthetic materials, understanding the role of stem cells in the body’s healing process and how to manipulate them to guide the growth of new tissue to replace damaged tissue, and understanding and using the biochemical and biomechanical cues that guide the development of stem cells and other tissue cells.

“We want to combine what the body knows how to do with natural materials with the mechanical properties, availability and tunability of synthetic materials.”

The basic material in Cosgriff-Hernandez’s ACLrebuilding blueprint is polyurethane, a strong, flexible and biologically inert plastic. She studied urethane while completing her Ph.D. degree and is intimately familiar with its properties. Braided into a cord of the right thickness and length, polyurethane is strong enough to keep the knee stable. But that’s only the first step in CosgriffHernandez’s plan. She says she sees the polyurethane cord as a scaffold to provide support while the body itself replaces the damaged ligament.

“We want to have a ligament scaffold that can replace the function of natural ligament as long as it’s needed, not permanently,” she says.

This is where the project gets complicated.

As Cosgriff-Hernandez sees it, she and her students are trying to balance the need for a strong, temporary, artificial replacement ligament against the equal need for the body to produce a strong, permanent, natural replacement ligament.

“When you think of scaffolding on a building that’s being repaired, it’s the framework for the construction guys to build or repair the building,” Cosgriff-Hernandez says. “Then, just as the scaffolding comes off the building when repairs are completed, you want the scaffolding to go away so eventually you don’t have anything but the building, the native tissue in what we’re doing.”

Dr. Elizabeth Cosgriff-Hernandez Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor 979.845.1771 cosgriff.hernandez@bme.tamu.edu

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“Ultimately, we want to have a ligament scaffold that can replace the function of the ligament and then have it degrade at the rate the cells dictate, so that the cells can lay down new matrix.”

Research at double time

Researchers all over the world are making progress so fast in stem cell research that Cosgriff-Hernandez says she is confident that the understanding of biochemical cues and pathways needed to transform stem cells into new ligaments will be here when she needs it.

Nicolas Sears (left), a graduate student in the Materials Science and Engineering Program, and Tyler Touchet, a junior in biomedical engineering, members of Cosgriff-Hernandez’s research group, monitor a synthetic reaction in her research laboratory.

Timing tissue breakdown

Making this idea work means designing both an artificial polyurethane ACL and a complex physical and biochemical process that balances breaking down the artificial ligament, the scaffolding, at the same rate that the body builds new ligament. If the scaffolding breaks down too fast, the rebuilt natural ligament won’t be strong enough to handle the physical stress of keeping the knee stable. If it breaks down too slowly, the replacement ligament won’t get the biological and mechanical cues it needs to develop properly.

“We’re at a really good, really exciting place right now. We have the lab established, we have the students trained.

It’s a pretty good place to be.”

This concept requires new developments in building the urethane material needed for the temporary replacement ligament and in manipulating stem cells that will develop into cells of ligament tissue.

The plan is to use the polyurethane ligament as a scaffold, or framework, to hold stem cells in the shape of the ACL so that when the stem cells receive the right biochemical cues, they will transform themselves into cells that create the replacement ligament. As the new ACL begins to develop, cells generate protein-cutting enzymes that break down the polyurethane when they receive the right biochemical cue. Done in the right place at the right time, this breakdown will allow the newly produced natural ACL tissue to take the load of keeping the knee in the right position from the polyurethane replacement ligament.

“What we thought we knew for sure five years ago, even two years ago, people are overturning,” she says.

Even with this rapidly developing understanding of stem cells, getting from where Cosgriff-Hernandez and her colleagues are now to a successful ACL replacement is going to be a complex and difficult undertaking, but she is confident they’ll get there.

“We’re at a really good, really exciting place right now,” she says. “We have the lab established, we have students trained; they’re really productive, they’re really enthusiastic and engaged, and we have people interested in our materials and collaborations, so it’s a pretty good place to be.”

Working with colleagues in Texas A&M’s Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Cosgriff-Hernandez is using approaches similar to her work toward artificial ACLs to shape similar scaffolding that will shape artificial blood vessels that could replace arteries blocked by cholesterol or blood clots. The issues with them are much like those involved in her ACL-related research: providing a three-dimensional scaffold for tissue cells to grow on to produce a functional organ.

“Just walking up and down the halls here in the department is fascinating,” she says. “Almost everyone who’s doing research has a personal story about people they know personally that their research could one day benefit.”

A colleague’s husband, for instance, is diabetic. Part of her research is aimed at making insulin therapy for diabetes more effective.

“I would like to see, in my lifetime, something that I worked on or contributed to helping someone live better and longer,” she says. “I think that would be ultimate success for me.” O

“As the cells regenerate the tissue, they break down the scaffolding material and eventually get rid of it, and all you have left is the native tissue,” she says.

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Polyurethane films being considered for use in Cosgriff-Hernandez’s hybrid tissue development research are tested in a dynamic mechanical analyzer in her laboratory.

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plugging with polymers by gene charleton

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Designing advanced polymers to treat potentially deadly cerebral aneurysms — without surgery Engineers seldom do brain surgery, but some engineers are getting ready to give brain surgeons new tools to help treat potentially deadly defects in blood vessels deep inside the brain.

The defects are aneurysms, balloon-like bulges that can form at weak spots on arteries that carry blood through the brain. If they burst — and they often do — the resulting bleeding causes disabling strokes and other neurological damage.

The unlikely tools are pea-sized foam balls formed from special plastics called shape memory polymers, or SMPs. Inserted into aneurysms, the SMP balls offer an effective way to treat potentially dangerous aneurysms with less risk than surgery or existing nonsurgical approaches, say biomedical engineers at Texas A&M. Duncan Maitland, an associate professor in Texas A&M’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, says the SMP balls offer several improvements over the most commonly used nonsurgical treatment for cerebral aneurysms.

“Shape memory devices reduce the risk or trauma involved in current therapies for these aneurysms,” Maitland says.

Understanding aneurysms

Aneurysms are serious business. As many as one person in 15 in the United States will develop a brain, or cerebral, aneurysm during their lifetime.

The aneurysms burst, and blood from the leaking artery seeps into the brain in more than 30,000 of these people every year. Between 10 and 15 percent of them die before they get to a hospital, and more than half of the rest die within a month of the rupture. Half the survivors are paralyzed or suffer other neurological damage.

“Shape memory devices reduce the risk or trauma involved in current therapies for these aneurysms.”

Brain aneurysms occur in people of every age, but they are most common between the ages of 30 and 60. Women are slightly more likely than men to experience a brain aneurysm.

Medical researchers are uncertain about what causes cerebral aneurysms, but aneurysms are more common in people with inherited diseases, such as connective tissue disorders, some kidney diseases and certain circulatory disorders. Head trauma, some infections, high blood pressure and other circulatory system diseases can also cause aneurysms.

To cut or not to cut

Aneurysms are usually treated either with surgery to expose the aneurysm, which is then closed off with a clip and removed, or nonsurgically, by inserting tiny springlike platinum coils — often a dozen or more — into the aneurysm. The coils interfere with the movement of blood inside the aneurysm and cause the blood to clot and fill the space.

Eventually, the cells that form the innermost layer of arteries, endothelial cells, grow over the clot and the aneurysm heals.

Aneurysms are bulges that form at weak spots in artery walls.

The aneurysm shown here is a saccular aneurysm, which forms a balloon-like shape connected to the artery by a narrow neck.

Filling an aneurysm with platinum coils can be an effective treatment, but the procedure has potentially serious complications, Maitland says.

The risk of the aneurysm bursting increases because 21

the coils put pressure on the walls of the aneurysm and the pressure goes up as additional coils are inserted. Ten coils, for instance, increase the risk by about 20 percent. And sometimes the end of one or more coils works its way back out into the artery, where it increases the likelihood of small clots. These, in turn, increase the risk of other types of strokes elsewhere. If this happens, surgeons must insert another catheter and push the dangling coil back into the aneurysm.

Properties of a proper polymer

Filling the aneurysm with an SMP ball largely avoids both these potential problems, Maitland says. First, the size of the ball can be calibrated to the size of the aneurysm, so that it exerts virtually no pressure on the aneurysm walls and the risk of bursting is greatly reduced. Second, the ball has no parts to shift back into the artery to cause unwanted blood clots there. And because the ball is fabricated from open-celled foam, like a household sponge, blood can fill the aneurysm almost completely and make an effective clot. The clot forms what aneurysm researchers call a scaffold for endothelial cells to grow across and cover the opening into the aneurysm.

“Making foams is literally an art form more than it is a science, although we’re starting to get more scientific about it.”

SMPs are polymers that can be shaped into one form, changed into another shape and then made to resume the original shape on command, most commonly with heat. Maitland makes the aneurysm-filling polymer balls from a block of spongelike polymer foam. To insert the balls requires pressing into a narrow cylinder that can pass through a catheter, a narrow, steerable tube that is threaded through arteries to the site of the aneurysm. Once through the catheter, the compressed SMP ball can be steered into the aneurysm, where a beam of laser light shone through an optical fiber in the catheter hits the SMP cylinder and causes it to return to its original ball shape, filling the aneurysm.

Maitland and his colleagues have been developing the properties of the SMP foam for eight years and work with the SMP foam at all stages of development: They produce the foam itself, shape the balls that are implanted in aneurysms, and test the balls in laboratories and in animal models.

“Making foams is literally an art form more than it is a science, although we’re starting to get more scientific about it,” he says. “We are refining how the foam acts, how much surface area there is in the cells and how blood flows through them.”

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Maitland prepares to insert an SMP cylinder into an apparatus that will compress it for further testing and analysis.

engineeringmagazine .tam u .edu

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HEALTH Learning how blood flows through the foam is important to understanding the formation of the clots that will help heal the aneurysm.

“Once we have the ability to measure these things, then we can change the structure of the foam. We’re working toward an optimal version of this structure, the scaffold that you implant.”

Top-notch testing facilities

Maitland says the Texas A&M Institute for Preclinical Studies (TIPS) is the main reason he brought his aneurysm-related SMP research to the university.

“A lot of researchers who do human diagnostic work need human subjects,” he says. “I don’t. I need good engineers, good facilities, good veterinarians and good animal facilities. We have that here in the Texas A&M Institute for Preclinical Studies.”

TIPS was founded in 2007 to support research in medical device development, facilitate preclinical testing (research that must be conducted prior to introducing devices into people), and provide advanced training for graduate and professional students in science, engineering and veterinary medicine. The institute’s facilities include sophisticated imaging equipment, a large-animal hospital, animal housing, surgical laboratories, preoperative preparation and post-op recovery, an interventional catheterization laboratory, and incubator space for startup companies.

“Before I came here, there were only six places in the country that do the kind of work with aneurysms we need,” Maitland says. “We brought some of these people in and trained TIPS personnel, and so now TIPS is developing this expertise in an animal model.

“This is good for us, and it’s very good for TIPS as well. They’re going to have expertise that will make them the seventh facility in the U.S. that can do this kind of work.”

From lab to clinic

Getting the results of engineering research from the laboratory to the marketplace is a different process for medical devices from that for the products of most other engineering research.

“The medical device industry tends to innovate through acquisition of startup companies, not through putting a lot of money into research and development,” he says. “This means you have to push and champion your work farther than most academics do or would be comfortable with.

“It’s a lot like doing the venture-capital road show, where you’re giving 10-minute presentations, trying to get people interested in the business potential of what you’re doing.”

One of the important properties of SMPs is that they can be compressed drastically and still retain their original shape and volume. Here, an SMP cylinder and a compressed cylinder illustrate how much the material can be compressed.

“Before I came here, there were only six places in the country that do the kind of work with aneurysms we need. And now TIPS is developing this expertise in an animal model.”

To move the process along more smoothly, Maitland has organized a company, Shape Memory Therapeutics, to further develop and market the foam aneurysm treatment.

“Most of the stuff that the company is doing is intellectual property, regulatory plan, manufacturing plan, all that kind of stuff that I need to show midsize to large-size medical device companies that this technology can work with their technology and it will be better than current devices.”

That’s not all. Maitland says that clinical problems of all sorts still fascinate him.

“I take on diseases or clinical problems as my driving motivation. Sometimes the potential solutions require innovation in materials.

Sometimes they require altogether new solutions, which may or may not use the materials that I’m currently working with.

“I try to let the problem define the solution, as opposed to having hammers and screwdrivers and looking around to see where they fit.” O

Dr. Duncan J. Maitland

Biomedical Engineering Associate Professor 979.458.3471 djmaitland@tamu.edu

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FLAMERESISTANT MATERIALS for protection

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Developing a polymer coating that could buy time and protection during a fire

T

he deaths of technicians, medical personnel and even graduate students who are burned in laboratory accidents might be prevented by a flame-resistant coating Texas A&M’s Jaime Grunlan has developed.

Grunlan, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, works with polymer nanocomposites that have properties similar to those of metals and ceramics — conducting electricity, for instance — while maintaining properties of polymers, such as low density.

His development of a flame-resistant polymer coating has certainly gotten some attention. As the sole researcher in the use of this technique for flame retardancy, he has fielded calls from the United States military to the cotton industry to mattress manufacturers to the Federal Aviation Administration, and from companies around the world.

Grunlan’s technology involves covering every microscopic fiber in a fabric with a thin composite coating of polymer and clay to enhance the flame-

Students in Grunlan’s research group dip strips of virgin cotton in clay and polymer solutions, with rinses of deionized water between.

This four-step process deposits a single bilayer of flame-resistant coating on the fibers and is repeated 10 to 20 times.

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retardant properties of the fabric (and other forms of protection, too, including UV, thermal and abrasion resistance).

“It’s like we’re creating a nano-brick wall around each fiber. Anywhere you want to make fabric or foam anti-flammable, you can use this technology.”

The thin films are about one-tenth of a micron thick, or about one-thousandth the thickness of a human hair, and are created with the layer-bylayer assembly technique in which the coating is deposited onto the surface of the fiber being coated. This layer-by-layer process allows Grunlan to control the thickness of the coating down to the nanometer level.

“It’s like we’re creating a nano-brick wall around each fiber,” Grunlan says.

And the coating is so thin that it adds only 1 to 2 weight-percent to the fabric and does not negatively alter the fabric’s color, texture or strength.

“A lot of anti-flammables degrade fabric and cause it to tear,” Grunlan says.

But with Grunlan’s technique, each thread can be individually coated and still remain soft and flexible. In fact, his coating could potentially strengthen fabric.

In tests, virgin cotton fabric is burned using an industry-standard UL94 test, also known as the vertical flame test. In the test, the treated and untreated fabrics are exposed to 12 seconds of flame.

Grunlan and his students measure how long it takes for the fabric to catch fire and then how long the fire burns after the flame is extinguished.

The flame gets up to 700 degrees Celsius, and untreated cotton completely degrades at 600 degrees Celsius. But the fabric treated with Grunlan’s coating still maintains the qualities of the fabric, remaining soft and flexible.

“This polymer coating buys time and protection,” Grunlan says.

Grunlan says he expects the technology will be suitable for clothing, including children’s clothing;

The treated cotton strips are exposed to 12 seconds of flame in the UL94, or vertical flame, test.

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After the vertical flame test, only wisps of untreated cotton fabric remain (top). By comparison, the fabric treated with Grunlan’s polymer coating (bottom) shows less destruction and even retains some properties of fabric despite its layer of black soot.

lab coats; and medical clothing for both doctors and patients. It can even be used in military camps, where a fire in a single tent can wipe out an entire camp.

But the technology’s applications go far beyond just clothing and fabric. The coating could be used in foams, such as those found in sofas, mattresses, theatre and auditorium seats, airplane seat cushions, and building insulation.

The nanocomposite clay–polymer mixture coats the interior walls of foam. The result is that when burned, the treated foam keeps its shape instead of puddling at high temperatures like untreated polyurethane foam does. This quality eliminates the melt-dripping effect that further spreads fires.

In fact, the technology is so promising that one company has funded the patent, which is filed in the United States and Europe, and several others have been in touch with Grunlan.

“Anywhere you want to make fabric or foam antiflammable, you can use this technology,” he says. O

Dr. Jaime Grunlan

Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor 979.845.3027 jgrunlan@tamu.edu

The treated cotton fabric before (left) and after the burn test.

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Global Quest for

energy

A new institute led by Texas A&M Engineering and funded by the National Science Foundation links some of the world’s top researchers in an effort to harness the power of “wasted” energy.

By Kara Socol

“Reuse” has become a buzzword for the environmental movement , which brings forth notions of recycling and limiting disposable items.

Thanks to a $4 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), it’s also become a buzzword for materials science researchers at Texas A&M University and their collaborators in the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean. But in their case, “reuse” is referring to energy itself.

“Energy is obviously a big issue for the world, and we need to look at alternatives,” explains Raymundo Arróyave, a Texas A&M assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “But we also need to look at different ways to use the energy we already have.”

Finding ways to capture and reuse wasted energy is the very purpose of the Texas A&M–led International Institute for Multifunctional Materials for Energy Conversion (IIMEC). Through this institute, researchers can connect across the globe to collaborate on energy conversion research.

Says IIMEC Director Dimitris Lagoudas, head and John and Bea Slattery Chair in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M, “We’re doing something that is technologically very important for the U.S. and the other participating countries.”

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conservation The NSF award

The NSF supports a select group of International Materials Institutes (IMIs) in an effort to advance worldwide collaboration on materials research. In January 2010, Texas A&M announced that it — in conjunction with another member of The Texas A&M University System, the Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) — had been selected as one of the award recipients. Many of the researchers involved with the IIMEC hold joint appointments with Texas A&M and TEES.

Texas A&M’s U.S. partners in the IIMEC are the University of Houston and the Georgia Institute of Technology. University researchers in 11 countries in North Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean are already involved in the institute, with more countries expected to join.

In addition to the NSF award, TEES and the Dwight Look College of Engineering contributed matching funds to the IIMEC, as did Texas A&M’s Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies.

Harvesting energy

Multifunctional materials are receiving considerable attention in the materials science world. Tahir Cagin, a Texas A&M chemical engineering faculty member, says that this area involves “harvesting” energy — capturing the excess energy produced by one energy form and using it to power a different form.

Vibrations produced by walking down the street, for instance, are a form of wasted mechanical energy. But when these vibrations are harvested, this mechanical energy can be turned into electrical energy, activating a light in a child’s tennis shoe.

“You have heat around you, for instance, when a motor is running,” explains Cagin, associate director of research for the IIMEC. “Harvesting that wasted heat enables us to convert it into a useful form. You basically have less loss. And if you improve the coupling, you improve the efficiency.”

“Coupling” occurs when an energy-releasing process is used to drive an energy-requiring process.

An example is the use of piezoelectrics. These minuscule materials can convert engine vibrations or even sound waves into electrical energy. (For more about Cagin’s research, see page 32.)

Dr. Dimitris Lagoudas

International Institute for Multifunctional Materials for Energy Conversion Director Aerospace Engineering Department Head John and Bea Slattery Chair 979.845.1604 d-lagoudas@tamu.edu

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This electrical–mechanical coupling is one of three distinct research themes of the IIMEC. Electrical coupling with chemican, thermal and optical energy sources is also an IIMEC theme. This often takes the forms of fuel cells, photovoltaics or thermoelectrics. Another theme is thermal–mechanical and magnetic–mechanical coupling. The research of Lagoudas, Arróyave and others on shape memory alloys (SMAs) falls under this category.

And computational materials science overlaps all three themes.

Experimental and computational methods

The experimental method side of materials science involves actual hands-on laboratory work. The computational side deals more with computergenerated mathematical modeling.

Arróyave, a member of the IIMEC senior personnel, is a computational researcher. He likens the two methods to baking a pie. Using the computational method, one can determine what ingredients are needed and how they interact. But achieving the goal of actually creating the pie also requires the experimental method, where, through trial and error, one determines the precise ingredient measurements needed and the optimal time and temperature to properly bake it.

The computational method provides an understanding of material behavior — it offers guidelines, Arróyave explains. But it takes the experimental method to best design and optimize the materials.

“If we can combine both the computational and experimental methods in a rational, relevant way, it’s possible to accelerate the development of materials,” he says.

The communications side

Only two members of the IIMEC leadership team from Texas A&M are not engineers. One is Yalchin Efendiev, professor of mathematics. The other is Guy Almes, director of the Texas Academy for Advanced Telecommunications and Learning Technologies in Texas A&M’s College of Science.

“Intrinsic to the university world is the reality that researchers are interested in a specific, obscure topic, and that others interested in that same area are scattered across the globe,” he says. In the past, collaborating with researchers in a particular field often required hopping on a plane. The Internet, of course, changed that. And the IIMEC is taking things another giant step forward.

Although Almes readily admits he doesn’t know a lot about materials science, his contribution to the institute is vital: If computer networks are unreliable in successfully delivering computational models or moving large data sets, researchers in different countries won’t be able to collaborate on projects.

And if collaboration fails, the entire mission of the IIMEC fails.

“Energy is obviously a big issue for the world, and we need to look at alternatives. But we also need to look at different ways to use the energy we already have.”

Maintaining quality communications goes far beyond keeping computer systems up and running.

Almes says the computational requirements for modeling materials science projects — particularly at the atomic level — are huge.

“It’s the phenomenon of collaboration that interests me,” Almes says. “The quality of connections makes a difference in collaboration.”

Why North Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean?

The decision to focus IIMEC efforts on the North Africa–Middle East–Mediterranean region is multifaceted. The obvious draw, of course, is the energy resources of the area. Sunlight is also plentiful, and there’s a clear interest among researchers to look beyond oil and gas reserves to alternative energy forms.

The area is home to many well-trained scientific communities and advanced research facilities, along with researchers well versed in theoretical and computational methods. The venture is already providing graduate students with study-abroad opportunities. And in the works are conferences and workshops for both researchers and their students.

Many of the researchers at U.S. universities hail from this region, and their ties to fellow researchers there are already strong. An additional tie comes in the form of Texas A&M’s campus in Qatar, another IIMEC participant.

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Texas A&M University at Qatar — IIMEC partner and Texas A&M’s branch campus in Qatar Foundation’s Education City — is one reason Texas A&M University was selected for the center. Since 2003, Texas A&M at Qatar has offered undergraduate degrees in chemical, electrical, mechanical and petroleum engineering, and its degree programs were accredited by ABET in 2009. The curricula offered at Texas A&M at Qatar are materially identical to the ones offered at the main campus in College Station, Texas, and courses are taught in English in a coeducational setting. The reputation for excellence is the same, as is the commitment to equipping engineers to lead the next generation of engineering advancement. Faculty from around the world are attracted to Texas A&M at Qatar to provide this educational experience and to participate in research activities, now valued at nearly $50 million, that address issues important to the State of Qatar.

“This is a big part of globalization. It will enhance our presence in a vital part of the world. It will expose our students to what is going on there. And, scientifically, it will advance us.”

Another less-obvious impetus for, in particular, North African involvement has to do with the higher educational system, Lagoudas says. There’s a push to transform their universities from the French model to the U.S.–British model. Being included in the IIMEC, he says, will help these countries establish the high-level university systems they desire.

On the governmental side, political and economic stability is a stated goal. The institute’s efforts to improve the use of natural resources and bring balance between renewable and nonrenewable energy sources could ultimately contribute to peace and sustainability of the region’s resources.

Globalizing Texas A&M

Though it’s now a bit cliché to say the world’s getting smaller, the fact is, globalization is today’s reality. And for better or worse, Lagoudas says, Texas A&M has to be a part of it.

“The bottom line is that if we want to be a leader, we have to be a leader globally,” he says. “We can’t just say we’re the best in Texas. It’s just not enough.”

Adds Arróyave: “We’re not experts in everything.

We’re combining forces with our international counterparts to try to augment our capabilities. The end product isn’t particularly the technology, but the process of actually organizing in a rational way experimental and computational methods from around the world.”

“This is a big part of globalization,” Lagoudas says.

“It will enhance our presence in a vital part of the world. It will expose our students to what is going on there. And, scientifically, it will advance us and our partner institutions.” O

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By Ryan Garcia

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Researching the properties of piezoelectrics so that electronic devices can power themselves

I

magine a self-powering cell phone that never needs to be charged because it converts sound waves produced by the user into the energy it needs to keep running.

It’s not as farfetched as it may seem thanks to the recent work of Tahir Cagin, a professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University.

Using materials known as piezoelectrics, Cagin, whose research focuses on nanotechnology, has made a significant discovery in the area of power harvesting, a field that aims to develop self-powered devices that do not require replaceable power supplies, such as batteries.

Specifically, Cagin and his partners from the University of Houston have found that a certain type of piezoelectric material can covert energy at a 100 percent increase when manufactured at a very small size — in this case, around 21 nanometers in thickness.

What’s more, when materials are constructed bigger or smaller than this specific size, they show a significant decrease in their energy-converting capacity, he says.

His findings, which were detailed in Physical Review B, the journal of the American Physical Society, could have potentially profound effects for lowpowered electronic devices such as cell phones, laptops, personal communicators and a host of other computer-related devices, which everyone from the average consumer to law enforcement officers and even soldiers in the battlefield use.

Key to this technology, Cagin explains, are piezoelectrics. Derived from the Greek word “piezein,” which means “to press,” piezoelectrics are materials (usually crystals or ceramics) that generate voltage when a form of mechanical stress is applied.

Conversely, their physical properties change when an electric field is applied.

Discovered by French scientists in the 1880s, piezoelectrics aren’t a new concept. They were first used in sonar devices during World War I. Today they can be found in microphones and quartz watches. Cigarette lighters in automobiles also contain piezoelectrics. Pressing down the lighter button causes impact on a piezoelectric crystal, which in turn produces enough voltage to create a spark and ignite the gas.

On a grander scale, some nightclubs in Europe feature dance floors built with piezoelectrics that absorb and convert the energy from footsteps in order to help power lights in the club. And a Hong Kong gym is reportedly using the technology to convert energy from exercisers to help power its lights and music.

Although advances in those applications continue to progress, piezoelectric work at the nanoscale is a relatively new endeavor with different and complex aspects to consider, Cagin says.

Some nightclubs in Europe feature dance floors built with piezoelectrics that absorb and convert the energy from footsteps in order to help power lights in the club. A Hong Kong gym is using the technology to convert energy from exercisers to help power its lights and music.

For example, imagine going from working with a material the size and shape of a telephone pole to dealing with that same material the size of a hair, he says. When such a significant change in scale occurs, materials react differently. In this case, something the size of a hair is much more pliable and susceptible to change from its surrounding environment. These types of changes have to be taken into consideration when conducting research at this scale, he says.

“When materials are brought down to the nanoscale dimension, their properties for some performance characteristics dramatically change,” says Cagin, who is a past recipient of the prestigious Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology. “One such example is with piezoelectric materials. We have demonstrated that when you go to a particular length scale — between 20 and 23 nanometers — you actually improve the energy-harvesting capacity by 100 percent.

“We’re studying basic laws of nature such as physics and we’re trying to apply that in terms of developing better engineering materials, better performing engineering materials. We’re looking at chemical constitutions and physical compositions.

And then we’re looking at how to manipulate these structures so that we can improve the performance of these materials.” O

Dr. Tahir Cagin

Chemical Engineering Professor 979.862.1449 cagin@che.tamu.edu

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Haiyan Wang T h i n - fi l m

S ta r

Texas A&M Engineering Associate Professor Haiyan Wang is a budding superstar in her field, having received three of the top awards given to young faculty for her work in thin films.

Her research could lead to more efficient and affordable alternative energ y.

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By Kristina Twigg It is the Triple Crow n of engineering academia:

the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and the Young Investigator Award (YIP).

They are the most prestigious awards bestowed upon young researchers, and Haiyan Wang has received them all in just three years.

Wang most recently received the CAREER Award in 2009, adding it to her 2007 Air Force Research Office’s YIP as well as her Office of Naval Research YIP and PECASE, both awarded in 2008.

The accolades for Wang resulted from her work in thin films, which are composed of layers — some as thin as one atom — deposited on a substrate.

Thin films are light, flexible and have unique physical properties that may soon lead to a variety of applications, from more efficient and affordable alternative energy technology to less expensive medical equipment.

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The art of laying apples

Imagine perfectly stacking apples layer upon layer.

Each would have to fit carefully against the other in a specific pattern.

Wang, associate professor in Texas A&M University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is a master at what she calls “the art of laying apples.” Her model is designed to explain the basics of thin-film deposition to her students and the general public.

In Wang’s model, apples are equivalent to atoms deposited layer upon layer onto a flat substrate, but only atoms of the same or similar kind fit together well. Wang, for example, works specifically on nitride and oxide thin films, which she became familiar with during her Ph.D. studies at North Carolina State University and her postdoctoral research at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

material science

Thin films can also be applied in hightemperature superconductors (HTS), another of Wang’s research areas. They are a step up from current low-temperature superconductors widely used in devices such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, which visualize the inside of the human body.

Because of thin-film technology, HTS-coated conductors can support 10 times more electricity traffic than conventional copper wires, Wang says. Consider an interstate that has only one lane compared with 10. So, HTS-coated conductors are promising for electric power transmission and are already being tested by the Department of Energy. Another advantage of HTS is that they use liquid nitrogen, a far less expensive coolant than the liquid helium that low-temperature superconductors require.

“I feel

is such a versatile, multidisciplinary area. People always have needs for new materials, so you always have fun things to work on.”

“It’s so fun when you sit in the microscope room and watch how the atoms really space or locate in your thin-film sample,” Wang says.

For her, growing thin films is like developing a new creation each time. “There are always some unexpected surprises,” she says.

The advantage of a close fit

Because they have better atomic arrangements, thin films are lighter, are more flexible and have higher efficiency than conventional bulk materials.

These properties make them ideal for fabricating solar cells, batteries and solid oxide fuel cells — all alternative energy sources.

“I feel material science is such a versatile, multidisciplinary area. People always have needs for new materials, so you always have fun things to work on,” Wang says.

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Wang looks on as graduate student Joon Hwan Lee works on an in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) holder. TEM is a microscopy technique where a beam of electrons is transmitted through an ultrathin specimen, interacting with the specimen as it passes through.

An image is formed from the interaction of the electrons transmitted through the specimen.

Thin films

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are a layer of material ranging from fractions of

are all around us.

a nanometer to several micrometers in thickness and have a vast array

of applications. From batteries to coating on eyeglasses or windows, thin films

Compact discs: In the middle

Solar cells: By coating a thin

Integrated circuits: All

layer of a compact disc is a very thin layer that reflects the laser beam that is used to read the information on the disc.

layer of light absorber instead of bulk silicon, thin film solar cells can be lighter, more cost-effective and flexible than conventional bulk solar cells.

computer chips and memory chips are made of thin films on top of single crystal silicon substrates through multiple steps of thin-film depositions and patterning.

Optical coatings for eyeglasses and camera lenses: An optical coating (anti-

Lithium-ion batteries: With a solid lithium core rather than a liquid one, thin-film batteries can withstand higher heat, making them less likely to overheat or catch fire. They can be recharged thousands of times before needing to be replaced.

Mirrors: Your household mirror

reflective coating) deposited on a lens or mirror alters the way the optic reflects and transmits light.

One type is an anti-reflective coating that reduces unwanted reflections and is commonly used on lenses for eyeglasses and cameras.

is created by applying a thin metal coating on the back of a sheet of glass to form a reflective interface.

A very thin film coating is used to produce two-way mirrors.

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Awards H a i ya n Wa n g

National Science Foundation Career Award 2009

Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers 2008

Young Investigator Award: Air Force Office of Scientific Research 2007

Office of Naval Research

The future of thin films

Although thin-film and HTS technologies are still in their infancy, Wang’s group does fundamental research with future users in mind.

“This doesn’t mean that people will be able to use our new material structures tomorrow, but I foresee that our architectures will be useful in probably 5 or 10 years,” Wang says.

With eight patents and eight awards — including the PECASE, NSF CAREER Award, the Office of Naval Research YIP and the Air Force OSR YIP — Wang is a rising star in Texas A&M Engineering. Her lab, which includes 15 graduate and undergraduate student workers, produces about 20 journal publications every year. Wang attributes their productivity to the extensive collaborations she shares with researchers at Texas A&M, other universities and national laboratories.

Wang also capitalizes on the work done by graduate students she advises.

“I feel it’s so fun to work with graduate students because they generate such interesting ideas,” she says. “The students are really the heart of the research.” O

2008

Dr. Haiyan Wang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Associate Professor 979.845.5082 wangh@ece.tamu.edu

Graduate students Zhenxing Bi (right) and Sungmee Cho (left) work on the pulsed-laser deposition chamber. Pulsed-laser deposition is a thin-film deposition technique where a high-power pulsed laser beam is focused inside a vacuum chamber to strike a target of the material that is to be deposited. The material is vaporized from the target, which deposits it as a thin film on a substrate such as a silicon wafer facing the target.

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msen.tamu.edu

Laboratories Materials Characterization Facility Microscopy and Imaging Center Polymer Technology Center Materials Development and Characterization Center

ENGINEERING Researchers Aerospace Engineering Amine Benzerga Dimitris Lagoudas Zoubeida Ounaies Ramesh Talreja John Whitcomb

Biomedical Engineering

Center for Chemical Characterization and Analysis

Elizabeth Cosgriff-Hernandez Melissa Grunlan Wonmuk Hwang Duncan Maitland Mike McShane Kenith Meissner

Magnetism and Magnetic Resonance Laboratory

Chemical Engineering

Thin Film Microelectronics Research Laboratory Severe Plastic Deformation Laboratory

Laboratory for Molecular Simulation Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology Materials and Structures Laboratory Nuclear Science Center Optical Biosensing Laboratory

Mustafa Akbulut Perla Balbuena Tahir Cagin Zhengdong Cheng Mariah Hahn Hae-Kwon Jeong Yue Kuo M. Sam Mannan Jorge Seminario Sreeram Vaddiraju

Electrical and Computer Engineering Rusty Harris Philip Hemmer Jun Kameoka Haiyan Wang

Mechanical Engineering Raymundo Arr贸yave Terry Creasy Xin-Lin Gao Molly Gentleman Jaime Grunlan Bing Guo K. Ted Hartwig Ibrahim Karaman Hong Liang Miladin Radovic Hung-Jue Sue Choongho Yu Nicole Zacharia Xinghang Zhang

Nuclear Engineering Sean McDeavitt Lin Shao

39

40

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Robin Murphy is a pioneer in rescue robotics. Through hard work and dedication, the computer science and engineering professor has become an international leader and one of the few women in a field that men tend to dominate.

By Tim Schnettler

41

I

t is an all too familiar sight after tragedies such as earthquakes, hurricanes or mudslides: people furiously digging through the rubble in the hopes of locating survivors.

A similar scene drove Robin Murphy into rescue robotics. Murphy is a professor in Texas A&M’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering and director of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR).

“At some point I thought, I could be one of 200 people doing planetary robots, I could be one of 200 people doing health care, but somebody needs to step up and do this idea of rescue robotics.”

It was 1995, and having watched news reports on both the Oklahoma City bombing and the Kobe City earthquake, Murphy — who had conducted her Ph.D. research in robotics — decided it was time to focus her work on rescue robotics.

“Rescue robotics was strictly an emotional response,” says Murphy, the Raytheon Professor in the Dwight Look College of Engineering’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

“Artificial intelligence for robotics had been focusing on small robots with the thought of sending dozens of them up to Mars.”

It then became so clear to her that those same robots could be exploring under the rubble of a disaster and helping find victims.

“At some point I thought, I could be one of 200 people doing planetary robots, I could be one of 200 people doing health care, but somebody needs to step up and do this idea of rescue robotics.”

And that is exactly what Murphy did. Seeing an opportunity to make a difference, she seized it and immersed herself in rescue robotics, a field where she has become an international leader and one of the few women involved.

A RARITY IN HER FIELD Robotics, and even more so rescue robotics, is dominated by men. And when Murphy is on the site of a disaster, she is usually the only woman.

“At Crandall Canyon Utah, the 2007 mine collapse, I think there were 40 guys on this mountain and we were a two-hour drive from anything,” Murphy says. “We were way up in the mountains, and I was the only woman.”

42

But Murphy’s work is starting to open the eyes of young women, helping them to realize that they too can break into the male-dominated field. An April 2010 episode of the PBS show SciGirls titled “Robots to the Rescue” featured Murphy, a female graduate student and four junior high girls.

The show, which is aimed at getting young girls interested in science, technology, engineering and math, had the girls work with Murphy and her team to develop a personality for a rescue robot.

“It is a real exciting thing for me to be considered a mentor,” Murphy says. “I think it is that big moment when you realize, ‘I’ve got something to offer these young women.’ Between robotics and search and rescue, there are just not a lot of women.”

FROM THE BEGINNING Robotics, much less rescue robotics, wasn’t always on the radar for Murphy. When she was a youngster, the big question was whether she would become a nuclear physicist or a mechanical engineer like her father.

Although she didn’t know which field of engineering she would choose, she was sure engineering was the discipline she would study.

“My dad was a mechanical engineer,” she says. “I was an only child, so I was my dad’s only son. Of course I was going to be an engineer; I always wanted to be.”

Murphy made the choice to follow her father’s profession, earning her undergraduate degree from Georgia Tech in mechanical engineering. When it came time to pursue her graduate degree, Murphy went another route, electing to get her Ph.D. in computer science, also from Georgia Tech, after working in industry for several years.

During her work toward the graduate degree, she became interested in artificial intelligence (AI) — despite initially thinking the field was a joke.

“When I went to grad school in computer science, I had a fellowship that required me to work with somebody in computer science that was a member of the Computer Integrated Manufacturing program,” Murphy says. “There was a new guy who did artificial intelligence for robots, and I believed that was totally ludicrous. But I needed a mentor.

“I thought AI was a joke and the robots you see for manufacturing that I was exposed to from mechanical engineering were very stupid and you engineeringmagazine .tam u .edu

would never use them for anything interesting. Of course I was wrong.

“Within a month I fell in love with AI — making things smarter, duplicating some of the wonderful things we know about biological intelligence, combining that with the differences of siliconbased systems. I just totally fell in love with it and never looked back.”

GETTING HER START After completing her Ph.D., Murphy joined the faculty at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colo. The major focus at the School of Mines was on planetary robots because of ties to Colorado’s space community.

Murphy fell in line and was working in the field of planetary robots, but the 1995 bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City shifted her focus. She says she realized the same small, rugged, agile and lightweight robots being proposed for Mars could be used to dive into the rubble where rescuers could not go.

The switch in focus carried risks because administrators and AI researchers viewed rescue robotics the way most people view robots — futuristic and too hard to be practical. Undeterred, Murphy made the drastic switch, beginning what would turn into a pioneering career.

With a change in focus came a change in universities as well. Murphy moved to the University of South Florida, where she was encouraged to devote herself to the fledgling field of rescue robotics despite skepticism from traditional AI researchers. Murphy and her students were mentored by Florida Task Force 3 starting in 1999 and eventually became technical search specialists.

“In many ways it is so hard to describe 9/11 if you were not there. We knew at the time that it was going to be the Pearl Harbor for our generation.”

While at South Florida, Murphy participated in an event that is still special to her — the response to the collapse of the World Trade Center. Ten days earlier, a former graduate student and Defense Advanced Research Program Agency program manager had founded CRASAR. When the planes struck, he and Murphy began coordinating CRASAR’s first mission: how to get robots to assist in finding the black boxes from the planes.

Murphy checks data while one of the CRASAR aerial robots hovers behind her.

The robot’s camera can give rescuers pictures and video.

43

Murphy works with her pet project “Survivor Buddy.” The robot, which has its roots in the World Trade Center disaster, is designed to find victims and help to comfort them while they wait for rescuers to reach them.

Then the buildings collapsed and getting the robots to New York to assist in searching the rubble became even more urgent. By noon, Murphy had packed her husband’s new van with robots, batteries, tools and three graduate students. Following the New York State Emergency Office’s invitation, she drove to New York City and met with other members of the CRASAR team.

“Texas A&M is a wonderful place, and I can do more here in the next 10 years than I can do in 20 years in any other place in the United States, actually the world.”

“In many ways it is so hard to describe 9/11 if you were not there,” Murphy says. “The interesting thing was we knew at the time that it was going to be the Pearl Harbor for our generation.

“What we really didn’t understand was how significant it was going to be for rescue robots. We knew it was going to be the first time rescue robots had ever been used for any disaster anywhere that’s been recorded.”

The utility of small robots to penetrate deep in the rubble in voids too small or too hot for search dogs or people was a major surprise to the Japanese robotics community, which had favored larger, more construction-like robots that could remove the rubble. The robots also gained added credibility for their use in Afghanistan by the U.S. Department of Defense.

A NEW TYPE OF ROBOT The World Trade Center disaster has had a lasting effect on rescue robotics, serving as a 44

learning experience for those involved and helping them to fine-tune the robots being used, as well as making the robots more friendly and comforting to victims.

One such robot, “Survivor Buddy,” is Murphy’s pet project, and her efforts are paramount in the creation of what is considered the first robot built specifically for interacting with a trapped victim waiting to be extricated.

“The Survivor Buddy project has its roots in 9/11,” Murphy says. “For several years we had been discussing how we would use the robots to find survivors. As we were driving up there, we realized we hadn’t gotten beyond that point: What would we do if we found one? That persisted with us, and we started looking at things like a protocol.”

They also began to look at the physical attributes of the robots, everything from their color to the amount of noise they make.

“Most rescue robots, or robots that get sold for these things, are black and loud,” Murphy says.

Also, most victims would be in the dark, and having something with bright lights coming at them would more than likely add to their panic or fear. This concern was confirmed when Murphy and her colleagues took turns playing victims in test runs, and later by a Ph.D. thesis she directed.

“As we took turns being victims, we realized the robots were scary,” Murphy says.

So Murphy and her colleagues at Stanford University set out to design a robot that would not only be able to find victims but also help to comfort survivors as they waited for rescuers to reach them. engineeringmagazine .tam u .edu

2000

Nils Nilsson Technical Achievement Award American Association for Artificial Intelligence 2001

Eagle Award

National Institute for Urban Search and Rescue 2002

Distinguished Lecture National Science Foundation 2004

Innovator in Artificial Intelligence TIME

2005

U.S. Air Force Exemplary Civilian Service Award

for distinguished service on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board 2008

AI Aube Outstanding Contributor from the AUVSI Foundation

“Whenever you have an MRI, they give you your choice of music, anything to keep you comforted and from being bored,” Murphy says. “Not only can we do two-way audio, but we can do full Web streaming. You can watch your favorite TV show; you can talk to your friends. You can do whatever.

Why not make it two-way video and streaming Web services?

“We pitched this to Microsoft as part of its initiative on how to use the Web and Web-enabled robots, and they loved it. We called the project the ‘Survivor Buddy’ because it was going to be your buddy. The National Science Foundation has since picked up the project, as it offers real insight into eldercare and other situations where you might be using the robot as your connection with the larger world.”

Popular Science also gave Survivor Buddy a “Best 100 of 2009” award.

ANOTHER MOVE In 2008, Murphy, along with CRASAR, moved to Texas A&M, in what could be considered a coup for the university. The move allowed Murphy to take full advantage of Disaster City, a 52-acre training

2009

“Dream Job” profile IEEE Spectrum

Alpha Geek Wired

Fellow

Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers 2010

Member

Defense Science Board

Motohiro Kisoi Award International Rescue System Institute

Pioneer in Field Robotics CMU Field Robotics Institute

Remarkable Woman Lifetime Television

facility created by the Texas Engineering Extension Service (TEEX), an agency in The Texas A&M University System. TEEX delivers the full array of skills and techniques needed by emergency response professionals and a large staff that includes state and federal response teams and instructors.

The facility, which is a mock community, features full-scale, collapsible structures, offering Murphy the perfect setting to test her rescue robots. Murphy also pointed to the people of Texas A&M as another reason for her move to College Station.

“The facilities here are incredible,” Murphy says.

“But better yet, we have real users with a true spirit of collaboration. This is a group of people on campus and at TEEX working on emergency informatics that really wants to work together.

Already, we’re in the finals for an $18 million NSF Engineering Research Center on our first try.

“Texas A&M is a wonderful place, and I can do more here in the next 10 years than I can do in 20 years in any other place in the United States, actually the world.” O

Dr. Robin R. Murphy

Computer Science and Engineering Raytheon Professor in Computer Science 979.845.2015 murphy@cse.tamu.edu

45

Creating models to help the wind energy industry decide when expensive, complicated machinery needs maintenance

By Lesley Kriewald

T

exas leads the United States in wind energy production, with almost 9,400 megawatts capacity from more than 40 wind farms.

But these wind turbines — typically more than 100 turbines on a single farm — are expensive and complicated and difficult to maintain.

One Texas A&M Engineering research team is working to provide a cost-effective maintenance strategy for keeping these wind turbines spinning.

Dr. Yu Ding

Industrial and Systems Engineering Centerpoint Energy Career Development Professor Associate Professor 979.845.5448 yuding@iemail.tamu.edu

46

Yu Ding, associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and postdoctoral associate Eunshin Byon, who earned her Ph.D. with this research, aim to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of operations and maintenance for wind farms. The original research pair has grown into a team of seven people now, including fellow Associate Professor Lewis Ntaimo.

Their research is part of a project supported by the National Science Foundation since 2006 in collaboration with General Electric.

engineeringmagazine .tam u .edu

Ding says that one of the key issues for renewable energy, including wind energy, is cost and marketability and that wind energy is perhaps the most promising alternative energy source in that it is closest to being competitive with traditional energy in the market.

However, to sustain wind energy generation and increase its market share, industry needs to further reduce the cost of farms’ operations and maintenance, which accounts for about 16 to 35 percent of the cost of wind energy generation, depending on wind farm size, terrain and other factors.

“You can’t control wind speed, turbine speed and other weather conditions,” Ding says. “And most turbines have a complicated gearbox and the whole drive train operates under highly variable conditions, whereas the generator rotors used in conventional power systems operate at a fairly constant rate.”

And Ding says that random uncertainties (such as bad weather) present significant challenges for maintenance decisions: Wind farms are typically located in rural areas, far from the crews and equipment found in cities that may be hundreds of miles away.

Pérez also developed a simulation model that helps to illuminate the complex behavior and interactions among the individual wind turbines on a single farm.

These optimization and simulation models consider external factors and uncertainty in sensor data and aim to answer questions about the most costeffective way to do maintenance; how often and when that maintenance should be performed; and deciding whether to make repairs, do on-site investigations or let the issue stand.

“The end objective is to present a strategy to wind energy managers on how to reduce their cost and improve the reliability of the energy generated by wind farms.”

So sending a crew out to repair a turbine takes time and costs money, which energy companies — and their customers — are not fond of doing often, especially when unsure whether a failure has happened or is about to happen.

“Parts have to be shipped, a crew has to be ready, and the weather has to be favorable because repairing wind turbines is unsafe at certain wind speeds and weather conditions,” Ding says. “These are external issues that are unique in the wind energy industry.”

In her dissertation research, Byon devised a costeffective, optimal maintenance plan for wind turbine operations by considering all these uncertainties. She and fellow researcher Eduardo

“This simulation platform is the first stage in testing our strategy,” Ding says.

“We need to make sure no important factors have been left out of our consideration.”

The research team recently acquired wind turbine operation data from the Risø National Lab at the Technical University of Denmark.

The data include wind characteristics, as well as wind turbine responses, collected at 55 different locations in Europe, Japan and the United States.

The team is analyzing the data to determine how to integrate that information into their optimization and simulation models.

Dr. Eunshin Byon

Industrial and Systems Engineering Postdoctoral Research Associate 979.862.7795 esbyun@tamu.edu

Byon says, “We are now extending the simulation model to be as close to a real system as possible, and integrating the data model with the optimization model.”

“The end objective is to present a strategy to wind energy managers on how to reduce their cost and improve the reliability of the energy generated by wind farms,” Ding says.

“As industrial and systems engineers, we have significant expertise in optimization, simulation and information integration, and we are ready to contribute significantly to helping wind energy become more cost-effective so its competitiveness can be more sustainable in the market.” O

Dr. Lewis Ntaimo

Industrial and Systems Engineering Associate Professor 979.862.4066 ntaimo@tamu.edu

47

Unconventional Gas: Applying North American Experience to the Rest of the World

high to medium quality

By Stephen A. Holditch

BY STEPHEN HOLDITCH

low

UNCON V EN T IONAL

tight gas sands

PRICING

(not depth of location)

ACCE S S ABILI T Y

low perm oil

heavy oil gas shales coalbed methane gas hydrates oil shales

low 48

Figure 1 The resource triangle

The resource triangle describes hydrocarbon resource availability. The triangle shows that while a relatively small amount of high-quality resources are fairly easily available, a much larger amount of unconventional resources is available, although much less accessible than higher-quality resources.

The amount of resources available increases logarithmically as access becomes more difficult and expensive.

high

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IMPRO V ED T ECHNOLOG Y

high

Stephen A. Holditch, head of Texas A&M’s Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering; Noble Chair of Petroleum Engineering; member of the National Academy of Engineering; and an internationally known expert in gas reservoirs, well completion, and well stimulation, discusses how current gas field development in the United States may be showing the way to a worldwide renaissance in natural gas development.

T

he U.S. Energy Information Administration currently ranks the Barnett Shale in north Texas and southwest Oklahoma as the most productive gas field in the United States, with almost 14,000 wells producing more than 5 billion cubic feet a day in 2009. All these shales have one thing in common — until recently, they were all thought of as source rocks. Now, this shale play is being developed as a reservoir.

Austin Chalk in the early 1990s. In fact, the Austin Chalk is the model for modern shale development methods.

It appears that much source rock still has large volumes of gas and liquids that have not been expelled and migrated elsewhere. It is also clear that the Haynesville Shale in northern Louisiana and northeast Texas and the Marcellus Shale underlying parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and West Virginia eventually will be more productive than the Barnett.

The entire concept of hydrocarbon resource distribution can be captured in the resource triangle (Fig. 1), which implies that all natural resources are distributed log-normally in nature.

Two breakthrough technologies have reshaped the economic potential of developing gas shale: horizontal drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing. These developments date to the introduction of horizontal drilling and water fracturing techniques during the pioneering efforts of Union Pacific Resources Co. in Texas’

It is clear that there is an abundant volume of oil and gas in unconventional reservoirs.

Estimating economically recoverable resource

An abundant volume of oil and gas exists in unconventional reservoirs. This spectrum of hydrocarbons can be produced as long as the economics and technologies are in place to allow the industry to develop them profitably. Three values are critical to estimating the feasibility of developing these resources.

One is referred to simply as resources, the value of gas in place. A second is the technically 49

Texas A&M researchers lay composite mats to build a section of temporary roadbed at a research facility in West Texas. They are testing how well the system holds up under the sort of traffic involved in oilfield operations and how well it protects sensitive environments.

New approaches to building roads in sensitive drilling areas promise to reduce impact Every drilling site needs a road to link it to the outside world. New technology promises to protect sensitive environments from the damage that putting in a conventional road causes. Technologies being studied range from artificial gravel to portable composite mats and planks. All are designed to provide durable surfaces for oil field service vehicles to drive over and to protect the soil under the road.

Texas A&M researchers are testing three approaches in field studies at Texas A&M research facilities in West Texas.

One road system consists of a series of interlocking composite mats, each about four feet by eight feet and three inches thick.

“It only takes a couple of hours to build a road that can handle commonly used oilfield equipment,” says David Burnett, director of technology for Texas A&M’s Global Petroleum Research Institute. “When you don’t need the road anymore, you just unlatch it, pick up the pieces and go.” Similar pads are being used already to support drilling rigs in some areas where the surface soil is particularly soft.

David Burnett

Petroleum Engineering Director of Technology & Research Coordinator Global Petroleum Research Institute 979.845.2274 david.burnett@pe.tamu.edu

50

A similar system that the Texas A&M researchers also are testing was designed by engineering students at the University of Wyoming. It’s a series of composite planks linked by stainless-steel cables, much like an oversized version of snow fences used to keep winter snow from blowing over highways in northern states.

Another approach is to use artificial gravel made up of sludge from on-site pits where drilling mud is held, solid waste and concrete to build the road base. When the road is no longer needed, it’s simply plowed up. O

recoverable resource (TRR), which means we know where the gas is located and we have the technology to drill and produce the gas. Only part of the TRR is economically viable at given drilling costs and a given gas price. The third value is the economically recoverable resource (ERR), the amount of gas that can be developed and produced at a profit. We need to understand all three values of a given resource to determine how to proceed with investment and development.

A substantial volume of TRR is unquestionably present in gas shales in the United States. The two main questions, however, are (1) how can the industry reduce the finding and development costs to be able to classify more of the TRR as ERR at any given gas price and (2) at any given finding and development cost, how much money will the market pay for the gas? At the right price, we can produce essentially all the TRR gas in any formation, as long as the market and pipeline system exists.

Global opportunity

About 15 years ago, a series of papers were published that estimated global resources in unconventional reservoirs. These values are estimates of gas in place.

These estimates were made without the knowledge we now have on many successful developments of tight sands, coal seams and gas shales in North America and elsewhere.

Undoubtedly, unconventional reservoirs worldwide have enormous volumes of natural gas.

These resources are in the tight reservoirs, the coal seams and the shales (source rocks). In the coming decades, the unconventional gas reservoir technology developed in the United States in the last 30 years will be exported to every oil and gas basin in the world to develop unconventional gas.

In the coming decades, the unconventional gas reservoir technology developed in the United States in the last 30 years will be exported to every oil and gas basin in the world to develop unconventional gas.

Even though we expect to find a large volume of gas in unconventional gas reservoirs in virtually every oil and gas basin in the world (Figure 2), little will be produced unless a gas market exists and the technology originally developed in North America can be successfully transferred to these markets.

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SOUTH ASIA 39 196

The other problem is a familiar one for oil and gas companies that do business overseas: making certain the right team is in place to do the work.

Technology can be exported anywhere, but it takes a special crew with the proper training to operate the rig and downhole equipment needed to drill a 5,000-foot lateral 12,000 feet under the ground.

It also takes a special group of people with specific skills to set up a fracturing spread and spend four or more days on location working around the clock to stimulate a well in multiple stages. A company can do everything else right, and still lose money if the fracture treatment is not executed flawlessly.

For now, the global opportunity in shale gas is limited to select areas where markets and service company expertise exist, but one day there will be Barnett, Haynesville and Marcellus look-alikes all over the world. From Europe to the Middle East, Asia and South America, shale gas is going to become as big a deal around the globe over the next 20 to 30 years as it has become in North America over the past 10 years. O

CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE 118

39

235

78

OTHER PACIFIC ASIA 549

313

862

WESTERN EUROPE 353

509

157

1,019

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA 39 274

784

1,097

MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA

Legend All numbers are in trillion cubic feet (TCF).

Tight Sand Gas

235

Shale Gas

REGION Coalbed Methane

823

3,370

2,547

TOTAL

1,371

3

LATIN AMERICA Figure 2 Unconventional natural gas resources (gas in gas

1,293

shale formations) predicted in oil basins around the world.

2,116

39

3,448

PACIFIC OECD 705

2,312

470

3,487

CENTRALLY-PLANNED ASIA & CHINA 353

3,526

1,215

5,094 FORMER SOVIET UNION

901

627

5,485

3,957

NORTH AMERICA 1,371

3,840

3,017

8,228

Stephen A. Holditch joined the Texas A&M Engineering faculty in 1976 and has been head of the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering since 2004. His research focuses on gas reservoirs, well completion and well stimulation.

Holditch was president of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) in 2002, SPE vice president–finance and a member of the board of directors from 1998 to 2003. He also was a trustee of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (AIME) in 1997–1998.

He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1995 and to the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences in 1997. In 1998, he was elected to the Texas A&M Petroleum Engineering Academy of Distinguished Graduates. He was elected an SPE and AIME Honorary Member in 2006. He has received SPE’s Lester Uren Award, John Franklin Carll Award and the Anthony F. Lucas Medal. In 2010, he was named an Outstanding Graduate of Texas A&M’s Dwight Look College of Engineering.

Holditch chairs the nonprofit Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America. He was elected the 2010 vice president of The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas and will become president of the organization in 2011.

Dr. Stephen A. Holditch

Petroleum Engineering Department Head and Noble Chair 979.845.2255 steve.holditch@pe.tamu.edu

Holditch received a Ph.D. degree in petroleum engineering from Texas A&M in 1976 and holds M.S. and B.S. degrees from Texas A&M, also in petroleum engineering. O

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Energizing

Energy Research The newly established Energy Engineering Institute aims to bring together the varied energy-related resources scattered across the state at Texas A&M University System institutions.

By Gene Charleton

Energy is a hot topic these days.

Whether it’s the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, impact of greenhouse gases on global climate change or promising new alternative fuels, energy is a critical challenge facing engineering researchers.

The Texas A&M University System’s new Energy Engineering Institute (EEI), a unit of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), aims to bring together the expertise and resources throughout the A&M System to address some of the world’s biggest energy challenges.

“We can demonstrate and implement new technologies and training for our stakeholders and research sponsors.”

“We want the Energy Engineering Institute to be a portal to the resources available across The Texas A&M University System,” says EEI director Theresa Maldonado. “EEI will be a highly visible entry point to our existing framework of energy for researchers across the A&M System and the external stakeholders who can use that expertise — if they know how to reach it,” says Maldonado, who is also associate vice chancellor for research in the A&M System.

The EEI was established in late 2009, and Maldonado, then a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and TEES associate director, was named its director last spring.

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Engineering research on energy issues is a long tradition at Texas A&M University, stretching back at least to the establishment of the Department of Petroleum Engineering in 1929. But EEI isn’t what engineering research into energy used to be.

Across the A&M System, unique assets range from well-established research programs in oil and gas reservoir characterization and wind energy

The Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) is the engineering research agency of the State of Texas. Its mission is to perform engineering and technology-oriented research and development. TEES researchers conduct quality research and provide practical answers to critical state and national needs.

Founded in 1914, TEES partners with industries, communities and academic institutions to solve problems to help improve the quality of life, promote economic development and enhance the educational systems of Texas. TEES also promotes new technology education and investigates problems in health and the environment.

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“The message is: We have unique assets. We have Texas A&M University, plus the institutions of the A&M System, with state agencies that enable us to go from fundamental research to applying that research to real-world issues.” to developing software and hardware to operate future smart electrical distribution grids and energy efficiency in commercial, industrial and residential buildings.

“The fact that we have the state agencies [TEES, the Texas Engineering Extension Service, Texas Transportation Institute, Texas Forest Service, Texas AgriLife Research and Texas AgriLife Extension Service] is a unique asset as well,” she says. “The college of engineering [at Texas A&M University] is where we do this, typically, but in partnership with the agencies.

“We can demonstrate and implement new technologies and training for our stakeholders and research sponsors,” she says. “A lot of universities are not structured like that.”

And access to resources outside the traditional engineering community — such as Texas A&M University’s agriculture program; researchers in chemistry, physics, and other traditional science disciplines; and the George Bush School of Government and Public Service — adds even more valuable expertise.

EEI also brings together a possibly unique combination of physical facilities, too, she says.

These facilities range from the Alternative Energy Institute at West Texas A&M University in the Texas Panhandle, where researchers have been studying wind power for three decades, to Texas A&M’s Offshore Technology Research Center in College Station, the only wave basin of its size and sophistication at a U.S. university.

Maldonado likes to emphasize EEI’s function as a facilitator that will bring together the varied energy resources across the A&M System rather than as an organization that will control existing organizations’ research programs or compete with them for research funding.

“The message is: We have unique assets,” Maldonado says. “We have Texas A&M University, plus the institutions of the A&M System, with state agencies that enable us to go from fundamental research to applying that research to real-world issues.”

For more, visit www.energyengineering.org. O

Dr. Theresa A. Maldonado

Energy Engineering Institute Director The Texas A&M University System Associate Vice Chancellor for Research 979.458.7662 tmaldonado@tamu.edu

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RETHINKING NUCLEAR WASTE

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NEW nuclear reactor designs and the new fuels they will require could mean

the end of nuclear waste as we now think of it.

A

growing number of energy experts and even environmentalists are calling for wider use of nuclear energy to reduce our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels without contributing to global climate change. Critics ask, “But what will we do with the radioactive waste?”

Nuclear engineer Sean McDeavitt thinks that’s the wrong question.

“Most people live at the ‘What are you going to do with the waste?’ question,” says McDeavitt, an assistant professor and specialist in reactor fuels and nuclear materials in Texas A&M’s Department of Nuclear Engineering. “They’re already assuming a certain path with that. It presupposes that used fuel is all waste that we’re going to figure out how to deal with. This also assumes that the solution is a vast mystery that no one understands.”

But new designs for advanced nuclear reactors and the fuel that powers them could make nuclear waste as we now think of it a thing of the past, he says.

“It all comes down to the presuppositions,” he says.

“If you restructure your design philosophy forward, you can manage the majority of the long-lived waste out of the picture, to a certain extent.”

Fission 101

Most of us understand at least the outline of how atomic fission works: A neutron zaps into a pile of uranium atoms and splits one. Fragments from that split atom (“nuclear shrapnel,” McDeavitt calls them) include newly liberated neutrons that zip out and in turn split other atoms, and so on. As this splitting, or fission, continues, it produces energy, which we see as the heat that turns water into steam that turns turbines to give us electricity.

“Nuclear energy is a fancy way to boil water,” McDeavitt says. “If you’ve got coal, you can boil water the old-fashioned way.”

“The vision would be to develop a reactor that does not require fuel enrichment and that does not require reprocessing. Take away these major proliferation risks and ‘nuclear’ becomes not so dirty a word.”

The atoms in that pile are uranium atoms, but uranium is only the beginning, especially for the sort of advanced reactors McDeavitt is talking about.

The fuel used in most commercial reactors starts as a metal ore containing uranium, abbreviated as U. Most reactors use uranium dioxide, or UO2, a combination of uranium and oxygen, although some fuels are alloys of uranium and other metals.

Fuels also can be made by combining uranium with nitrogen, silicon, carbon or hydrogen.

“You can make fuels out of nitrides or carbides or silicides or hydrides or essentially any kind of chemistry that will hold the uranium in a solid form and get it into the system,” McDeavitt says.

Other fuel variations can be fabricated, but most often they’re reserved for niche applications, usually in research reactors. The main function of the fuel is to get the uranium into the presence of the neutrons that cause them to split apart. Fuel design aims to fine-tune that fission process, depending on exactly what engineers want to have happen during fission and afterward.

Whenever nuclear fission takes place, the splitting of the uranium atoms results in chemical changes in the fuel involved. After a while, those changes produce elements quite different from the uranium we started with.

Dr. Sean M. McDeavitt Assistant Professor Nuclear Engineering 979.862.1745 mcdeavitt@ne.tamu.edu

“You almost have the entire periodic table by the time you’re done,” McDeavitt says.

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Future reactors

New reactors envisioned by nuclear engineers range from what nuclear energy specialists call Generation 4 reactors, essentially improved, safer, more fuel-efficient versions of the reactors we use today, to even more advanced designs such as what’s known as a traveling-wave reactor that TerraPower is designing. McDeavitt’s research focuses on the fuel these advanced reactors will use rather than on the design of the reactors themselves.

“If you restructure your design philosophy forward, you can manage the majority of the long-lived waste out of the picture, to a certain extent.”

One way to visualize how a traveling-wave reactor works is to imagine the reactor as a line, rod or stick with a wave moving along it. The wave is the nuclear reaction, and it moves slowly (a few centimeters per year) along the fuel in the reactor as the fuel is changed by the continuing reaction. A similar reactor that engineers in Japan are studying is called a candle reactor, because the fuel is “lit” at one end and “burns” to the other end like a flame on a horizontal candle.

Unlike conventional reactors, in which fuel is replaced every three to four years, the fuel in traveling-wave reactors could be in place for 40 to 50 years, and the residue left when the reaction has traveled through all the fuel could be used to fuel other reactors rather than being reprocessed or stored.

“The vision would be to develop a reactor that does not require fuel enrichment and that does not require reprocessing,” McDeavitt says. “Take away these major proliferation risks and ‘nuclear’ becomes not so dirty a word around the society.”

The future of fuel

Another project from McDeavitt’s current research is concentrated on a potential new fuel that may be used in current-generation reactor systems. This new fuel form was invented at Purdue University, and McDeavitt is now working with IBC Advanced Alloys of Vancouver, Canada, to establish engineering-scale fabrication methods. The fuel combines uranium dioxide and beryllium oxide to produce higher thermal conductivity in the fuel.

Developing it is a cross between materials science and manufacturing methods, he says.

“We’re down to engineering the morphology, the form and structure, of the fuel material,” he says.

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Artist’s rendering of nuclear fission

engineeringmagazine .tam u .edu

McDeavitt watches as Brandon Blamer, a senior in nuclear engineering, prepares a sample for a radioactive metallurgy study.

The goal is to develop a combination of uranium dioxide and beryllium oxide particles that when combined into fuel pellets, allows reactors using it to operate more efficiently than with current fuels.

Essentially, the fuel fabrication method starts with a powder made up of tiny balls of uranium dioxide about 500 microns, or half a millimeter, in diameter and smaller bits of beryllium oxide. These particles are pressed and then sintered, or heated and pressed together, into pellets that go into tubes that make up the reactor core. Understanding the structure of the fuel material is crucial, because a homogeneous mixture behaves differently from a heterogeneous mixture, and heterogeneous mixtures’ behavior can be different, depending on how the ingredients are combined.

Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M Texas A&M has one of the largest and best nuclear engineering programs in the country. It is widely recognized as one of the best-equipped nuclear engineering programs, with two nuclear reactors: a 1-megawatt TRIGA reactor for research and a 5-watt AGN reactor for teaching. The Nuclear Science Center provides an excellent teaching facility for students; produces medical isotopes and membranes for kidney dialysis; and contributes to research and testing support for the university and industry.

It’s complicated. For instance, if you sinter and press the fuel in an oxygen atmosphere (such as air), the uranium becomes U3O8. If it’s done in an argon or argon–hydrogen atmosphere, it will be maintained as UO2.

“With engineering, everything has issues. That’s what I tell my students,” McDeavitt says. “You just have to choose which issues to overcome and make the system work.

“So when people ask, ‘What are you going to do about the waste?’ they’ve already assumed you have to do something with the waste. That’s already assuming it is waste and not another raw material.

“I like to assume it is a useful raw material.” O 57

By Tim Schnettler

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Improving communications by taking advantage of unused gaps in the wireless spectrum A popular cell phone company uses the catchphrase “Can you hear me now?”

At one time or another many cell phone users have uttered those words or have been frustrated by a call that was dropped in midconversation.

At the same time, slow download speeds have irritated many laptop Wi-Fi users as they tried to upgrade software or gain access to the latest and greatest applications.

Cell phones and laptops, along with other wireless devices, operate on a specific frequency over the radio spectrum, the segment of electromagnetic waves in the radio-frequency range.

With so many cell phones, laptops and other wireless devices competing for a piece of the frequency spectrum, the availability of radio frequencies to accommodate them is becoming scarce.

The reason for the scarcity, however, is not just the congestion in the spectrum; it has just as much to do with the underutilization of the existing spectrum by the current license holders.

“We have so many wireless operators that the spectrum is crowded,” says Shuguang “Robert” Cui, an assistant professor in Texas A&M University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Each of them is assigned a portion of the spectrum and if you are given a spectrum segment, you are stuck to that. Even if you don’t use it, somebody else cannot use it.

“The [Federal Communications Commission] found out that most of the allocated spectrums are underutilized, which means they are licensed, but most of the time, in many locations, they are not being used by the license holder.”

That is where Cui and his colleagues are working to make a difference, finding ways to take advantage of those unused moments, or white spaces, as they are referred to. And their research is quickly gaining recognition, having been cited hundreds of times in the past few years.

With so many cell phones, laptops and other wireless devices competing for a piece of the frequency spectrum, the availability of radio frequencies to accommodate them is becoming scarce.

Cui, whose research focuses on communication systems and signal processing, is working with cognitive, or “smart,” radios to solve this problem.

Smart radios can sense their environment and learn how to adapt to various situations. This ability allows them to dynamically look for underutilized spectra and program themselves to use any frequency bands to fit themselves into the environment and maximize the spectrum efficiency.

Smart radios are an emerging and promising technology that could revolutionize spectrum utilization in wireless communications, according to Cui and his colleagues.

“We want to deploy more cognitive radios such that the radios know how to detect white spaces in the spectrum not being used and utilize the white spaces to do their own job,” Cui says.

“We also have to protect the existing users in the sense that if the existing license holders want to claim back the spectrum, you have to have a scheme that observes that and returns the spectrum to the license holders.”

Dr. Shuguang (Robert) Cui

Electrical and Computer Engineering Assistant Professor 979.862.7957 cui@ece.tamu.edu

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Cui works with one of his cognitive radios. The “smart” radios, as they are also known, can sense their environment and learn how to adapt to various situations, making them an emerging and promising technology that could revolutionize spectrum utilization in wireless communications.

Smart radios are an emerging and promising technology that could revolutionize spectrum utilization in wireless communications.

THREE LAYERS OF RESEARCH

According to Cui, his work involving cognitive radios takes place at three layers — a bottom layer, a middle layer and an upper layer. And as you move from layer to layer, the work that cognitive radios handle becomes more complex.

The first layer is where the cognitive radio would perform the task of spectrum sensing, finding the so-called white spaces in the spectrum. The job of spectrum sensing, Cui notes, must accomplish two tasks.

“First, if a spectrum segment is not being used, you have to be able to identify that and use it,” Cui says. “Second, if the current segment is being used, you need to detect that correctly. If you don’t identify such occupancy by license holders, and you think that it is not being used and dump into the spectrum, you cause problems for the license holder.”

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If license holders such as AT&T or T-Mobile or other wireless carriers allow the unused spectra to be shared, it would lead to a better experience for their customers.

“If they can do that in a harmonic way, each player can support more users,” Cui says. “And each user’s personal experience of network performance is going to be improved. They can do a lot of things with better performance, and everyone can benefit from it.”

Once the cognitive radio has detected white spaces, the process moves to the middle layer, which is known as the MAC layer. This is where the cognitive radio is controlled to do the resource allocation and use the underutilized portion.

The final layer, and perhaps the most complicated, is the network layer. Cui and his researchers are looking at how performance changes over the network size when a cognitive user network is added on top of existing networks.

“If we go further up we have a networking problem,” Cui notes. “In the network layer we have been studying some networking issues where we look at a large-scale cognitive radio network that is implemented on top of another existing primary engineeringmagazine .tam u .edu

network. When we look at the two networks together, what kind of performance can they achieve at each individual network?

“This problem is also of interest to the military because they have very complex networks where the number of nodes can be extremely large. It is a dynamically expanding network, and they want to know how network performance scales as network size is increased.”

FINDING THE ANSWER

In an effort to answer the questions posed by the bottom layer of cognitive radio, Cui and his colleagues have proposed collaboration among multiple cognitive radios, which is not something currently being used.

“It is really hard for a single cognitive receiver to tell whether it observes some white spaces or not,” Cui says. “It has to reliably detect occupancy of primary users over certain frequency bands.”

According to Cui, the wireless channel changes at such a wild rate, it is hard for a single receiver to detect whether there is a white space or whether there is a signal. That is where using multiple collaborative cognitive radios comes into play.

Using more than one cognitive radio can reduce the probability of a false alarm, which is where the spectrum is not being used and the cognitive radio is told that it is being used. In the same regard, multiple collaborative radios can also reduce the probability of misdetection, which is where the spectrum is being used and the cognitive radio is told that it is not being used.

looking into how they can increase their spectrum efficiency because the wireless resources are limited.

To date, the group’s paper on collaborative sensing of multiple cognitive radios, in particular, has been cited more than 110 times in less than two years.

The paper quickly became one of the top 30 most downloaded papers in the IEEE library since being published in 2008.

To date, the group’s paper on collaborative sensing of multiple cognitive radios, in particular, has been cited more than 110 times in less than two years.

The paper quickly became one of the top 30 most downloaded papers in the entire IEEE library since being published in 2008.

Also, the projected research funding exceeds $2 million as the group makes its best effort to push the results forward.

“We are happy that these research results have drawn lots of attention,” Cui says. “It is also unusual that a single group can cover so many diversified problems in a coherent and interdisciplinary fashion. Usually a group only focuses on one of the particular layers.” O

“This kind of cooperation does help a lot because if one radio cannot observe the spectrum usage correctly, maybe others can,” Cui says. “If they can interchange the information, maybe we can generate a joint observation from information collected from multiple collaborative cognitive radios.” Such collaborative spectrum sensing is new.

For the problems in the middle and upper layers, Cui and his researchers have been investigating the solutions based on advanced techniques in convex optimization and stochastic geometry.

GROUP’S WORK DRAWING GREAT INTEREST

The work of Cui and his colleagues has drawn the interest of several federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an agency in the Department of Defense and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

In general, great interest comes from various branches of the United States Military, which are 61

By Marissa Doshi

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Manufacturing biopharmaceuticals such as vaccines and cancer drugs from plants more efficiently Prescribing medicines is a task for doctors, and the task of synthesizing drugs falls to molecular biologists and chemists. But it’s engineers who help pharmaceutical companies manufacture drugs.

Nikolov has devised approaches to efficiently extract antibodies from transgenic duckweed, an aquatic green plant that grows on the surface of ponds and other freshwater bodies.

Zivko Nikolov, Dow Professor in Bioprocess Engineering at Texas A&M University, develops innovative, inexpensive, easy ways to manufacture lifesaving medicines.

Duckweed has many small leaves that grow quickly, making them useful bioreactors. Biotechnologists have modified these leaves to make antibodies, a type of protein that protects against cancer and other diseases.

In addition to engineering innovative drug-delivery methods, Nikolov and his team are exploring ways to make the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals — therapeutic proteins from genetically engineered living cells — more efficient.

Unlike most drugs that are formulated in laboratories, biopharmaceuticals are harvested from living cells. Drug-producing bacteria and brewer’s yeast grown in bioreactors have been used for some time now: for example, to make insulin and proteins that help blood clot. But Nikolov’s team focuses on improving the efficiency of manufacturing biopharmaceuticals from genetically engineered plants, often called “plant bioreactors.”

Scientists have learned to coax bacteria and animal cells to produce lifesaving human proteins, but they have also realized that bacteria and animal cells are not always the best “bioreactors.” These cells, pathogens can infect, and the pathogens can then be transmitted to humans via the biopharmaceuticals that the cells produce. Plants, on the other hand, cannot carry pathogens that affect humans, making them an attractive alternative for producing safer biopharmaceuticals.

Some pharmaceuticals, such as the antibodies used for cancer treatment or blood-clotting proteins, typically cannot be delivered orally. Further, almost all impurities (bacterial, animal or plant cell components) need to be removed from such pharmaceuticals.

“Biotechnologists and molecular biologists develop biopharmaceutical-producing plants in their laboratories,” Nikolov says. “We take the data from the bench and scale it up to develop processes that can be used realistically on a large scale.”

“Plants can reduce the cost of drugs by reducing manufacturing cost. Plants might be the key for efficient pharmaceutical manufacturing in the future.”

Nikolov and his team first gather critical process engineering data about producing antibodies from duckweed. Then they use a process simulator, software that simulates the engineering process, to identify process “bottlenecks,” or inefficient steps that need to be refined to reduce manufacturing costs.

The simulator also gives Nikolov the cost of producing the biopharmaceutical in large quantities.

Duckweed and plant bioreactors do not require expensive media and sophisticated equipment to grow, a common bottleneck in manufacturing biopharmaceuticals from animal cells. Duckweed can be grown in enclosed ponds and greenhouses using inexpensive minerals dissolved in water, and the plant uses sunlight to grow. This approach significantly reduces capital investment and overall manufacturing costs.

For duckweed, cost is not the bottleneck; rather, it appears to be the antibody purification step.

Extracting proteins from leaves is challenging because the proteins produced by duckweed are mixed with plant components such as pigments and phenolics. During purification, duckweed leaf extract is run through large columns, which are typically glass cylinders packed with media that can be used to separate mixtures into their constituents. The column traps the protein but

Dr. Zivko L. Nikolov

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Dow Professor in Bioprocess Engineering 979.458.0763 znikolov@tamu.edu

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allows contaminants, in this case, substances such as phenolics, to pass through. The trapped protein is then washed out of the column by using special solutions that loosen the column’s hold on the protein. This process is called chromatography, and the solutions and columns that need to be used to recover antibodies are expensive. Further, with every run, the columns are dirtied by contaminants, and after a few uses, the dirty columns become inefficient. Cleaning the columns adds to expenses.

Nikolov’s team has a simple solution: Treat the extract and remove contaminants before running it through the column.

Nikolov’s team conducted tests and found that extracting the antibodies in acidic conditions helps to reduce phenolics, and the resultant extract has more antibodies and fewer contaminants. They also found that passing the extract through an

inexpensive column before passing it through the expensive columns reduces contamination of the expensive columns. The inexpensive columns are designed to trap contaminants instead of antibodies. When in a later step the less-contaminated extract is passed through the expensive columns for recovery of antibodies, less contamination of the expensive columns occurs.

“Plants can reduce the cost of drugs by reducing manufacturing cost. Corn, for example, needs just inexpensive sunlight, water and soil to grow. For duckweed, it’s the same, except that instead of soil, duckweed needs minerals and salts added to bodies of water where duckweed is grown,” Nikolov says.

“Plants might be the key for efficient pharmaceutical manufacturing in the future.” O

EDIBLE

VACCINES Vaccinations are rarely painless. But Nikolov’s ongoing project on innovative vaccine delivery methods might make painless vaccinations a reality.

“Wouldn’t it be great to be vaccinated against hepatitis B by eating some corn puffs?” Nikolov asks with a smile as he unpacks bags of corn puffs stored in a cardboard box in his office. The yellowishbrown corn looks a lot like popcorn, but unlike the popcorn we chomp in movie theatres, these corn puffs contain hepatitis B vaccine.

This work on vaccine corn puffs was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health to Applied Biotechnology Institute Inc., located in San Luis Obispo, Calif. The puffs are currently in preclinical trials in animals through a collaboration with the veterinary school at Texas A&M. Future experiments include testing the corn puffs to confirm that they contain active vaccines — that is, making sure that the vaccine was not destroyed by heat during processing — and determining the amount of vaccine in every kernel. O 64

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Texas A&M Engineering to lead a new center for manufacturing therapeutics

ARTIST’S RENDERING

A new center at Texas A&M is turning the spotlight on using plants to manufacture drugs and vaccines.

The National Center for Therapeutics Manufacturing (NCTM) — part of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), a Texas A&M University System research agency — focuses on research and development of therapeutic agents and vaccines specifically targeted to respond more quickly to outbreaks such as the recent swine flu.

Project GreenVax, developed by the newly formed Texas Plant-Expressed Vaccine Consortium, will develop the capability designed to show proof of concept to manufacture pandemic flu vaccines from tobacco plants at an initial scale of 10 million doses per month, with a projected final scale of 100 million doses per month.

Project GreenVax is working to make possible a novel and capable vaccine production facility.

Researchers say that plant-based production holds the promise of shortening vaccine production to a fraction of the current time, allowing rapid response to newly emerging viruses not possible with current vaccine technology. Although the initial goal is to produce candidate H1N1 vaccines, plant-based production is highly adaptable to other influenza strains and infectious diseases, as well as cancer.

The center’s new first-in-class, flexible-by-design biomanufacturing facility will revolutionize the processes required for intermediate and advanced

biopharmaceutical development. The facility’s unique design will allow the resources necessary to focus on simultaneously producing multiple biological products by using multiple production technologies. Scheduled for completion in 2011, this facility will include approximately 105,000 sq. ft. of vaccine and pharmaceutical manufacturing space (including 20 self-contained mobile clean room pods) and nearly 50,000 sq. ft. of educational space dedicated to workforce development and applied research.

Also, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has joined NCTM to develop new cancer-fighting drugs and accelerate the process of getting new cancer treatments to patients.

Through an agreement, M.D. Anderson will become a long-term partner and collaborator of NCTM, increasing the ability of researchers from its laboratories to quickly provide important new cancer vaccines and treatments, including vaccines targeted to specific individuals. M.D. Anderson also will be a vital member of NCTM’s scientific board, and the two institutions will collaborate on future grant and funding initiatives to advance cancer research.

The technology under way will transform the biomanufacturing industry and demonstrate NCTM’s role as a true pioneer in its field. O

Dr. Michael Pishko

National Center for Therapeutics Manufacturing Director Chemical Engineering Department Head Charles D. Holland ’53 Professor 979.845.3348 mpishko@tamu.edu

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Dwight Look College of Engineering

more than

12 departments

11,000

students Ranked 6th in graduate and 9th in Undergraduate Programs among public institutions

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U.S. News & World Report, released August 2010

U.S. News & World Report, released APRIL 2010

Top Public underGRADUATE Programs

Top Public GRADUATE Programs

1 1 2 6 7 8 9 10 11

2 Petroleum Engineering 3 Biological & Agricultural Engineering 3 Nuclear Engineering 6 Aerospace Engineering 6 Industrial & Systems Engineering 8 Civil Engineering 9 Mechanical Engineering 13 Computer Engineering 14 Electrical Engineering 17 Chemical Engineering 18 Biomedical Engineering

Biological & Agricultural Engineering Petroleum Engineering (2002) Nuclear Engineering (2005) Industrial & Systems Engineering Civil Engineering Aerospace Engineering Electrical Engineering Mechanical Engineering Chemical Engineering

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Student News Nuclear engineering student receives Fulbright grant Kristina Yancey, who earned her bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering in May, has received a Fulbright grant to conduct research and study in Switzerland for the 2010–2011 academic year. Yancey will work with the FAST Reactors Group at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. More specifically, the FAST (Fast-spectrum Advanced Systems for power production and resource management) project is an activity performed in the Laboratory for Reactor Physics and Systems Behavior of the institute in the area of fast-spectrum reactor behavior with an emphasis on the comparative analysis of the Generation IV systems. Yancey has deferred her entrance into Texas A&M’s nuclear engineering graduate program in order to accept the Fulbright offer.

Aggie biomedical engineering student interns with space research institute Biomedical engineering student Heather Scruggs got firsthand knowledge of the human spaceflight program last summer after being selected to work with scientists at NASA through a National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) internship.

Scruggs was assigned to the International Space Station Medical Project at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, where she was involved with a project to build a complete mockup of the space station’s Muscle Atrophy Research and Exercise System, which is used to conduct research on the effect of microgravity on the human body. The mockup will be used to train the astronauts who will use the system on the space station.

Scruggs says the NSBRI internship was educational on several fronts.

“This internship is broadening my horizons and introducing me to a whole new side of NASA that the public doesn’t always see,” she says. “For instance, the group I worked with performs research on the space station so that exploration missions can be done with minimal damage to the body’s systems. All of their work is vital to astronauts, particularly those on the space station.”

Engineers Without Borders helps build portable medical clinics for Haiti The Texas A&M chapter of Engineers Without Borders assisted in the construction of three portable medical clinics that were sent to Haiti. The units, built from large shipping containers, are designed to assist the long-term medical needs of that country.

Engineers Without Borders has more than 300 professional and student chapters in the United States with 12,000 members working on more than 350 projects in 47 countries to provide for the basic necessities in the developing world.

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Student News Texas A&M ITE team wins international Traffic Bowl

A team of four Zachry Department of Civil Engineering students representing the Texas A&M Student Chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) placed first in the International Collegiate Traffic Bowl in August 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Traffic Bowl tested the students’ knowledge of traffic-related subjects such as traffic control devices, highway design and other topics in a Jeopardy-style format.

The Texas A&M team earned the spot in the national contest by winning the Texas district contest in January. The Texas A&M ITE chapter was also named the ITE Texas District 2010 Outstanding Student Chapter.

Chemical engineering student receives Eastman Fellowship Houssein Kheireddine, a graduate student in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, has been awarded the Eastman Summer Chemical Engineering Graduate Fellowship from the Eastman Chemical Group. Kheireddine, a third-year graduate student, is conducting research that focuses on the sustainable design of chemical engineering systems. He is developing a novel set of integrated approaches and optimization techniques. Kheireddine is applying his work to several systems with various objectives, such as optimizing water usage and discharge, preventing industrial pollution, reclaiming lube oil, and using biomass to produce biofuels.

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Mechanical engineering Ph.D. student receives Sandia fellowship Gregory Payette, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been awarded the Sandia National Laboratories/ Texas A&M University Excellence in Engineering Graduate Research Fellowship. Payette’s research project will focus on the development and implementation of a new computational technology based on finite-element models that influence how boundary and initial-value problems of engineering are solved, especially those involving solid mechanics and fluid dynamics. He is a researcher in applied mechanics with a focus on nonlinear phenomena, novel materials and structures, and computational mechanics. J.N. Reddy, Distinguished Professor and Oscar Wyatt Endowed Chair in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, will serve as his research mentor. Payette will also be co-mentored by Dan Turner of the Computational Thermal and Fluid Mechanics Organization at Sandia.

Biomedical engineering graduate student named Lawrence Scholar Pooja Singhal, a graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, has officially accepted a Lawrence Scholar Award from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The Lawrence Scholar Program (LSP) funds students to work as a collaboration between an LLNL scientist and a faculty member of any California-based university and, because of consortium ties, Texas A&M. Singhal will be working with LLNL’s Tom Wilson and Texas A&M’s Duncan Maitland. The LSP award is highly competitive, open only to students from California’s Ph.D.-granting universities and Texas A&M University, and Singhal’s application scored in the top three. The award includes about $50,000 a year for up to four years.

INFORMS students score in San Diego Texas A&M’s chapter of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, or INFORMS, once again stood out at the INFORMS Annual Meeting held in San Diego in October 2009. Panitan (Ken) Kewcharoenwong, past president of the local student chapter and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, received the Judith Liebman Award for being a “guiding light” and performing outstanding service to his chapter. The chapter as a whole was honored with the Summa Cum Laude Award, which is the highest distinction given to student chapters.

Only one other chapter in the nation was granted the award in 2009.

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Student News Mechanical engineering graduate student participated in prestigious summer program Saurabh Bajaj, a graduate student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, participated in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Computational Chemistry and Materials Science (CCMS) Summer Institute. The program is highly competitive, with hundreds of applicants from some of the best universities in the United States, and admits only 10 students. Each student spent 10 weeks at LLNL as a guest of an LLNL host scientist, working on a computational project in the host’s area of expertise. Bajaj worked under direct supervision of Patrice Turchi, a worldwide leader in alloy theory and ab initio calculations. He is currently studying under the direction of Raymundo Arróyave.

Chemical engineering graduate student wins best paper award Eman Tora, a graduate student in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, has received the 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Sustainable Engineering Forum Best Student Paper Award. Tora received the award for her paper, “Optimal Design and Integration of Solar Systems and Fossil Fuels for Sustainable and Stable Power Outlet,” which was published in Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy.

NSF awards graduate fellowships to Texas A&M students 13 Awards 20 Honorable Mentions Fellowship recipients Those receiving undergraduate degrees at Texas A&M and are pursuing graduate degrees at Texas A&M:

Michelle Lee Bernhardt.......................................................... Civil Engineering Michael Keith Hearon................................................ Biomedical Engineering Natasha Christina Lagoudas........................................Aerospace Engineering Those receiving undergraduate degrees at Texas A&M and are pursuing graduate degrees elsewhere:

Mark Austin Deimund.................................................. Chemical Engineering Autumn Noel Kidwell......................................................... Ocean Engineering Jonathan Aaron Pennington.............................. Environmental Engineering Students from other universities pursuing graduate engineering studies at Texas A&M:

Bradley Christopher Appel. .............................................Nuclear Engineering Mary Beth Browning.................................................. Biomedical Engineering John Benjamin Coles..................................................... Industrial Engineering Brittany Anne Duncan......................... Computer Science and Engineering Ryan Wesley Sinnet..................................................... Mechanical Engineering James Winkler.................................................................. Chemical Engineering

Honorable Mentions Those receiving undergraduate degrees at Texas A&M and are pursuing graduate studies at Texas A&M:

Brian Michael Cummins........................................... Biomedical Engineering Michael Brooks Fallon............................................................ Civil Engineering Matthew Wade Harris...................................................Aerospace Engineering Derek Wade Johnson...................................................... Electrical Engineering Jason Matthew Knight................................................... Electrical Engineering Alexander Morgan Pankonien. ...................................Aerospace Engineering Rachel Schafer............................................................... Biomedical Engineering Those receiving undergraduate degrees at Texas A&M and are pursuing graduate degrees elsewhere:

Saniya Ali........................................................................ Biomedical Engineering Carissa Joy Ball. ............................................................ Biomedical Engineering Alexander Bleakie......................................................... Mechanical Engineering Jeremy Michael Gernand.................................................................. Engineering Scott Parker Kolodziej................................................... Chemical Engineering Andrew Lin........................................................................ Electrical Engineering Arpan Satsangi.............................................................. Biomedical Engineering Thomas Stephen Wilems........................................... Biomedical Engineering Mei Ahan......................................................................................... Bioengineering Students from other universities pursuing graduate degrees at Texas A&M:

John Paul Hanson...............................................................Nuclear Engineering Erin Ann Rooney.................................................................. Ocean Engineering Meagan Alyssa Saldua................................................. Biomedical Engineering Andrew Vernon Schaeperkoetter................................Aerospace Engineering

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Student News Aggie Formula Hybrid car finishes second Aggie engineering students placed second in the 2010 international Formula Hybrid race car competition.

This is the second year the Aggies have competed in the hybrid race car contest, which they won in 2009 on their first try.

The team scored perfectly in the presentation and unrestricted acceleration portions of the contest, and members scored a total of 939.4 points of a possible 1,000 points to place second against 38 other teams from colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, India, Taiwan and Russia with a hybrid gasoline-electric–powered formula-style race car. The competition was held May 3–6 in Loudon, N.H. The Italian team, Politecnico de Torino, placed first.

The students designed and built the formula-style vehicle in a two-semester senior design course. Texas A&M teams have taken part in the international Formula SAE competition since 1999 and won that competition in 2000, 2006 and 2007.

The students spent about 15,000 work-hours designing, building and testing the vehicle.

Aggies win steel bridge regionals, will host 2011 nationals The Texas A&M steel bridge team won first place at the regional competition in January 2010 and placed 24th in the 2010 National Student Steel Bridge Competition May 28–29 at Purdue University. The Student Steel Bridge Competition gives civil engineering students hands-on experience with designing and building steel bridges. Teams are judged and awarded for stiffness, lightness, construction, speed, display, efficiency and economy. Texas A&M will host the 2011 National Student Steel Bridge Competition in May.

Computer science undergraduate wins Google and Microsoft scholarships Carla Villoria, a senior in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, has won Google’s prestigious Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship as well as a Microsoft scholarship for the 2010–2011 school year. Villoria interned in summer 2010 at Microsoft Corp. in the Seattle area and was invited to attend the three-day Google Scholars’ Retreat in Mountain View, Calif. Rian Sacquitne of Microsoft University Recruiting says that Villoria was chosen from hundreds of applicants from schools all across North America. Villoria is an international student from Venezuela who is studying computer science and working under the direction of Gabriel Dos Reis of the Parasol Lab. Villoria’s research is centered on programming-language support for algebraic libraries. She has also been nominated for the Computing Research Association Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award by Dos Reis and Dr. Bjarne Stroustrup.

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Student News Electrical and computer engineering graduate student wins award at IEEE conference

Nuclear engineering student receives DOE graduate fellowship

Navid Abedini, a graduate student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, won a prestigious prize at the 2010 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Data Compression Conference (DCC). Abedini won the Capocelli Prize for his paper, “A SAT-Based Scheme to Determine Optimal Fix-free Codes.” His co-authors were electrical and computer engineering faculty members Serap Savari and Sunil Khatri. The Capocelli Prize is awarded annually by the DCC program committee to a paper authored and presented by a student. Abedini says fix-free codes have recently attracted attention from several communities and are used in video standards such as MPEG4. In their paper the researchers proposed a new approach to study the fix-free codes with some additional properties, suitable for error-correcting applications. They also presented an efficient method to generate optimal fix-free codes.

Peter Maginot, a graduate student in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, has been awarded the U.S. Department of Energy’s Computational Science Graduate Fellowship. The four-year fellowship includes full tuition and fees during the appointment period, a yearly stipend of $36,000, a $1,000 annual academic allowance, and a one-time $4,950 allowance for the purchase of a computer workstation for use during the fellowship tenure. Recipients are expected to attend the annual fellowship conference held each summer in Washington, D.C., and must complete at least one three-month practicum at one of the 17 Department of Energy laboratories during the fellowship. The fellowship will fund Maginot through the completion of his Ph.D. and allows him to select his own dissertation research topic, “computational techniques for high-fidelity radiative shock (radiation hydrodynamics) simulation.” Maginot is currently completing his M.S. in nuclear engineering with Jean Ragusa and Jim Morel on computational methods relating to radiation transport, and he will begin his Ph.D. studies in the fall.

Chemical engineering graduate a finalist for Gates–Cambridge Scholarship Chemical engineering student Mark Deimund, who graduated in May 2010, was a finalist for the prestigious Gates–Cambridge Scholarship. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Gates–Cambridge Scholarship program enables outstanding graduate students from outside the United Kingdom to study at the University of Cambridge. Deimund was president of the Texas A&M chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and has conducted research with faculty members Mark Holtzapple and Juergen Hahn, in addition to interning at Celanese Chemicals for two summers.

Deimund was also nominated by Texas A&M for the Marshall Scholarship and the Churchill Scholarship.

Deimund received an National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship in 2010 and was also named an Outstanding Senior Engineer of the Look College for 2009–2010.

Computer science senior garners honorable mention from CRA Senior computer science major William Hamilton was chosen for honorable mention by the Computing Research Association (CRA) for its 2010 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award. Hamilton’s work included developing an application that helps experimenters analyze game play and audio data to help identify team communication patterns that arise during the games played in user studies. As a junior, Hamilton published a first-author paper on this work in the 2009 Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems proceedings.

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Leadership Dwight Look College of Engineering Administration ADMINISTRATION

Department Heads

Dr. G. Kemble Bennett, P.E.

Dr. Dimitris C. Lagoudas, P.E.

Vice Chancellor and Dean of Engineering Director, Texas Engineering Experiment Station Harold J. Haynes Dean’s Chair Professor

Dr. N.K. Anand, P.E.

Department of Aerospace Engineering

Dr. Stephen W. Searcy, P.E. (Interim)

Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering

Executive Associate Dean James M. and Ada Sutton Forsyth Professor in Mechanical Engineering

Dr. Gerard L. Coté

Dr. Kenneth R. Hall

Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering

SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR RESEARCH JACK E. AND FRANCES BROWN CHAIR IN ENGINEERING

Dr. Jo Howze

Department of Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Michael V. Pishko

Dr. John M. Niedzwecki, P.E.

Zachry Department of Civil Engineering

Senior Associate Dean for Academic Programs Ford Motor Company Design Professor I in Engineering

Dr. Valerie E. Taylor

Dr. Theresa A. Maldonado, P.E.

Dr. Costas Georghiades, P.E.

Dr. Robin Autenrieth, P.E.

Dr. Walter W. Buchanan, P.E.

Dr. César Malavé, P.E.

Dr. Brett A. Peters

Dr. Ray W. James, P.E.

Dr. Dennis O’Neal, P.E.

Deena Wallace

Dr. Raymond J. Juzaitis

Associate dean for strategic initiatives Associate Dean for Graduate Programs A.P. and Florence Wiley Professor III in Civil Engineering Associate Dean for ENGINEERING Assistant Dean for Engineering Student Services Associate Vice Chancellor for Administration and Legal Affairs

Carol Huff

Assistant VICE CHANCELLOR for Finance

Department of Computer Science and Engineering Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering Department of Nuclear Engineering

Dr. Stephen A. Holditch, P.E.

Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering

Tiffiny Britton

Assistant Vice Chancellor For External Affairs

Marilyn Martell

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs

Magda Lagoudas

Director, Engineering Student Services and Academic Programs

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Leadership Texas A&M Engineering Advisory Council Mark Albers ’79

Mike Greene

Dr. Sharon Nunes

Debra Anglin ’77

William Hanna ’58

Erle Nye ’59

Senior Vice President Exxon Mobil Corp.

President and CEO Pate Engineers Inc.

Wiljo (Joe) Asiala ’77

Vice President, Manufacturing Dow Automotive

Dr. Dionel Aviles ’53 President

Aviles Engineering Corp.

Phillip D. (David) Bairrington ’78 General Manager, Nonconventional Resources Conoco Phillips

Dr. W.M. (Mike) Barnes ’64

Vice Chairman Energy Future Holdings Koch Industries, Retired

H. Darryl Heath ’84 Partner Accenture

J.R. Jones ’69

President Jones and Carter Inc.

Vice President Big Green Innovations

T. Michael O’Connor

Van Taylor ’71

President O’Connor Ventures Inc.

Robert Pence ’72

President Chevron Environmental Management Co.

Michael Plank ’83

Dr. Ronnie Ward ’73

Tommy Knight ’61

Dr. Guylaine Pollock ’85

Janeen Judah ’81

Chairman and CEO The Plank Companies Inc.

Mark Puckett ’73

Craig Brown ’75

Ken LeSuer ’57

David Reed ’83

Ralph Cox ’53

President RABAR Enterprises

Tim Dehne

Senior Vice President, R&D National Instruments

Mark Fischer ’72

Chairman and CEO Concho Resources Inc. Halliburton, Retired

Marcus Lockard ’72

Chief Executive Officer Lockard & White Inc.

Tommie Lohman ’59

Chairman Telco Investment Corp.

Kathleen Lucas ’81

Vice President, Assurance BP America Inc.

Lisa Mahlmann ’84

Senior Member, Technical Staff Sandia National Laboratories Chevron Energy Technology, Retired Vice President, Logic Fab Operation Texas Instruments Inc.

Peter Forster ’63

Arthur McFerrin Jr. ’65

Dennis Segers ’75

Dr. Joe Fowler ’68

Jeffrey Miller ’88

Charles Shaver ’80

J.L. Frank ’58

Walter Williams ’49

Vice Chairman Cheniere Energy Inc.

Chairman and CEO Energy XXI

Christopher Seams ’84

Senior Vice President, Gulf of Mexico Halliburton

Partner Wiley Brothers Investment Builders

John Schiller Jr. ’81

A. Dwain Mayfield ’59

President Stress Engineering Services

James Wiley Sr. ’46

Vice President Sandia National Laboratories

Thomas Fisher ’66

President KMCO Inc.

Texas Instruments, Retired

Dr. J. Stephen Rottler ’80

Kevin Schultz ’91

Chairman and CEO Clark Construction Group LLC

Delbert Whitaker ’65

Texas State Representative

Vice President and Deputy, Global Sustainment Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. President ADM Global Resources

Consultant

The Honorable Debbie Riddle

President and Owner Chaparral Energy Inc. President M2P Financing

Don Vardeman ’75

Vice President, Worldwide Facilities Anadarko Petroleum Corp.

Tim Leach ’82

Director, Airplane Product Dev. Boeing Commercial Airplanes

SBC Communications, Retired

President and CEO Freese & Nichols Inc.

Jimmie Bratton ’63

Tom Cogan ’77

Brent Smolik ’83

President El Paso Exploration & Production

Rockwell International, Retired

President and CEO Bray International Inc.

Eastman Chemical, Retired

Chairman Emeritus TXU Corp.

Brown & Root International, Retired

Applied Research Associates, Retired

T.A. Smith ’66

Vice President National Instruments Executive Vice President Cypress Semiconductor CEO Tabula Inc.

President and CEO TPC Group Inc.

Marathon Oil, Retired

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Distinguished Faculty Leadership

402

tenured or tenure-track faculty 11 National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Members 7 Distinguished Professors 14 Regents Professors 38 Endowed Chairs 59 Endowed Professorships 17 Endowed Career Development Professorships 8 Endowed Faculty Fellowships

NAE Members

Distinguished Professors Regents Professors

Kyle T. Alfriend

Je-Chin Han, P.E.

Dara Childs, P.E.

James Biard

John L. Junkins, P.E.

Kenneth R. Hall

Aerospace Engineering

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

Aerospace Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

Chemical Engineering

Christine A. Ehlig-Economides

K.R. Rajagopal

Jay Humphrey

Stephen A. Holditch, P.E.

J.N. Reddy, P.E.

John L. Junkins, P.E.

Petroleum Engineering

Petroleum Engineering

John L. Junkins, P.E.

Aerospace Engineering

W. John Lee, P.E.

Petroleum Engineering

Kenneth F. Reinschmidt Civil Engineering

Jose M. Roesset Civil Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Aerospace Engineering

B. Don Russell, P.E.

Electrical and Computer Engineering

William Saric, P.E.

Aerospace Engineering

Bjarne Stroustrup

Computer Science and Engineering

Biomedical Engineering

Aerospace Engineering

W. John Lee, P.E.

Petroleum Engineering

M. Sam Mannan, P.E. Chemical Engineering

John M. Niedzwecki, P.E. Civil Engineering

K.R. Rajagopal

Mechanical Engineering

B. Don Russell, P.E.

Jose M. Roesset

Bjarne Stroustrup

B. Don Russell, P.E.

William Saric, P.E.

Chanan Singh, P.E.

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Computer Science and Engineering

Aerospace Engineering

Civil Engineering

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Karan Watson

Electrical and Computer Engineering

John A. Weese

Mechanical Engineering

Jennifer Welch

Computer Science and Engineering

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Faculty Honors & Awards

43 NSF CAREER AWARDS s i n c e

2003

2010 CAREER Award Winners

The prestigious National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) is given to support the career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization.

Aron Ames

Mechanical Engineering Closing the Loop on Walking: From Hybrid Systems to Bipedal Robots to Prosthetic Devices and Back

Raymundo Arr贸yave

Mechanical Engineering Ab Initio Calculations for Design of High-Temperature Materials

Guofei Gu

Computer Science & Engineering Coordination- and Correlation- based Botnet Defense

Mariah Hahn

Chemical Engineering Programming Mesenchymal Stem Cell Fate: An Integrated Research and Education Approach

Carl Laird

Chemical Engineering Parallel Nonlinear Programming Techniques for Optimization in Rapid Therapeutics Manufacturing

Alexander Sprintson

Electrical & Computer Engineering Wireless Network Coding: Analysis, Complexity and Algorithms

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Faculty Honors & Awards AEROSPACE ENGINEERING Mortari honorary member of Space Systems Technical Panel Associate Professor Daniele Mortari was named an honorary member of the IEEE-AESS Space Systems Technical Panel. The panel aims at creating a reference point for technical and scientific initiatives related to the space world. Panel members belong to civil and military institutions, industry and academia.

Reed on Virginia Tech Committee of 100 Professor Helen Reed was named to the Virginia Tech College of Engineering’s “Committee of 100.” The committee was established in the early 1980s and the membership committee is limited to alumni whose contributions to the engineering profession, practicing field, college or society at large have brought distinction to themselves and to the college. Widely regarded and respected, the Committee of 100, composed mostly of top-level management and entrepreneurs, is an active advocate of the college.

BIOLOGICAL AND AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING Mukhtar receives Countryside Engineering Award Saqib Mukhtar, associate professor and extension specialist, received the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers G.B. Gunlogson Countryside Engineering Award. The award honors outstanding engineering contributions to the development and improvement of the countryside. Mukhtar was honored for his outstanding achievements and leadership contributions through extension education and cutting-edge research in environmental quality management of animal production operations. Mukhtar and his colleagues developed the nation’s first ammonia (NH3) emission factors for beef and dairy cattle reared in the southwestern climate. His programs have significantly decreased the number of dairy and poultry odor complaints and need for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations investigations.

Munster receives 2010 Bush Excellence Award for International Teaching Professor Clyde L. Munster received the Bush Excellence Award for International Teaching. The award was established through the vision and support of President George H.W. Bush with financial assistance from the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation.

Singh receives honorary degree from University of Waterloo Vijay Singh, professor and the Caroline and William N. Lehrer Distinguished Chair in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering with a joint appointment in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, received an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Waterloo. Along with the honorary degree, Singh was invited to address graduates at the University of Waterloo’s spring convocation ceremony for the Faculty of Engineering.

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Biomedical Engineering Moore receives Dedicated Service Award from ASME Professor James E. Moore was awarded the Dedicated Service Award by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The award honors unusual dedicated voluntary service to ASME marked by outstanding performance, demonstrated effective leadership, prolonged and committed service, devotion, enthusiasm and faithfulness. Moore’s service to ASME began in 1992 when he established the Swiss International Chapter. He participated in committees initiating Region XII (international region) and served on the Futures Team. He has also held several positions in the Bioengineering Division, serving as chair from 2007 to 2008.

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING El-Halwagi receives AIChE Sustainable Engineering Award Professor Mahmoud El-Halwagi was named the recipient of the 2009 Research Excellence in Sustainable Engineering Award. The prestigious award is presented by the Sustainable Engineering Forum of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and recognizes basic or applied research results relative to the sustainability of products, processes or the environment. It is annually bestowed upon a researcher who has made significant technical contributions to the advancement of sustainable engineering in research, teaching and development activities. El-Halwagi, holder of the McFerrin Professorship, is internationally known for his pioneering contributions to sustainable design and process integration, and he has written two widely used texts on the subject.

Juergen Hahn receives Outstanding Young Researcher Award from AIChE Juergen Hahn, associate professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, was named the recipient of the prestigious 2010 Computing and Systems Technology Outstanding Young Researcher Award that is presented by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). The award, which is bestowed upon only one recipient each year, recognizes an individual under the age of 40 for outstanding contributions to chemical engineering computing and systems technology literature.

Hahn, holder of the Ray Nesbitt Development Professorship II in Chemical Engineering, conducts research that focuses on the development of new systems analysis techniques and their application in systems biology as well as for traditional chemical engineering processes.

Mariah Hahn invited to NAE Frontiers of Engineering Symposium Assistant Professor Mariah Hahn took part in the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) 16th Annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium Sept. 23–25 at the IBM Learning Center in Armonk, N.Y. Hahn is one of a select number invited by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers to participate in the symposium. At Texas A&M, Hahn conducts research that focuses on understanding cell–cell and cell–material interactions at a more fundamental level to rationally guide tissue regeneration. Vocal fold tissue and cardiovascular tissues are used as model systems for probing cell response to controlled external stimuli.

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Faculty Honors & Awards Hall receives Excellence in Gas Processing Research Award Kenneth R. Hall, senior associate dean for research in the Dwight Look College of Engineering and holder of the Jack E. and Frances Brown Chair Professorship, was the recipient of the Excellence in Gas Processing Research Award. The award, which is presented at an annual event hosted by the Qatar University Gas Processing Center, goes to an academic scholar who has made a recognized fundamental contribution affecting the field and the science of gas processing. Hall is inventor or co-inventor for 12 patents, including four that support the gas-to-liquid process that is licensed to Synfuels Inc. Jeong named Outstanding Young Investigator by KIChE Assistant Professor Hae-Kwon Jeong was named an Outstanding Young Investigator by the Korean Institute of Chemical Engineers (KIChE). The award recognizes outstanding research by a tenure-track Korean faculty member who shows exceptional promise as a developing leader in chemical engineering, and the award recipient must be appointed at a Tier One college or university in the United States. Jeong’s research focuses on the development of novel methods to design, modify, deposit and microfabricate nanostructured materials.

He also works to build them into hierarchical structures and complex forms for wide ranges of applications, including separation membranes, selective catalysts and adsorbents, as well as microsystems, fuel cells, bioseparation and microphotonics, to the scientific cooperation between Texas A&M and Technical University, along with his support of process safety education and research.

Civil Engineering Anderson elected to National Academy of Construction Stuart D. Anderson, the Zachry Professor in Design and Construction Integration II, was elected to the National Academy of Construction (NAC). Anderson was one of 10 new inductees in the Class of 2010. NAC is a select organization of distinguished leaders widely recognized for their outstanding achievements in and contributions to the engineering and construction industry. Election follows a peer-nomination and clearance procedure culminating in a ballot vote by the entire Academy of 119 members. Anderson is a professor of civil engineering with a specialty in construction engineering and management.

Briaud elected president of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering Jean-Louis Briaud, holder of the Spencer J. Buchanan Chair and a professor in geotechnical engineering, was elected president of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. One of Briaud’s goals for his tenure is to reorganize the society in a more customer-oriented fashion. He also aims to improve the group’s website and increase membership and innovation. Briaud will create three new board-level committees to help accomplish his goals.

Hawkins named Texas District Transportation Engineer of the Year H. Gene Hawkins, associate professor and head of the Transportation and Materials Division, was named TexITE Transportation Engineer of the Year. The award recognizes an individual member of TexITE (the Texas district of the Institute of Transportation Engineers) for outstanding practice, teaching, or research of the science and art of transportation engineering in the State of Texas. The award is given annually and is the highest individual award within TexITE. Hawkins holds a joint appointment as a research engineer with the Texas Transportation Institute and serves as associate director of the Southwest Region University Transportation Center with responsibility for the Transportation Scholars Program at Texas A&M. Lynett awarded Guggenheim Fellowship Associate Professor Patrick Lynett was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his research in the nonlinear and coupled interactions among wind, sea waves, ocean and storm surge during hurricanes. He was one of only three engineers selected from the United States and Canada for a Fellowship Award. The Guggenheim Fellowship seeks to provide artists, writers, scholars and scientists with grants that will allow the Fellows time to pursue their work. The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation received approximately 3,000 applications for the 2010 Fellowships, with about 180 Fellowships being awarded.

Computer Science and Engineering Amato elected IEEE Fellow Professor Nancy Amato, co-director of the Parasol Laboratory in the computer science and engineering department, was elected a Fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Amato was chosen “for contributions to the algorithmic foundations of motion planning in robotics and computational biology.” Amato’s research interests are in motion planning, computational biology, robotics, computational geometry, animation, CAD, VR, parallel and distributed computing, parallel algorithms, performance modeling, and optimization.

Caverlee receives DARPA Young Faculty Award Assistant Professor James Caverlee received the 2010 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Young Faculty Award (DARPA YFA) for his research on the social web and technical challenges associated with realizing a new generation of applications suitable for monitoring, analyzing, and distilling information from massive-scale social systems. DARPA presents the YFA to outstanding junior faculty whose research will enable revolutionary advances in the physical sciences, engineering and mathematics. The YFA program will fund Caverlee’s research through 2012.

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Faculty Honors & Awards Murphy receives international award, elected IEEE Fellow and chosen for Defense Science Board Robin Murphy, Raytheon Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, received the Motohiro Kisoi Award from the International Rescue System Institute. It was the first time the award was presented to a researcher from outside Japan. Murphy was chosen for her outstanding academic contributions in establishing a new research field in rescue engineering. Murphy was also named a Fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Murphy was cited “for contributions to rescue robotics and insertion of robots into major disasters.” Also, Murphy was reelected to the Defense Science Board, which includes men and women who are leaders in science, technology, industry and fields that relate directly to the department and military services.

Stroustrup honored at the University of Aarhus Professor Bjarne Stroustrup, College of Engineering Endowed Chair in Computer Science, was presented with the Rigmor and Carl Holst-Knudsen Science Prize, Aarhus University’s oldest and most prestigious award.

Stroustrup was honored for his contributions to science and developing and implementing the C++ programming language. The award is given annually to internationally renowned scientists who began their careers at the University of Aarhus. The first version of C++ was used internally in AT&T in August 1983.

Electrical and Computer Engineering Ehsani receives IEEE Outstanding Service Award Mehrdad Ehsani, Robert M. Kennedy Endowed Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering, received the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Outstanding Service Award. Ehsani was cited “in recognition of founding and providing outstanding leadership for the IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference (VPPC).” Ehsani founded the VPPC in 2001 as an annual conference jointly sponsored by the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society and the IEEE Power Electronics Society. Since that time, VPPC has become one of the most prestigious conferences in vehicular electrotechnology in the world.

Huff invited to NAE symposium, receives 2010 IEEE teaching award Assistant Professor Gregory H. Huff has been selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) 16th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium. The engineers, ages 30–45, are considered to be performing exceptional engineering research and technical work in a variety of disciplines. The participants from industry, academia and government were nominated by fellow engineers or organizations and chosen from approximately 265 applicants. The symposium was in September 2010 at the IBM Learning Center in Armonk, N.Y. Huff also received the 2010 Donald G. Dudley Jr. Undergraduate Teaching Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Antennas and Propagation Society. Huff was recognized “for creative and innovative approaches to electromagnetic education, undergraduate research experiences, and student mentoring.”

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Kezunovic elected to SGTCC, voted onto first SGIP Governing Board Eugene E. Webb Professor Mladen Kezunovic was elected to the Smart Grid Testing and Certification Committee (SGTCC). The SGTCC is one of two main committees of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP). SGTCC creates and maintains the necessary documentation and organizational framework for compliance, interoperability and cybersecurity testing and certification for SGIPrecommended Smart Grid standards. Kezunovic was also voted onto the first SGIP Governing Board. The SGIP has three primary functions: provide technical guidance to facilitate development of standards for a secure, interoperable of Smart Grid; specify testing and certification requirements necessary to assess the interoperability Smart Grid–related equipment, software and services; and oversee the performance of activities intended to expedite the development of interoperability and cybersecurity specifications by standards development organizations.

Reddy elected IEEE Fellow Professor Narasimha Reddy was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Reddy, the holder of the J.W. Runyon Jr. ’35 Professorship I, holds five patents and was awarded a technical accomplishment award while at IBM. His research interests are in computer networks, multimedia systems, storage systems and computer architecture.

Silva-Martinez elected IEEE Fellow Professor Jose Silva-Martinez was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Silva-Martinez was cited “for contributions to Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor transconductance amplifiers and continuous-time filters.”

Silva-Martinez has published more than 208 journal and conference papers, one book and eight book chapters.

His current field of research is in the design and fabrication of integrated circuits for communication and biomedical application.

Singh receives IEEE Power System Reliability Award Regents Professor and Irma Runyon Chair Professor Chanan Singh was selected as the recipient of the Roy Billinton Power System Reliability Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Power and Energy Society. The purpose of the award is to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the reliability of electric power systems.

Candidates are nominated for the award by their peers, and selection is based on evaluation of accomplishments as revealed by technical publications, testimonials from the academic and industry colleagues, professional and industry activities, and development of standards and operating guides.

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Faculty Honors & Awards Wright elected IEEE Fellow, named to ISMRM Board of Trustees Professor Steve Wright was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and was elected to the Board of Trustees of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM). Wright, who holds the Royce E. Wisenbaker Professorship II, was elected a Fellow “for contributions to parallel magnetic resonance imaging methods and systems.” He is the area leader for the Biomedical Imaging and Genomics Signal Processing Group and has joint appointments in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Radiology.

Zhang, student co-author win IEEE Best Paper Award Associate Professor Xi Zhang won the prestigious Best Paper Award at the 2010 Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Wireless Communications and Networking Conference. The paper, “Power-Efficient Periodic Spectrum Sensing for Cognitive MAC in Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks,” was co-authored by student Hang Su. The award was Zhang’s second Best Paper Award within the year; he also won the prestigious Best Paper Award at IEEE GLOBECOM 2009.

Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution Buchanan receives NSPE service award and ASEE honors Walter Buchanan, department head and J.R. Thompson Endowed Chair Professor in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution, received the 2010 National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) Distinguished and Devoted Service Award. He was honored for exceptional leadership, guidance and support as a member of the 2008–2010 NSPE Board of Directors. Buchanan was also appointed to the advisory board of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Journal of Engineering Education. Buchanan also received the ASEE Zone II Outstanding Campus Representative Award (2010) and the ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Outstanding Campus Representative Award (2010).

Lawrence named NAW Institute Fellow Barry Lawrence, director of the Industrial Distribution Program and the Supply Chain Systems Lab in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution has been named a Fellow of the NAW Institute for Distribution Excellence, the long-range research arm of the National Association of WholesalerDistributors (NAW). The NAW is a federation of more than 100 wholesale distribution associations and thousands of individual firms that total more than 40,000 companies. Lawrence is the lead author of the NAW Institute 2009 book Optimizing Distributor Profitability: Best Practices to a Stronger Bottom Line.

He also represents Texas A&M in its partnership with the NAW Institute in the establishment of the Council for Research on Distributor Competitiveness.

Leon selected member of ABET’s Technology Accreditation Commission Professor Jorge Leon was selected as a member of the Technology Accreditation Commission (TAC) of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). Leon directs the department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution’s Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering Technology Program. During his five-year appointment as a TAC commissioner, Leon will team-chair TAC visits to sister institutions around the country. There are about 40 TAC commissioners, and the group meets every year at the ABET Summer Meeting to vote on accreditation for programs around the country.

Nepal appointed to editorial board Assistant Professor Bimal Nepal was appointed to the editorial board of the International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage (IJSSCA). The journal is recognized in many world-class organizations as an effective means of achieving and maintaining operational excellence and competitive advantage. IJSSCA aims to provide a communication medium for all those who are working in operations management, quality management, quality engineering and industrial engineering, whether they work in academic institutions or in industry or are engaged in consultancy. The journal publishes papers that address Six Sigma issues from the perspective of customers, industrial engineers, business managers, management consultants, industrial statisticians and Six Sigma practitioners.

Zoghi named North American editor for journal Ben Zoghi, professor and director of the RFID & Sensor Laboratory, was named the North American Editor for the Journal of Technology Management in China. The journal is an international journal committed to encouraging and publishing work from researchers and practitioners within the technology and knowledge transfer, technology, and business strategy and technology management fields in China. The journal’s coverage makes it an essential resource for academics and managers worldwide who are engaged in the study of or who are responsible for strategic planning and technological investment. The journal provides current thinking on how competitive advantage can be achieved through the application of successful technology management.

Industrial and Systems Engineering Curry elected IIE Fellow Professor Guy Curry has been named a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE). Curry received his first teaching award in 1972 and has continued since then to receive awards for his teaching excellence.

In 2006 he received the IIE Albert G. Holzman Distinguished Educator Award, which recognizes significant contributions to the profession through career accomplishments in teaching, excellence, research, publication, extension, innovation and administration.

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Faculty Honors & Awards Deshmukh elected IIE Fellow Professor Abhijit Deshmukh has been named a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE). Deshmukh, who came to Texas A&M in 2008, has received several awards in recognition of his professional accomplishments, including the Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and the Teetor Educational Award from the Society of Automotive Engineers.

Peters elected IIE Fellow Professor and Department Head Brett A. Peters has been named a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE). Peters came to Texas A&M as an assistant professor in 1992 and established himself as a leading researcher in material handling and plant layout.

He received the IIE Student Award for Excellence in 1987, was named an Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers in 2001, and was inducted into the Arkansas Academy in Industrial Engineering in 2005. He has served as president of the College-Industry Council on Material Handling Education.

Phillips receives Lifetime Achievement Award Don Phillips, Chevron Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, has received the Texas Industrial Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award. Phillips was recognized with the award at a luncheon at Lamar University in February 2010. He is only the second recipient of the award and was recognized for 43 years of achievement and service in education, specifically in engineering, a field that focuses on maximizing the efficiency of professors and systems. Members of the Texas executive committee of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), an international professional society, select nominees for the award.

Mechanical Engineering Darbha elected ASME Fellow Professor Swaroop Darbha was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Darbha’s research in intelligent transportation systems (ITS), unmanned vehicles and control theory is recognized internationally. He is an associate editor of the ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control; IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, and Differential Equations and Nonlinear Mechanics.

Grunlan wins 2010 Dahlquist Award Associate Professor Jaime C. Grunlan received the Pressure Sensitive Tape Council’s (PSTC) coveted 2010 Carl Dahlquist Award. The award is named for innovator Dahlquist, who developed the Dahlquist criterion of tack, determining the modulus value of a material necessary for it to be low enough and tacky enough to be considered a pressure sensitive adhesive. PSTC presents the Dahlquist Award to one speaker during its annual technical conference who, after the evaluation of a panel of judges, demonstrates the very best in research relating to adhesive tape technology. Grunlan has a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, as well as the university’s Materials Science and Engineering Program.

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Kim elected ASME Fellow Professor Won-jong Kim was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

While at Texas A&M, he has been the principal investigator for research programs sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and Carl Zeiss. He received three full-utility patents on precision positioning systems and three software copyrights. Kim is associate editor of the ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control; technical editor of IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, and a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems.

Liang elected ASME Fellow Professor Hong “Helen” Liang was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). ASME says Liang’s research in manufacturing and materials, particularly in chemical-mechanical planarization, has helped industry to optimize manufacturing processes, to develop new products and to reduce costs. Through her research and education activities, she has mentored more than 100 high school, undergraduate and graduate students.

Linsey named FIE New Faculty Fellow Assistant Professor Julie Linsey was named a 2009 Frontiers in Education (FIE) New Faculty Fellow. She was named a new faculty fellow for the “Frontiers in Education: Imagining and Engineering Future CSET Education” conference that was held in San Antonio in October 2009. As a conference fellow, Linsey presented a paper, “Enhancing Student Innovation: Physical Models in the Idea Generation Process.” FIE annually invites new engineering and computer science faculty to submit applications for the fellowship, which promotes the involvement of new faculty in the FIE Conference so they will be exposed to the “latest and greatest” in engineering educational practices and will have the opportunity to exchange information with leaders in education innovations.

Petersen elected ASME Fellow Professor Eric Petersen was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Petersen, who has been a member of ASME for more than 22 years, conducts research in propulsion, combustion, gas dynamics, chemical kinetics and experimental techniques with those topics. He has contributed to the discipline as a member of industry as well as academia and has received many awards over his career for engineering, research and teaching, including several Best Teacher Awards, an NSF CAREER Award, a NASA Group Achievement Award, and the Leland T. Jordan Career Development Professorship at Texas A&M.

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Faculty Honors & Awards Nuclear Engineering Charlton awarded INMM Special Service Award Associate Professor William Charlton was awarded the Special Service Award by the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM). The award focuses on noteworthy contributions to the industry or the institute and is one of only three presented. Charlton was cited for his leadership and mentoring of university students and young professionals in nuclear materials management.

Charlton has achieved many accomplishments in nuclear security, nonproliferation, and safeguards both in the academic setting and within the national and international communities. He also serves as director of the Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute.

Morel named ANS Fellow Professor Jim Morel was named an American Nuclear Society (ANS) Fellow for having pioneered research contributions to both deterministic and Monte Carlo charged-particle transport methods as well as many seminal contributions to general radiation transport discretization and solution techniques. Morel’s contributions resulted in the development of the three major transport codes: CEPXS/ONELD, the MITS-adjoint Monte Carlo Code and the ATTILA Code. The ANS Fellow is the highest individual honor granted by the society and acknowledges the extraordinary leadership of nuclear professionals in different disciplines relating to research, invention, engineering, safety, technical leadership and teaching.

Petroleum Engineering Ahr named Distinguished Educator by AAPG Wayne Ahr, who holds a joint appointment in the geology department, was selected to receive the 2010 Grover E. Murray Memorial Distinguished Educator Award from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG).

Established in 1993, the award is given in recognition of distinguished and outstanding contributions to geological education. It is named for Grover Murray, a noted geologist who began his career in the oil industry. Awardees must have made significant contributions in teaching and counseling students at the university level, managing educational programs and educating the public.

Ghassemi appointed editor-in-chief of Geothermics Ahmad Ghassemi, associate professor and director of the PE Rocks Mechanic Laboratory and holder of the George and Joan Vonieff Development Professorship in Unconventional Resources, was appointed the editor-in-chief of Geothermics, the international journal of geothermical research and its applications. The journal is devoted to the research and development of geothermal energy and serves as the scientific house, or exchange medium, through which the growing community of geothermal specialists can provide and receive information. The journal publishes articles dealing with the theory, exploration techniques and all aspects of utilization of geothermal resources.

Holditch selected vice president and president-elect of prestigious Texas academy Stephen A. Holditch, head of the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering and holder of the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation Chair, has been selected vice president and president-elect of The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (TAMEST) for 2011. Holditch’s selection was made by unanimous vote of the academy’s board of directors.

TAMEST seeks to advance science, engineering and medicine in Texas and consists of 240 Texas residents who have won Nobel Prizes or been elected to one of the National Academies.

Zhu receives SPE Distinguished Achievement Award Associate Professor Ding Zhu was named recipient of the 2010 SPE Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty. Zhu joined the faculty of Texas A&M in 2004. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1992. Zhu served as the chairman for the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Austin Section in 2002 and as the scholarship chairman in 2003. Her research interests include production and well stimulation, sandstone acidizing, and intelligent well technology. Zhu has also developed several comprehensive computer software applications for production engineering.

Ehlig-Economides to receive SPE award Christine A. Ehlig-Economides, professor and A.B. Stevens Endowed Chair, was awarded the 2010 Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal during the annual SPE banquet in Florence, Italy. The award was established in 1936 to recognize distinguished achievements in the identification and development of new technology and concepts that will enhance the process of finding and producing petroleum.

The award is named for Anthony F. Lucas, who was born in Austria in 1855 and was a mining engineer, often referred to as the father of petroleum engineering. His successful drilling of the famous Spindletop field near Beaumont was one of the most important events in the history of petroleum engineering. The Lucas Gold Medal is SPE’s major technical award.

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Chairs & Professorships Chairs

L.F. Peterson ’36 Chair W. John Lee, P.E.

Albert B. Stevens Chair Christine Ehlig-Economides

Marcus C. Easterling ’30 Chair Je-Chin Han, P.E.

Petroleum Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

Baker Hughes Chair Maria A. Barrufet, P.E.

Mike O’Connor Chair I M. Sam Mannan, P.E.

Petroleum Engineering

Chemical Engineering

College of Engineering Chair in Computer Science Bjarne Stroustrup

Mike O’Connor Chair II Thomas K. Wood

Computer Science and Engineering

Delbert A. Whitaker Chair Costas Georghiades, P.E. Electrical and Computer Engineering

E.B. Snead ’25 Chair Dallas N. Little, P.E. Civil Engineering

Forsyth Chair in Mechanical Engineering K.R. Rajagopal Mechanical Engineering

Fred J. Benson Chair Robert L. Lytton, P.E. Civil Engineering

Harold J. Haynes Dean’s Chair in Engineering G. Kemble Bennett, P.E. Vice Chancellor and Dean of Engineering Harry E. Bovay Jr. Chair for the History and Ethics of Professional Engineering B. Don Russell Jr., P.E. Electrical and Computer Engineering

Irma Runyon Chair in Electrical Engineering Chanan Singh, P.E. Electrical and Computer Engineering

Jack E. and Frances Brown Chair Kenneth R. Hall Chemical Engineering

J.L. “Corky” Frank/Marathon Ashland Chair in Engineering Project Management Kenneth Reinschmidt Civil Engineering

John and Bea Slattery Chair Dimitris C. Lagoudas, P.E. Aerospace Engineering

John Edgar Holt ’27 Chair Hisham Nasr-El-Din Petroleum Engineering

J.R. Thompson Department Head Chair in Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution Walter W. Buchanan, P.E. Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution

Leland T. Jordan ’29 Chair Dara Childs, P.E. Mechanical Engineering

Leonard and Valerie Bruce Leadership Chair Barry F. Lawrence, P.E. Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution

LeSuer Chair in Reservoir Management Akhil Datta-Gupta Petroleum Engineering

Petroleum Engineering

Chemical Engineering

Noble Chair Stephen A. Holditch, P.E. Petroleum Engineering

Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. ’45 Chair J.N. Reddy, P.E. Civil Engineering

R.P. Gregory ’32 Chair John M. Niedzwecki, P.E. Civil Engineering

Robert M. Kennedy ’26 Chair Edward R. Dougherty Electrical and Computer Engineering

Robert Whiting Chair A. Daniel Hill Petroleum Engineering

Royce E. Wisenbaker ’39 Chair I in Innovation John L. Junkins, P.E. Aerospace Engineering

Royce E. Wisenbaker ’39 Chair II David C. Hyland Aerospace Engineering

Spencer J. Buchanan ’26 Chair Jean-Louis Briaud, P.E. Civil Engineering

TEES Distinguished Research Chair Marlan O. Scully Physics

TEES Distinguished Research Chair Terry K. Alfriend

Professorships A.P. and Florence Wiley Professorship III in Civil Engineering Robin L. Autenrieth, P.E. Civil Engineering

Allen-Bradley Professorship V. Jorge Leon, P.E. Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution

Arthur McFarland (1905) Professorship in Engineering BIll Batchelor, P.E. Civil Engineering

Charles D. Holland ’53 Professorship Michael V. Pishko Chemical Engineering

Charles H. and Bettye Barclay Professorship Gerard L. Coté Biomedical Engineering

Chevron Professorship I Don Phillips, P.E. Industrial and Systems Engineering

Chevron Professorship II Jennifer L. Welch Computer Science and Engineering

Dow Chemical Professorship Yue Kuo, P.E. Chemical Engineering

Eugene E. Webb ’43 Professorship Mladen Kezunovic, P.E. Electrical and Computer Engineering

Ford Motor Company Design Professorship I in Engineering Jo W. Howze Electrical Engineering

G. Paul Pepper ’54 Professorship Kalyan Annamalai, P.E. Mechanical Engineering

Gas Processors Suppliers Association Professorship Perla A. Balbuena

Aerospace Engineering

Chemical Engineering

TEES Distinguished Research Chair John C. Slattery

Gulf Oil/Thomas A. Dietz Professorship in Mechanical Engineering Jerald A. Caton, P.E.

Aerospace Engineering

TEES Distinguished Research Chair L.S. “Skip” Fletcher Mechanical Engineering

TI Chair in Analog Engineering Kai Chang, P.E. Electrical and Computer Engineering

TI/Jack Kilby Chair in Analog Engineering Edgar Sanchez-Sinencio Electrical and Computer Engineering

Wofford Cain Senior Chair in Engineering in Offshore Technology Jose M. Roesset Civil Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

HTRI Professorship Marvin L. Adams Nuclear Engineering

Herbert D. Kelleher Professorship in Transportation Roger E. Smith, P.E. Civil Engineering

Holdredge/Paul Professorship Dennis O’Neal, P.E. Mechanical Engineering

I. Andrew Rader Professorship Daniel F. Jennings, P.E. Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution

James M. ’12 and Ada Sutton Forsyth Professorship N.K. Anand, P.E. Mechanical Engineering

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Chairs & Professorships Joe M. Nesbitt Professorship Dragomir Bukur

Rockwell International Professorship Abhijit Deshmukh

Chemical Engineering

Industrial and systems Engineering

John E. and Deborah F. Bethancourt Michael J. King

Royce E. Wisenbaker Professorship I Valerie E. Taylor

Petroleum Engineering

Computer Science and Engineering

J.W. Runyon Jr. Professorship I in Electrical Engineering A.L. Narasimha Reddy

Royce E. Wisenbaker Professorship II Steven M. Wright

Electrical and Computer Engineering

J.W. Runyon Jr. Professorship II in Electrical Engineering Aniruddha Datta Electrical and Computer Engineering

Lanatter and Herbert Fox Professorship in Chemical Engineering Jorge M. Seminario Chemical Engineering

Leland T. Jordan ’29 Professorship David E. Claridge, P.E. Mechanical Engineering

L.F. “Pete” Peterson ’36 Professorship Peter P. Valko Petroleum Engineering

Linda and Ralph Schmidt ’68 Professorship Hung-Jue Sue Mechanical Engineering

Mast-Childs Professorship in Mechanical Engineering Luis San Andres, P.E. Mechanical Engineering

McFerrin Professorship in Chemical Engineering Mahmoud El-Halwagi Chemical Engineering

Meinhard H. Kotzebu ’14 Professorship Suhada Jayasuriya, P.E. Mechanical Engineering

Mike and Sugar Barnes Professorship Wilbert Wilhelm, P.E. Industrial and Systems Engineering

Nelson-Jackson Professorship Gerald Morrison, P.E. Mechanical Engineering

Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. Professorship Taher M. Schobeiri Mechanical Engineering

Raytheon Company Professorship in Computer Science Robin R. Murphy Computer Science and Engineering

Raytheon Company Professorship in Electrical Engineering Hamid A. Toliyat, P.E. Electrical and Computer Engineering

Robert L. Whiting Professorship Thomas A. Blasingame, P.E. Petroleum Engineering

Robert M. Kennedy ’26 Professorship I Mehrdad (Mark) Ehsani, P.E. Electrical and Computer Engineering

Robert M. Kennedy ’26 Professorship II Shankar P. Bhattacharyya, P.E. Electrical and Computer Engineering

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sallie and Don Davis ’61 Professorship Raymond J. Juzaitis Nuclear Engineering

Stewart & Stevenson Professorship II Srinivas R. Vadali, P.E. Aerospace Engineering

Edward “Pete” Aldridge ’60 Development Professorship Zoubeida Ounaies Aerospace Engineering

George and Joan Voneiff Development Professorship in Unconventional Resources Ahmad Ghassemi Petroleum Engineering

George K. Hickox Jr. Development Professorship in Petroleum Engineering David S. Schechter, P.E. Petroleum Engineering

Kenneth R. Hall Development Professorship Victor M. Ugaz Chemical Engineering

Stewart & Stevenson Professorship II William Saric, P.E.

Leland T. Jordan ’29 Career Development Professorship Eric L. Petersen

Aerospace Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

Tenneco Professorship Ramesh Talreja

Michael and Heidi Gatens Professorship in Unconventional Resources Duane A. McVay, P.E.

Aerospace Engineering

TI Professorship II in Analog Engineering Cam Nguyen, P.E. Electrical and Computer Engineering

TI Professorship in Engineering Prasad Enjeti, P.E. Electrical and Computer Engineering

Victor H. Thompson III Professorship Behbood B. Zoghi, P.E. Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution

W.H. Bauer Professorship in Dredging Engineering Robert E. Randall, P.E. Civil Engineering

Zachry Professorship in Design and Construction Integration I John Mander Civil Engineering

Zachry Professorship in Design and Construction Integration II Stuart D. Anderson, P.E.

Petroleum Engineering

Parsons Career Development Professorship I Sara McComb Industrial and Systems Engineering

Parsons Career Development Professorship II David N. Ford Civil Engineering

Ray B. Nesbitt Professorship I Arul Jayaraman Chemical Engineering

Ray B. Nesbitt Professorship II Juergen Hahn Chemical Engineering

Ray B. Nesbitt Professorship III Daniel Shantz Chemical Engineering

Zachry Professorship for Career Development II Giovanna Biscontin Civil Engineering

Civil Engineering

Career Development Professorships A.P. and Florence Wiley Development Professorship II Francisco Olivera Civil Engineering

Aghorn Energy Development Professorship in Petroleum Engineering Robert H. Lane Petroleum Engineering

Centerpoint Energy Career Development Professorship Yu Ding industrial and systems Engineering

E.B. Snead ’25 Career Development Professorship I Mark W. Burris Civil Engineering

E.B. Snead ’25 Career Development Professorship II Mary Beth D. Hueste, P.E. Civil Engineering

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Research Facts 289,000 square feet of lab space 25 multidisciplinary research centers Superior research equipment, including: 路 Two nuclear reactors, one each for research and teaching 路 Coastal, estuarine and deepwater research facilities 路 Low-speed wind tunnel 路 Microbeam accelerator

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Research Facts

$137.5 million in sponsored research awards

Federally sponsored research awards

$100.7 million

FEDERAL SPONSORS National Science Foundation – $24 million U.S. Department of Defense – $31 million U.S. Department of Energy – $23 million National Institutes of Health – $6 million National Aeronautics and Space Administration – $6 million Other Federal Sponsors – $4 million U.S. Department of Homeland Security – $2 million U.S. Department of Education – $4 million 85

IT’S TIME FOR TEXAS A&M

Opening in 2011

Emerging Technologies Building $104

million project 212,000 gross square feet

Wet bench labs for biomaterials, biomechanics and biomedical optics research State-of-the-art classrooms and interdisciplinary research labs Dry bench labs for equipment-based research Workshop facilities for fabricating prototypes Underwater systems electronics lab Large-scale visualization lab

301 WISENBAKER ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTER 3126 TAMU COLLEGE STATION, TX 77843-3126