President Barak Obama, visiting the University of Miami to deliver a policy statement on energy, preceded his speech with a tour of the University of Miami Industrial Assessment Center in the College of Engineering.
Dr. Shihab Asfour, director of the Center, and his students demonstrated for the President various assessment procedures geared to reducing companies’ energy consumption and increasing efficiency. According to President Obama the work done in the Center “couldn’t be more important. Figuring out how our buildings can waste less energy is one of the fastest, easiest ways to reduce our dependence on oil and save a lot of money in the process.”
He praised the work done in the UM Industrial Assessment Center and mentioned that its research is “helping manufacturers save millions of dollars in energy bills by making their facilities more efficient.” The UM Assessment Center has conducted over 220 energy assessments to small and medium sized businesses over the past 10 years and according to Dr. Asfour, the savings to the company usually exceeds 25% of their energy expenses.
Dean James M. Tien added “Thanks to President Obama for honoring us with his visit and for touting the University of Miami College of Engineering and for uttering such words as ‘We need more engineers.’ “
The University of Miami College Of Engineering is pleased to announce the establishment of a professionally staffed, state-of-the-art Prototyping Facility, available for use both within UM and with outside customers.
The 3000 square feet, air-conditioned facility is equipped to handle the most complex prototyping task (large or small). The facility offers:
With its certified professionals and experienced machinists, the Prototyping Facility is ready to:
| EXTENDED HOURLY RATES FOR RAPID PROTOTYPING | ||
| No Design | With Design | |
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$49 |
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$65 |
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Let the College of Engineering’s Prototyping Facility be your one stop for the realization of your prototype. For further information, please contact Mr. Paul Conover or 305-284-4115.
“It’s going to be a great year,” exclaimed University of Miami President Donna E. Shalala to the faculty and staff of the College of Engineering during their first meeting of the academic year. Just one day before the September 13 release of the 2012 edition of the U.S. News & World Report’s annual “Best Colleges” issue, Shalala commended the College of Engineering for its prominent role in significantly contributing to UM’s meteoric rise in rankings to number 38 – up from 47 last year, an incredible nine-point rise. UM remains the highest ranked school in the state of Florida.
UM is the only school currently in the top 50 to move up nine spots in one year and 29 spots in the past 10 years. UM’s remarkable ascent in the rankings can be attributed to its marked improvement in key areas such as the six-year graduation rate, freshman retention rate, average SAT score of its incoming freshmen, and percentage of freshmen who were in the top 10% of their high school graduation class.
During the meeting, President Shalala recognized that students in the College of Engineering are among UM’s most qualified. In fact, undergraduate enrollment has increased some 38% in the past four years, and at 1320, the College of Engineering’s 2010 median SAT scores were among the highest at the University, and 3% higher than in previous years, demonstrating a consistent upward trend.
“We are absolutely delighted that U.S. News & World Report has moved the University of Miami from 47 to 38. We were a top 50 school last year and we’re now a top 40 this year,” said UM President Donna E. Shalala. “This has truly been a climb to excellence.”
In a college-wide message to its faculty and staff, James M. Tien, distinguished professor and dean stated, “Please accept my thanks and congratulations for this singular achievement; let’s continue to be a critical – if not leading – partner in UM’s ascent to AAU status.”
The editors of U.S. News & World Report have ranked the nation’s top universities and colleges for the past 28 years. To learn more about the magazine’s methodology, visit www.usnews.com.
The final flight of NASA’s space shuttle Atlantis, in service since 1985, marked the end of the 30-year Shuttle program. First developed in the 1970s and launched in 1981, NASA’s fleet of space shuttles provided the nation with almost uninterrupted travel to space, but left Americans wondering what comes next. For the time being, the future of space exploration may shift to the private sector, though NASA’s long term plans are to develop rockets and vehicles capable of visiting Mars or an asteroid.
Dr. Qingda Yang, College of Engineering researcher and assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, is already developing composite materials for the next generation of space vehicles, vehicles capable of sustaining hypersonic speeds, 5-15 times the speed of sound.
NASA’s space shuttles, explains Dr. Yang, were reusable, which means a tremendous amount of maintenance. Each time a shuttle returned from orbit, the vehicle had to be checked and rechecked, including each of the 20,000 tiles in its Thermal Protection System (TPS), which shield it from heat generated by the atmosphere during re-entry. In the tragic example of the shuttle Columbia, the TPS sustained damages during take-off; then the intense heat during re-entry found its way into the aluminum-based structure, causing it to explode.
Through Dr. Yang’s grant-funded work with the newly formed National Hypersonics Science Center—Materials and Structures (NHSC-MS) through Teledyne Scientific and Imaging, he has recently published four notable papers in collaboration with authors from the Center’s partner institutions. Appearing in Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids (2011), International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering (forthcoming, January 2011), ASME Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology (2011), and Risoe International Symposium on Composite Materials (keynote paper, 2011), Dr. Yang’s research carries forth the Center’s objectives to conduct experiments and simulations that predict the performance of materials under the extreme conditions of hypersonic vehicles that must endure temperatures in excess of 1500 degrees Celsius, which equals an almost unimaginable 2732 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightweight composite materials, such as those included in Dr. Yang’s research will also reduce aircraft fuel consumption, emissions and noise, thus contributing to green aviation technologies.
Already relics, the three retired US space shuttles have gone on display at museums in Florida, California and Virginia, but the future of space exploration, manned or unmanned, is far from over. While they served the nation well, researchers such as Dr. Yang will now prepare for a new mission, a generation of safer spacecraft that are hardier and can fly farther and faster from Earth.
The Collaborative Research and Exchange Forum (CREF), a venue initiated by the College of Engineering (CoE) when Dean James M. Tien became dean in 2007, includes faculty presentations, panel discussions, followed by open “table brainstorming” that encourages growing research between investigators in engineering and the applied sciences. In an ongoing effort to enhance collaborative research between the faculty of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) and the College of Engineering, February 18, 2011, the fourth CoE CREF took place at the RSMAS campus. Previous CoE CREFs involved CoE faculty and Miller School of Medicine faculty.
Co-organized by Dr. Helena Solo-Gabriele, associate dean for research and professor at the College of Engineering, and Dr. Robert K. Cowen associate dean for research for RSMAS, and moderated by Richard Bookman, Ph.D., executive dean for research and research training, the event featured presentations by faculty from both schools centered on “Environmental Sensing.”
With more than 40 researchers participating, including several from the Center for Computational Science (CCS), the half-day meeting explored the intersections between methods and devices that monitor and perform sensing for environmental applications. For example, the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) detected in the Earth’s atmosphere are comprised of the same chemicals as those detected in the breath of patients who suffer from lung cancer, a relationship that researchers can more effectively diagnose the disease.
In another example, researcher Falk Amelung, associate professor of marine geology and geophysics, uses remote sensing techniques to assess the earth’s crustal movement and sedimentation in coastal zones, in addition to “ground-truthing”, a technique for measuring a levee’s rate of subsidence. During the CREF, Dr. Amelung discussed the possibility of using remote sensors such as those developed for monitoring the structural integrity of bridges by Antonio Nanni, professor and chair of the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering. Combining sensor techniques could provide researchers with a method of double-checking data and with more measurements for tracking the levees’ stability and integrity.
The CREF also brings together what might otherwise seem like disparate ideas. Using a boat to collect samples of ocean water in in real-time for the purpose of identifying microscopic microbes, Dr. Robert Cowan has encountered the problem of separating the miniscule organisms from the vast amount of water in which they reside. Since their shape identifies the microbes, Mohamed Abdel-Mottaleb, professor and chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering who works with optical imaging devices for facial recognition application, suggested using some of the same algorithms that detect facial features in order to more efficiently isolate the microbes from their surrounding “white space”.
Dr. Solo-Gabriele says successful inventions and discoveries that result from interdisciplinary exchange make the CREFs all-important for new discoveries. “It was amazing to observe the level of detail discussed by these engineers and scientists just by talking to each other,” says Solo-Gabriele. “We hope the discussions will lead to future collaborations and advances in science and engineering.”
