ME Annual Report 07 08

2007-2008 Annual Report

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Department of Mechanical EngineeringUniversity of Connecticut191 Auditorium Road, Unit 3139Storrs, CT 06269-3139Phone: (860) 486-2090 Fax: (860) 486-5088http://www.engr.uconn.edu/me

From the Department Head

Department at a Glance

Faculty and Alumni News

Mechanical Engineering Faculty

Journal Publications

Conference Proceedings and Other Publications

Grants and Contracts

Professional Activities and Service

Graduate Program

Senior Design Program

Cover images courtesy of Profs. Baki Cetegen, Wilson Chiu, Tai-Hsi Fan, Horea Ilies, and Tianfeng Lu and Mr. Christopher LaRosa

� Department of Mechanical Engineering • University of Connecticut

From the Department Head

Baki M. CetegenProfessor and Department Head

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

We are pleased to inform you about the activities of our de-partment in this annual report. We have had a very produc-tive and dynamic academic year with many exciting activities. The department continues on its path of excellence in under-graduate and graduate education, research and outreach.

The strong demand for our undergraduate program continues to grow: 93 freshmen enrolled for the Fall 2008 semester for a total undergraduate student population of 408. During the 2007-2008 academic year 76 B.S. degrees were conferred. Ac-creditation was renewed for our undergraduate program for six more years by ABET Inc. Our graduates enjoy excellent job opportunities — many have a chance to choose between several competitive job offers. This year, our flourishing in-dustrially-sponsored senior design program has grown to 34 projects sponsored by 22 different companies and organizations. This program engages our students in real-world problems and in working relationships with sponsoring companies, while providing sponsors with the opportunity to find future employees. Our graduate program has expanded further in the energy systems, biomechanics and dynamics/sensing/controls areas with the addition of five new faculty members to our ranks. The Fall 2008 graduate student body is the largest the department has recruited recently, and 39 % of the incoming student body are domestic students. The depart-ment has initiated two new programs to enhance our graduate education activities. A department co-sponsored program for our undergraduates to experience research in various research laboratories in the department was insti-tuted with nine undergraduates participating over the summer. Additionally, a number of the incoming graduate students were co-sponsored by the department and faculty research grants to expand the incoming graduate student population. Total research funding continues to grow with this year’s department research expenditures reaching $ 3.0 million. Our faculty members have published 70 journal articles and contributed 71 conference publications. They are serving actively as editors and associate editors of major journals, and chairs and vice-chairs of many pro-fessional society committees and conferences.

A shared commitment to mechanical engineering education and research has lead us to productive partnerships with industry leaders during this academic year. Our external advisory board has provided valuable guidance to direct us to engage productively with industry.

In summary, our department is in a growth period with many exciting educational and research activities underway. We thank you for taking the time to learn about our department and its programs and look forward to receiving your feedback.

With my best wishes,

Baki M. CetegenProfessor and Department Head

�Annual Report �007-�008

Faculty Size • �4 Tenured and tenure track faculty*• 3 Non-tenure track/affiliated faculty *includes new hires

Areas of Research Focus• Biomechanical systems• Energy systems • Advanced materials and materials processing• Dynamics, sensing and control• Computational modeling and design

Student Population • Total undergraduate enrollment (freshmen to seniors): 408• Undergraduate student to faculty ratio: 17• Total graduate (MS+Ph.D.) enrollment: 89• Graduate students/faculty: �.7

Research Productivity (�007- �008 AY Statistics)• Journal articles published: 70• Conference papers published: 71• 1 Patent issued• 9 Ph.D. and 15 M.S. degrees conferred• Total of active grants and contracts: $ 1�.9 million• Average annual research funding: $ 4.5 million

Department at a GlanceUndergraduate Enrollment

Graduate Enrollment (Ph.D.)

Graduate Enrollment (M.S.)Breakdown of Funding by Source

Industry18%

NSF30%

NASA2%

DoD35%

DoE14%

NIH1%

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4 Department of Mechanical Engineering • University of Connecticut

Prof. Mun Y. Choi joined the School of Engineering in January, 2008 as the Dean of Engineering and a Mechanical Engineering Depart-ment faculty member. Dr. Choi was most recently at Drexel University, where he served as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Engineering, and Department Head of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics. He received his B.S. degree in Mechani-cal Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign fol-lowed by his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University in the field of mechanical and aerospace engineering. His area of expertise is combustion and fluid mechanics and he has studied droplet combus-tion and soot formation in terrestrial and microgravity environments.

Prof. Robert Gao joined us in Fall 2008 as the Pratt and Whitney Endowed Chair. Prof. Gao had been at the University of Massachu-setts, Amherst since 1995, and has extensive experience in sensors and sensor networks as well as machine condition monitoring. His research interests include integrated sensing methodologies for manufacturing equipment; mechatronics; smart devices, structures and materials; en-ergy-efficient sensor networks; multi-domain sensor signal processing; and biomechanics. He holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Technical University of Berlin, Germany.

Dr. Chengyu Cao joined our faculty in Fall 2008 as Assistant Pro-fessor. Dr. Cao received his B.S. degree from Xi’an JiaoTong Univer-sity in China, his M.S. in Manufacturing Engineering from Boston University and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. He was previously a senior research scientist at Virginia Tech. His area of expertise is in dynamics and control of unmanned and intelligent elec-tro-mechanical systems, robotics, sensor and actuator networks and bio-inspired applications.

Dr. Tianfeng Lu joined our faculty as Assistant Professor in Fall 2008. Dr. Lu received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Tsinghua University and his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princ-eton University. His expertise and research interests are in computa-tional fluid dynamics and combustion with detailed chemistry as well as reduction of large chemical kinetic mechanisms for computationally efficient simulation of complex multidimensional, turbulent flows and other engineering systems.

Dr. George Lykotrafitis will be joining our faculty as Assistant Profes-sor in Spring 2009. Dr. Lykotrafitis received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Mathematics and Physical Sciences from National Technical University of Athens, Greece. He subsequently received his second M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Caltech, studying dynamic frictional sliding modes along incoherent interfaces. Since 2006 he has been a postdoctoral fellow at MIT, con-ducting experimental and computational studies of cellular membrane mechanics in Prof. Subra Suresh’s group.

Faculty and Alumni NewsThe Department Welcomes New Faculty Members

Prof. Passaogullari receives NSF CAREER award

Prof. Pasaogullari was recently awarded a National Science Foundation Early Ca-reer Development (CAREER) Award for his proposed work, titled “The Role of Interfaces on Transport Phenomena in Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells.”

Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells (PEFCs) are gaining interest as a potential en-ergy conversion technology for power-ing vehicles, as envisioned in the future “hydrogen economy.” PEFCs convert hydrogen to electricity without produc-ing pollutants, in contrast to fossil fuels, which are known to produce green-house gas emissions and pollutants as-sociated with global climate change and possible health risks.

However, there is still a long way to go before PEFCs can become a market place technology; challenges remain to be solved in the cost, performance and durability of these systems. To target these challenges, Dr. Pasaogullari’s work will focus on the principal component of PEFCs – the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) that separates protons and electrons. Dr. Pasaogullari will focus his attention on gaining a better under-standing of the transport phenomena at the interfaces of multiple layers of an MEA, utilizing a combination of compu-tational and experimental techniques. Since MEA components are very thin, surface-to-volume ratio is very high, and surface properties and interfacial phe-nomena greatly influence the transport of protons, electrons, gases and liquid between individual layers – thereby im-pacting the overall performance and du-rability of the fuel cell.

5Annual Report �007-�008

Thomas Prete and Martin Seifert Join the Department’s External Advisory BoardThe department welcomes two distinguished new members to its External Advisory Board, which consists of members from industry and academia. The board meets twice a year to review the department’s activities and make recommendations in some areas.

Thomas Prete is the program chief engineer and engineering director for Operational Military Engines for Pratt & Whitney. He has been with Pratt & Whitney since 1989 and has an extensive technical background working in both military and commercial programs. In 2008, he was inducted into membership in the University of Con-necticut School of Engineering Academy of Distinguished Engineers. He received his B.S. in M.E. from UConn in 1985, M.S. in M.E. from Rensselaer at Hartford in 1993, followed by his M.B.A. from UConn in 2001.

Martin Seifert is the president of Nufern in East Granby, Connecticut, which was founded in 2000 as a Telco specialty fiber house. Nufern successfully changed to a fiber laser and amplifier cavity supplier for the industrial and military markets in 2003. He has predominantly been a business leader for the last twenty years, he has a technical background and is named on a number of Nufern fiber, chip, and laser patents. Prior to joining Nufern, he was president and general manager of Lucent Specialty Fibers.

Senior Design Demonstration Day �008Senior Design Demonstration Day, the culminating event of the year long senior design project course, was hosted this year in a spacious new venue – the Student Union Grand Ballroom. In the Senior Design Project course student teams are assigned projects by sponsoring companies and organizations. Students must design, analyze, fabricate prototypes and test devices and processes to successfully complete these projects. Student teams are advised by Mechanical Engineering faculty members and sponsor company mentors. This year twenty-two companies and organiza-tions sponsored thirty-four student projects in the course.

Demonstration Day 2008 festivities included recognition of the top-performing student teams. Three teams were awarded prizes, ranging from $1500 to $500, to acknowledge the originality and success of their projects, and a fourth team was awarded a new faculty-judged prize. The event was attended by members of in-dustry, faculty, staff, and friends including Dean of Engineering Dr. Mun Y. Choi, Provost Dr. Peter Nicholls, President Dr. Michael J. Hogan and former congressman Mr. Rob Simmons, Connecticut Business Advocate.

Professors Baki Cetegen and Kazem Kazerounian Elected to CASEProf. Baki Cetegen and Prof. Kazem Kazerounian were elected to membership in the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, CASE. The Mechanical Engineering department is now home to nine academy members, including Profs. Bergman, Crow, Faghri, Jordan, Langston, Olgac and Pitchumani. The Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering was chartered by

the Connecticut General Assembly in 1976 to advise state government and industry in the application of science and engineering to economic and social welfare. The Academy is made up of 250 members who live or work in Connecticut and who are elected on the basis of their accomplishments in science, engineering and technology.

Research and Teaching Excellence AwardsThis year’s research excellence award was given to Prof. Nejat Olgac for his sustained contributions in the area of system dynamics and control with variety of applications in development of micro manipulators for biological systems, development of new paradigms for control of time-delay sys-tems as well as swarm dynamics. Prof. Olgac’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Army Research Office and National Institutes of Health. The teaching excellence award was given to Prof. Kevin Murphy who has received a number of teaching awards in the past. He has been consistently praised by students for his teaching style and effectiveness. The awardees were selected by a committee composed of four faculty from other engineering departments based on applications and nominations. Each award carries a $ 2000 professional development fund as well as a plaque.

Provost Peter Nicholls, Kirk Scheel, An-drew Johnston, President Michael Hogan

� Department of Mechanical Engineering • University of Connecticut

Thomas J. BarberProfessor-in-Residence Ph.D., New York University, 19�8

Computational and Physical Fluid-Dynamics

Mechanical Engineering Faculty

Wilson K. S. ChiuAssociate ProfessorPh.D., Rutgers University, 1999

Heat and Mass Transfer and Nanomanufacturing

John C. Bennett, Jr.Associate Professor and Associate DeanPh.D., The Johns Hopkins University, 1977

Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics

Theodore L. BergmanProfessor Ph.D., Purdue University, 1985

Heat Transfer and Thermal Manufacturing

Zbigniew M. BzymekAssociate ProfessorPh.D., Warsaw University of Technology, Poland, 19�7

Design and CAD Modeling

Baki M. CetegenProfessor and Department HeadPh.D., California Institute of Technology, 198�

Combustion and Fluid Mechanics

David (Ed) CrowDistinguished Professor-in-ResidencePh.D., University of Missouri-Rolla, 197�

Gas Turbine Engineering

Amir FaghriUnited Technologies Endowed Chair Professor in Thermal-Fluids Engineering Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 197�

Heat Transfer and Fluid Mechanics

Tai-Hsi FanAssistant ProfessorPh.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, �00�

Biofluidics and Biotransport

Horea IliesAssistant ProfessorPh.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison, �000

Computational Design and CAD/CAM/CAE

Robert G. JeffersAssociate ProfessorPh.D., University of Pennsylvania, 19�9

Solid Mechanics

Mun ChoiProfessor and Dean of EngineeringPh.D., Princeton University, 199�

Combustion, Heat Transfer, Opti-cal Diagnostics, Soot Processes


Bi ZhangProfessorPh.D., Tokyo Institute of Technology, 1988

Precision Design and Manufacturing

Eric JordanProfessorPh.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1978

Experimental and Theoretical Mechanics

Kazem KazerounianProfessorPh.D., University of Illinois at Chicago, 1984

Design, Kinematics and Robotics

Kevin D. MurphyAssociate Professor and Associate Department HeadPh.D., Duke University, 1994

Nonlinear Dynamics and Vibrations

Nejat OlgacProfessorPh.D., Columbia University, 197�

Control Systems and Vibrations

Ugur PasaogullariAssistant ProfessorPh.D., The Pennsylvania State University, �005

Transport Phenomena in Fuel Cells

Ranga PitchumaniProfessor Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University, 199�

Thermal Sciences and Materials Processing

Michael W. RenfroAssociate ProfessorPh.D., Purdue University, �000

Combustion and Optical Diagnostics

Jiong TangAssociate ProfessorPh.D., The Pennsylvania State University, �001

Structural and System Dynamics and Control

Marcelle WoodLecturer and Assistant DeanM.S., University of Connecticut, 1988

Shiva KothaAssistant ProfessorPh.D., Rutgers University, �000

Bone and Tissue Mechanics

Wei SunAssistant ProfessorPh.D., University of Pittsburgh, �00�

Tissue Biomechanics, Computa-tional Biomechanics and Medical Device Design


Journal PublicationsTheodore L. Bergman “Bipolar Plate Thermal Response to PEM Fuel Cell Stack Compressive Load,” (with N. Fekrazad), ASME Journal of Heat Transfer, Vol. 130, pp. 064503-1 - 064503-3, 2008.

“The Effect of Compressive Load on Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Stack Performance and Behavior,” (with N. Fekrazad), ASME Journal of Heat Transfer, Vol. 129, pp. 1004-1013, 2007.

Zbigniew Bzymek “Solutions of the 21st Century-Teaching Computer-Aided Conceptual Design,” (with S. Vahidi and H. Spottiswoode), Computer-Aided Design & Applications, Vol. 4, No. 1-4, pp. 459-465, 2007.

“Simulation of Machining Sequence Using Delmia/Quest Software,” (with M. Nunez, M. Li and S. Powers), Com-puter-Aided Design & Applications, Vol. 5, No. 1-4, pp. 401-411, 2008.

Baki M. Cetegen “Blowoff Characteristics of Bluff-body Stabilized Premixed Flames with Upstream Composition Gradients and Flow Oscillations,” (with S. Chaudhuri), Combustion and Flame, Vol. 153, No. 4, pp. 616-633, 2008.

“Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer of Liquid Precursor Droplets Injected into High Temperature Plasmas,” (with S. Basu and E.H. Jordan), Journal of Thermal Spray Tech-nology, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 60-72, 2007.

“Modeling of Ceramic Formation in Liquid Precursor Droplets Heated by Laser Irradiation,” (with S. Basu), ASME Journal of Heat Transfer, Vol. 130, pp. 071501-071509, 2007.

“Thermal Barrier Coatings Made by Solution Precursor Spray Process,” (with M. Gell, E.H. Jordan, N. Padture, L. Xie and M. Teicholz), Journal of Thermal Spray Technol-ogy, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 124-135, 2007.

Wilson K. S. Chiu “Modeling of the Carbon Nanotube Chemical Vapor De-position Process Using Methane and Acetylene Precursor Gases,” (with A.C. Lysaght), Nanotechnology, Vol. 19, pp. 165607-165615, 2008.

“Nondestructive Reconstruction and Analysis of Solid Ox-ide Fuel Cell Anodes Using X-ray Computed Tomography at Sub-50 nm Resolution,” (with J.R. Izzo, Jr., A.S. Joshi, A.A. Peracchio, K.N. Grew, A.T. Tkachuk, S.H. Wang and W. Yun), Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Vol. 155, pp. B504-B508, 2008.

“Lattice Boltzmann Method for Multi-Component, Non-Continuum Mass Diffusion,” (with A.S. Joshi, A.A. Perac-chio and K.N. Grew), Journal of Physics D: Applied Phys-ics, Vol. 40, pp. 7593-7600, 2007.

“Modeling of Gas Transport through a Tubular Solid Oxide Fuel Cell and the Porous Anode Layer,” (with J.R. Izzo, Jr. and A.A. Peracchio), Journal of Power Sources, Vol. 176, pp. 200-206, 2007.

“Radiative Properties of a Semitransparent Fiber Coated with a Submicron Absorbing Film,” (with W. Tian and W. Huang), ASME Journal of Heat Transfer, Vol. 129, pp. 763-767, 2007.

Amir Faghri “A Three-dimensional Thermal–fluid Analysis of Flat Heat Pipes,” (with B. Xiao), International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Vol. 51, pp. 3113-3126, 2008.

“Advances and Unresolved Issues in Pulsating Heat Pipes,” (with Y. Zhang), Heat Transfer Engineering, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2008.

“Analysis of a Passive Vapor Feed Direct Methanol Fuel Cell,” (with J. Rice), International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Vol. 51, pp. 948-959, 2008.

“Development of a 1W Passive DMFC,” (with Z. Guo), International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer, Vol. 35, pp. 225-239, 2008.


“Integration of Heat Pipe in to Fuel Cell Technology,” (with Z. Guo), Heat Transfer Engineering, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 232-238, 2008.

“Thermal and Start-up Characteristics of a Miniature Pas-sive Liquid Feed DMFC System, Including Continuous /Discontinuous Phase Limitations,” (with J. Rice), ASME Journal of Heat Transfer, Vol. 130, No. 6, 2008.

“Transient Modeling and Analysis of Methanol Transport in a Passive Liquid Feed DMFC,” (with B. Xiao), Inter-national Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Vol. 51, pp. 3127-3143, 2008.

“Analysis of Porous Wick Heat Pipes, Including Capil-lary Dry-out Limitations,” (with J. Rice), AIAA Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 475-486, 2007.

Tai-Hsi Fan “Scaling of Nanoparticle Retardation in Semi-dilute Poly-mer Solutions,” (with R. Tuinier), Soft Matter, Vol. 4, pp. 254-257, 2008.

“Asymptotic Analysis of Tracer Diffusivity in Nonadsorbing Polymer Solutions,” (with B. Xie and R. Tuinier), Physical Review E, Vol. 76, Art. No. 051405, 2007.

Horea Ilies “Detecting and Quantifying Envelope Singularities in the Plane,” (with H. Erdim), Computer Aided Design, Vol. 39, No. 10, pp. 829-840, 2007.

“Force Required to Luxate a Newly Placed Dental Implant in Bone: An In Vitro Pilot Study,” (with D. Flanagan, M. Raby and R. Stevenson), Journal of Oral Implantology, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 128-134, 2008.

“Fatigue Life of Dental Implants: Performance and Pre-diction,” (with D. Flanagan, P. McCullough and S. Mc-Quoid), ASME Transactions, Journal of Medical Devices, Vol. 2, No. 1, 011003-1 – 011003- 7, 2008.

“Measurement of the Fatigue Life of Mini Dental Implants: A Pilot Study,” (with D. Flanagan, P. McCullough and S. McQuoid), Journal of Implantology, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 7-11, 2008.

“Measuring Luxation in Dental Implants,” (with D. Fla-nagan, M. Raby and R. Stevenson), ASME Transactions, Journal of Medical Devices, Vol. 2, No. 1, 014501-1 – 014501- 4, 2008.

Eric H. Jordan “Apatite Formation on Alkaline-treated Dense TiO2 Coat-ings Deposited Using the Solution Precursor Plasma Spray Process,” (with F. Wu, X. Ma and M. Gell), Acta Biomate-rialia, Vol. 4, pp. 553-559, 2008.

“Dense Alumina-Zirconia Coatings Using the Solution Precursor Plasma Spray Process,” (with D. Chen, M. Gell and X. Ma), Journal of American Ceramic Society, Vol. 91, pp. 359-365, 2008.

“Dense TiO2 Coating Using The Solution Precursor Plas-ma Spray,” (with D. Chen, M. Gell and X. Ma), Journal of American Ceramics Society, Vol. 91, pp. 865, 2008.

“Effect of Solution Concentration on Splat Formation and Coating Microstructure Using The Solution Precursor Plasma Spray Process,” (with D. Chen and M. Gell), Sur-face Coating and Technology, Vol. 202, pp. 2132-2138, 2008.

“Thermal Barrier Coatings Made by the Solution Precur-sor Plasma Spray Process,” (with M. Gell, M. Teicholz, B. Cetegen, N. Padture, L. Xie, D. Chen, X. Ma and J. Roth), Journal of Thermal Spray Technology, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 124-135, 2008.

“Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer of Liquid Precursor Droplets Injected into High Temperature Plasmas,” (with S. Basu and B.M. Cetegen), Journal of Thermal Spray Technology, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 60-72, 2007.

“Thermal and Crystallization Behavior of Zirconia Precur-sor Used in the Solution Precursor Plasma Spray Process,” (with D. Chen and M. Gell), Journal of Materials Science, Vol. 42, pp. 5576-5580, 2007.

“Thermal Stability of Air Plasma Spray and Solution Pre-cursor Plasma Spray Thermal Barrier Coatings,” (with D. Chen, M. Gell and X. Ma), Journal of American Ceramic Society, Vol. 90, pp. 3160-3166, 2007.


Kazem Kazerounian “Target Tracking and Manipulation Theories Applied to Force/Position Control in Peg-in-Hole Assembly Tasks,” (with D.J. Giblin and Y. Liu), International Journal of Ro-botics and Automation, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 3083-3141, 2008.

“Barriers to Creativity in Engineering Education: A Study of Instructors and Students Perceptions,” (with S. Foley), ASME Journal of Mechanical Design: Special Issue On Design Engineering Education, Vol. 129, pp. 761-767, 2007.

“Design Improvement of the Mechanical Coupling Dia-phragms for Aerospace Applications,” (with L. Duong), Mechanics Based Design of Structures and Machines, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 467-479, 2007.

“Improved Molecular Model of a Peptide Unit for Pro-teins,” (with R. Subramanian), ASME Journal of Mechani-cal Design, Vol. 129, No. 11, pp. 1130-1136, 2007.

“Kinematic Mobility Analysis of Peptide Based Nano-Link-ages,” (with R. Subramanian), Mechanisms and Machine Theory, Vol. 42, No. 8, pp. 903-918, 2007.

Shiva Kotha “High Frequency Ultrasound Prediction of Mechanical Properties of Cortical Bone with Varying Amount of Min-eral Content,” (with C. DePaula, A. Mann and N. Gu-zelsu), Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, Vol. 34, No. 4, pp. 630-637, 2008.

“Reinforcement of Bone Cement using Zirconia Fibers with and without Acrylic Coating,” (with C. Li, S. Schmid and J.J. Mason), Journal of Biomedical Materials Research, A, No. 10.1002/jbm.a.31783, 2008.

“Properties of Silorane-based Dental Resins and Compos-ites Containing a Stress-reducing Monomer,” (with J.D. Eick, C.C. Chappelow, K.V. Kilway, G.J. Giese, A.G. Glaros and C.S. Pinzino), Dental Materials, Vol. 23, No. 8, pp. 1011-1017, 2007.

Kevin D. Murphy “Crack Propagation in Structures Subjected to Periodic Ex-citation,” (with Y. Zhang), Acta Mechanica Solida, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 236-246, 2007.

Nejat Olgac “A New Perspective in the Stability Assessment of Neutral Systems with Multiple and Cross-Talking Delays,” (with T. Vyhlidal and R. Sipahi), SIAM, Journal of Control and Optimization, Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 327-344, 2008.

“Generalization of Cluster Treatment of Characteristic Roots for Robust Stability of Multiple Time Delayed Sys-tems,” (with R. Sipahi and H. Fazelinia), International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, doi: 10.1002/rnc.1290, 20 pages, 2008.

“Rotational Oscillating Drill (Ros-Drill©) for Mouse ICSI without Using Mercury,” (with A. Ergenc, M.-W. Li, M. Toner, J.D. Biggers and K. Lloyd), Molecular Reproduc-tion and Development, doi: 10.1002/mrd.20919, 9 pages, 2008.

“Sign Inverting Control Logic for Time Delayed Systems, with Experiments,” (with H. Fazelinia and A. Ergenc), In-ternational Journal of Mechatronics and Manufacturing Systems, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 68-82, 2008.

Ugur Pasaogullari “Anisotropic Heat and Water Transport in a PEFC Cath-ode Gas Diffusion Layer,” (with P.P. Mukherjee, C.Y. Wang and K.S. Chen), Journal of Electrochemical Society, Vol. 154, No. 8, pp. B823-B834, 2007.

Ranga Pitchumani “Numerical Simulations of an Optical Fiber Drawing Pro-cess under Uncertainty,” (with A. Mawardi), IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, Vol. 26, No. 5, pp. 580-587, 2008.

“Theoretical Analysis of Capillary-driven Nanoparticulate Slurry Flow during a Micromold Filling Process,” (with A. Mawardi and Y. Xiao), International Journal of Multiphase Flow, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 227-240, 2008.

“Flow Control Using Localized Induction Heating in a VARTM Process,” (with R.J. Johnson), Composites Sci-ence & Technology, Vol. 67, No. 3-4, pp. 669-684, 2007.

“Numerical Studies on an Air-breathing Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cell,” (with Y. Zhang), Interna-tional Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Vol. 50, No. 23-24, pp. 4698-4712, 2007.


“Active Control of Reactive Resin Flow in a VARTM Pro-cess,” (with R.J. Johnson), Journal of Composite Materials, Vol. 42, No. 12, pp. 1205-1229, 2008.

“Numerical Studies on an Air-breathing Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cell Stack,” (with Y. Zhang and A. Mawardi), Journal of Power Sources, Vol. 173, pp. 264-276, 2007.

Michael W. Renfro “Space-time Correlation Measurements in Partially Pre-mixed Turbulent Opposed-jet Flames,” (with K.K. Ven-katesan, J. Zhang, G.B. King and N.M. Laurendeau), Ap-plied Physics B, Vol. 89, pp. 129-140, 2007.

“Two-point Time-series Measurements of Hydroxyl Con-centration in a Turbulent Nonpremixed Flame,” (with J. Zhang, G.B. King and N.M. Laurendeau), Applied Optics, Vol. 46, pp. 5742-5754, 2007.

Jiong Tang “Damage Detection using Piezoelectric Transducers and the Lamb Wave Approach: I System Analysis,” (with X. Wang and Y. Lu), Smart Materials and Structures, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 15 pages, doi: 10.1088/0964-1726/17/2/025033, 2008.

“Development of an Instrument to Measure Perspectives of Engineering Education Among College Students,” (with Q. Li, D.B. McCoach and H. Swaminathan), Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 97, No. 1, pp. 47-56, 2008.

“Investigation of Granular Damping in Transient Vibra-tions Using Hilbert Transform Based Technique,” (with X. Fang and H. Luo), Transactions of the ASME, Journal of Vibration and Acoustics, Vol. 130, No. 3, 11 pages, 2008.

“On the Tuning of Variable Piezoelectric Transducer Cir-cuitry Network for Structural Damage Identification,” (with L.J. Jiang and K.W. Wang), Journal of Sound and Vibration, Vol. 309, No. 3-5, pp. 695-717, 2008.

“An Optimal Sensitivity-enhancing Feedback Control Ap-proach via Eigenstructure Assignment for Structural Dam-age Identification,” (with L.J. Jiang and K.W. Wang), Trans-actions of the ASME, Journal of Vibration and Acoustics, Vol. 129, No. 6, pp. 771-783, 2007.

“Granular Damping Analysis using an Improved Discrete Element Approach,” (with X. Fang and H. Luo), Journal of Sound and Vibration, Vol. 308, No. 1-2, pp. 112-131, 2007.

Bi Zhang “A Rotary Flexural Bearing for Micromanufacturing,” (with H.P. Luo and Z.X. Zhou), Annals of the CIRP, Vol. 57, pp. 179-182, 2008.

“Experimental Study on Clamping Pressure Distribution in PEM Fuel Cells,” (with X.T. Wang and Y. Song), Journal of Power Sources, Vol. 179, pp. 305-309, 2008.

“Analysis of the Sawing Process with Abrasive Circular Saw Blades,” (with M. Mizuno and T. Iyama), ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Vol. 130, No. 1, pp. 011-012 – 011012-15, 2008.

“Numerical Simulation Study on Truing and Dressing of Bronze-bonded Diamond Wheel with Pulsed Laser,” (with G.Y. Chen, L.F. Mei, D.J. Zhu and G.G. Chen), Journal of Key Engineering Materials, Vol. 0, pp. 166-170, 2008.

“Lapping of Electrical Discharge Machining Processed Tool Steel Surface Using Elliptical Tool Motion,” (with M. Mizuno, T. Iyama and S. Sugawara), ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Vol. 129, No. 3, pp. 502-512, 2007.

“Cutting Mechanisms of Polycrystalline Diamond Com-pacts with a YAG Laser,” (with G.F. Zhang, Z.H. Deng and J.F. Cheng), Annals of the CIRP, Vol. 56, pp. 201-204, 2007.

“Recent Advances in Electrochemical Micromachining,” (with H.P. Luo, Z.X. Zhou and Y.H. Ren), China Mechan-ical Engineering, Vol. 129, No. 3, pp. 502-512, 2007.

1� Department of Mechanical Engineering • University of Connecticut

Conference Proceedings and Other Publications

Thomas J. Barber “The Use of CFD in Capstone Senior Design Projects,” Proceedings of the 46th American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, AIAA-2008-497, Reno, NV, January 7-10, 2008.

John C. Bennett “Promoting Effective Student Problem Solving,” Proceed-ings of the 2007 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, Paper IMECE2007-41028, Seattle, WA, November 11-15, 2007.

Theodore L. Bergman “Effect of Non-Uniform Clamping Pressure on PEM Fuel Cell Stack Performance,” (with N. Fekrazad), Proceedings of the 2007 American Society of Mechanical Engineers and Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME-JSME) Thermal Engineering Conference and Summer Heat Trans-fer Conference, HT2007-32076, Vancouver, BC, CANA-DA, July 8-12, 2007.

Zbigniew Byzmek “A Search for Ideal Solutions in Engineering Problems (in Polish),” Proceedings of the LII Scientific Conference of the Civil Engineering Committee of the Polish Academy of Science and the Committee of Science of the Polish Society of Civil Engineers, Vol 3, pp. 437-444, Krynica-Bialystok, Poland 2007, September 16-21, 2007.

Baki M. Cetegen “Soot Topography in a Planar Diffusion Flame Wrapped by Interacting Line Vortices,” (with S. Basu and S. Chaud-huri), Proceedings of the 2007 Technical Meeting of the Eastern States Section of the Combustion Institute, Paper No. B-14, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, Oc-tober 21-24, 2007.

“Temperature Measurements in the Stabilization Zone of Acoustically Modulated Turbulent Premixed Conical Flames by Emission Spectroscopy,” (with S. Chaudhuri), Proceedings of the 2007 Technical Meeting of the Eastern States Section of the Combustion Institute, Paper No. B-19, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, October 21-24, 2007.

“Fundamental Understanding of the Liquid Precursor Plasma Spray Process through Modeling and Experiments,” (with E.H. Jordan, M. Gell, D. Chen, S. Basu, M. Teicholz and X. Ma), Proceedings of the International Thermal Spray Conference, Masstrich, Netherlands, June 1-3, 2008.

Wilson K. S. Chiu “Non Invasive Multi-length Scale 3D Imaging of Func-tional Materials with Resolution from mm to sub 50 nm,” (with S.H. Lau, F. Garzon, A. Tkachuk, H. Ciu, H. Chang, M. Feser and W. Yun), Proceedings of the 13th Israel Ma-terials Engineering Conference, Haifa, Israel, December 9-10, 2007.

“Gas Transport and Electrochemistry in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells: Towards Optimal Electrode Structures,” (with K.N. Grew, A.S. Joshi and A.A. Peracchio), Proceedings of the 16th Discrete Simulation of Fluid Dynamics: Micro, Nano and Multiscale Physics for Emerging Technologies Confer-ence, Keynote Paper, Banff, Canada, July 23-27, 2007.

“A Dusty Fluid Model to Predict Hydroxyl Ion Conductiv-ity in Alkaline Anion Exchange Membranes,” (with K.N. Grew), Proceedings of the 213th Electrochemical Society (ECS) Meeting, Paper No. 194, Phoenix, AZ, May 18-23, 2008.

“Nondestructive Reconstruction and Analysis of Solid Ox-ide Fuel Cell Anodes using X-ray Computed Tomography at sub-50 nm Resolution,” (with J.R. Izzo, Jr., A.S. Joshi, A.A. Peracchio, K.N. Grew, A.T. Tkachuk, S.H. Wang and W. Yun), Proceedings of the 213th Electrochemical Society (ECS) Meeting, Paper No. 274, Phoenix, AZ, May 18-23, 2008.

“Impact of Electrochemical Reaction Mechanisms on Overpotentials in the Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Anode,” (with K.N. Grew and J.R. Izzo, Jr.), Proceedings of the 213th Electrochemical Society (ECS) Meeting, Paper No. 366, Phoenix, AZ, May 18-23, 2008.

“Structural Imaging and Optimization of Microtubular Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Electrodes,” (with K.N. Grew, A.S. Joshi, J.R. Izzo, Jr., A.A. Peracchio and B. Chalifoux), Pro-ceedings of the Army Research Office (ARO) Workshop on Soldier-Portable Power Systems: Status Review and Research Needs, CD-ROM, College Park, MD, February 20-21, 2008.

“Hydroxyl Ion Transport in Alkaline Anion Exchange Membranes: A Preliminary Study,” (with K.N. Grew and A.A. Peracchio), Proceedings of the Army Research Office (ARO) Workshop on Soldier-Portable Power Systems: Sta-tus Review and Research Needs, College Park, CD-ROM, College Park, MD, February 20-21, 2008.

1�Annual Report �007-�008

“Coupled Reactor-Scale and Surface Chemistry Model for Chemical Vapor Deposition of Carbon Nanotubes,” (with A.C. Lysaght), Proceedings of the American Soci-ety of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) International Me-chanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, Paper No. IMECE2007-41413, Seattle, WA, November 11-15, 2007.

“Characterization and Quantification of Charge and Heat Transfer in a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Anode,” (with K.N. Grew, A.S. Joshi and A.A. Peracchio), Proceedings of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and Japan Soci-ety of Mechanical Engineers (ASME-JSME) Thermal En-gineering Summer Heat Transfer Conference, Paper No. HT2007-32452, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, July 8-12, 2007.

“Role of Surface Species in Chemical Vapor Deposited Carbon Nanotubes,” (with A.C. Lysaght), Proceedings of the EuroCVD 16 – Sixteenth European Conference on Chemical Vapor Deposition, Paper No. 69, Den Haag, Netherlands, September 16-21, 2007.

“Non-invasive, Multiscale 3D X-ray Characterization of Porous Functional Composites and Membranes, with Resolution from mm to sub 50 nm,” (with S.H. Lau, F. Garzon, H. Cui, H. Chang, A. Tkachuk, M. Feser and W. Yun), Proceedings of the Materials Research Society (MRS) International Materials Research Conference, Symposium F: Functional Ceramics, Paper No. F21-4, Chongqing, China, June 9-12, 2008.

Mun K. Choi “Influence of Oxygen Concentration on the Sooting Be-havior of Ethanol Droplet Flames in Microgravity Con-ditions,” (A. Yozgatligil and S.H. Park), Proceedings of the International Symposium on Combustion XXXI, pp. 2165-2173, 2007.

Amir Faghri “Integration of Heat Pipe in to Fuel Cell Technology,” (with Z. Guo), Proceedings of the 14th International Heat Pipe Conference, Florianopolis, Brazil, April 20-27, 2007.

“Thermal and Start-up Characteristics of a Miniature Pas-sive DMFC System,” (with J. Rice), Proceedings of the 2007 American Society of Mechanical Engineers and Ja-pan Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME-JSME) Ther-mal Engineering Conference and Summer Heat Transfer Conference, HT2007, Vancouver, BC, Canada, July 8-12, 2007.

Tai-Hsi Fan “Prediction of Scaling Law for Particle Diffusion in Poly-mer Solutions,” (with R. Tuinier), Bulletin of the American Physical Society Conference - the 60th Annual Meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics, Vol. 52, No. 17, pp. 82, Salt Lake City, UT, November 18–20, 2007.

“Nanoparticle Retardation in Semidilute Polymer Solu-tions,” (with R. Tuinier, J.K.G. Dhont and T. Taniguchi), Proceedings of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) Conference, Mathematical and Statistical Physics, Vol. 982, pp. 326-330, September 2007.

Horea Ilies “Shaping with Deformations,” (with N. Wu), Proceedings of the 2008 National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineer-ing Research and Innovation Conference, Knoxville, TN, January 7-10, 2008.

“Space Sampling for Boundary Evaluation of General Sweeps,” (with H. Erdim), Proceedings of the 2008 Na-tional Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research and Innovation Conference, Knoxville, TN, January 7-10, 2008.

“A Point Membership Classification Test for Sweeping Solids,” (with H. Erdim), Proceedings of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Design Auto-mation Conference, ASME IDETC 2007, Las Vegas, NV, September 2007.

“Motion-Based Shape Morphing of Solid Models,” (with H. Erdim), Proceedings of the Design Automation Con-ference, ASME IDETC 2007, Las Vegas, NV, September 2007.

“Structural Prediction of Peptide Based Nano-Systems via Progressive Landscape Evolution,” (with P. Bohnenkamp and K. Kazerounian), Proceedings of the International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science (IFToMM 2007) - the 12th Congress in Mecha-nism and Machine Science, Besançon, France, June 17-21, 2007.

“Kinematic Tools in Uncovering Protein Conformation Pathways,” (with K. Kazerounian), Proceedings of the Indo-US Workshop on Protein Kinematics & Protein Conformations, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, December 10-11, 2007.

“Predicting Protein Conformational Transitions by Trajec-tory Planning through Torsion Angle Propensity Maps,” (with C. Madden, P. Bohnenkamp and K. Kazerounian), Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Applications of Kine-matics, Lima, Peru, January 9-11, 2008.


“Octree-based Boundary Evaluation for General Sweeps,” (with H. Erdim), Proceedings of the International Sympo-sium on Tools and Methods for Competitive Engineering, Izmir, Turkey, April 21-25, 2008.

“A Comparison of Kinetostatic and Multibody Dynamics Models for Simulating Protein Structures,” (with H-J. Su, J. Parker and K. Kazerounian), Proceedings of the Mecha-nisms and Robotics Conference, ASME IDETC 2007, Las Vegas, NV, September 2007.

Eric H. Jordan “Rare Earth Element Doped Ceramics and their Lifetime Characteristics with Varying Temperature,” (with M. Ma-jewski and M.W. Renfro), Proceedings of the 46th Ameri-can Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Paper No. AIAA-2008-266, Reno, NV, January 7-10, 2008.

“Fundamental Understanding of the Liquid Precursor Plasma Spray Process through Modeling and Experi-ments,” (with B.M. Cetegen, M. Gell, D. Chen, S. Basu, M. Teicholz and X. Ma), Proceedings of the International Thermal Spray Conference, CD-ROM, Masstrich, Neth-erlands, June 1-3, 2008.

“Solution Precursor Plasma Spray of Thermal Barrier Coat-ings,” (with M. Gell), Proceedings of the Turbine Forum 2008 - Advanced Coatings for High Temperature, Nice, France, April 23-25, 2008.

“Solution Precursor Plasma Spray of Thermal Barrier Coatings,” (with M. Gell), Turbine Forum 2008, pp. 1-9, 2008.

Kazem Kazerounian “Structural Prediction of Peptide Based Nano-Systems via Progressive Landscape Evolution,” (with P. Bohnenkamp and H. Ilies), Proceedings of the IFToMM 2007 - the 12th Congress in Mechanism and Machine Science, Besançon, France, June 17-21, 2007.

“Predicting Protein Conformational Transitions by Trajec-tory Planning through Torsion Angle Work Envelopes,” (with C. Madden, P. Bohnenkamp and H. Ilies), Proceed-ings of the IAK 2008 Conference on Interdisciplinary Ap-plications of Kinematics, Lima, Peru, January 9-11, 2008.

“Barriers to Creativity in Engineering Education: A Study of Instructors and Students Perceptions,” (with S. Foley), Proceedings of the 2007 ASME Design Education Confer-ence, ASME- DETC2007-34424, Las Vegas, NV, Septem-ber 4-7, 2006.

“A Comparison of Kinetostatic and Multibody Dy-namic Models for Simulating Protein Structures,” (with J. Parker, H.J. Su and H. Ilies), Proceedings of the 2007 ASME Mechanisms and Robotics Conference, ASME-DETC2007-34861, Las Vegas, NV, September 4-7, 2006.

“Kinematic Tools in Uncovering Protein Conformation Pathways,” (with H. Ilies), Proceedings of the Indo-US Workshop on Protein Kinematics & Protein Conforma-tions, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, De-cember 10-11, 2007.

Shiva Kotha “Downregulation of Dkk1 in Response to Mechanical Loading of Bone,” (with A. Ferris, N. Kim-Veroha and M. Johnson), Proceedings of the American Association for Dental Research (37th Meeting of the AADR), Dallas, TX, April 2-5, 2008.

“Disruption of the Osteocyte f-Actin Cytoskeleton in Response to Loading,” (with M. Ferrari and L.F. Bone-wald), Proceedings of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), Los Angeles, CA, September 26-29, 2007.

“Ultrasound Prediction of Mechanical Properties of Corti-cal Bone with Varying Bone Mineral Content,” (with N. Guzelsu), Proceedings of the Biomedical Engineering Soci-ety (BMES), Los Angeles, CA, September 26-29, 2007.

“Mechanism of Repair of Damaged Bone Tissue Material Properties by Osteocytes,” Proceedings of the Orthopaedic Research Society (54th Annual Meeting of the ORS), San Diego, CA, February 10-13, 2008.

Nejat Olgac“Robust Control of Cart-Pendulum Dynamics against Un-certain Multiple Time Delays,” (with E. Cavdaroglu), Pro-ceedings of the Automatic Control Conference, ACC 08, CD-ROM, Seattle, WA, June 11-13, 2008.

“Complete Stability Map of Neutral Type, First Order, Two Time Delay Systems,” (with R. Sipahi and D. Breda), Proceedings of the Automatic Control Conference, ACC 07, CD-ROM, New York, NY, July 11-13, 2007.

“A New Micro-injector and an Optical Sensor,” (with A. Ergenc), Proceedings of the Automatic Control Confer-ence, ACC 07, CD-ROM, New York, NY, July 11-13, 2007.

“Delay Decoupling Control, A Novel Method for Systems with Multiple Delays,” (with M. Poursina), Proceedings of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) - Time Delay System Workshop - TDS 07, CD-ROM, Nantes, France, September 17-19, 2007.


“Inverting Control, A New Strategy on Time Delayed Sys-tems,” (with A. Ergenc and H. Fazelinia), Proceedings of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) World Congress Seoul, CD-ROM, Seoul, Korea, July 6-11, 2008.

“Mathematical Tools for Time-Delayed Dynamics Applied to Variable-Pitch Milling Chatter – Active Vibration Ab-sorption,” (with A. Ergenc), Proceedings of the National Science Foundation - Institute for Research on Environ-ment and Economy (NSF-IREE) Grantees Meeting, 6 pages, West Lafayette, IN, Oct. 30 - Nov. 1 2007.

Ugur Pasaogullari “A Computational Analysis to Identify the Current Density Characteristics of a Micro-Tubular Solid Oxide Fuel Cell,” (with M.F. Serincan and N.M. Sammes), Proceedings of the 6th Fuel Cell Science, Engineering and Technology Conference, doi:10.1149/1.2780953, Vol. 11, pp. 395-401, Lucerne, Switzerland, June 16-18, 2008.

“Neutron Radiography Imaging of Non-Isothermal Start-up of a Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell,” (with R. Fu, D.S. Hussey, D.L. Jacobson and M. Arif ), Proceedings of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) Transactions (ECS Meet-ing 212 & Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells 7), doi:10.1149/1.2780953, pp. 395-401, Washington, DC, October 7-12, 2007.

“Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells for Special Applications,” (with C.Y. Wang), Proceedings of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Advanced Study Institute: Mini-Micro Fuel Cells as Electric Energy Generators, Cesme, Turkey, July 22-August 3, 2007.

Ranga Pitchumani “Novel Designs of Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cells,” (with Y. Zhang and A. Mawardi), Proceedings of A Festschrift in Honour of Professor Suhas P. Sukhatme, pp. 22-26, Hyderabad, India, October 2-3, 2008.

Michel W. Renfro “Study of Reaction Rates through a Local Extinction Point in Nonpremixed Flames,” (with W.F. Carnell, Jr.), Proceed-ings of the 2007 Technical Meeting of the Eastern States Section, The Combustion Institute, CD-ROM, Charlot-tesville, VA, October 21-24, 2007.

“Flame Structure Measurements and Principal Compo-nent Analysis in Self-excited Acoustically-driven Premixed Flames,” (with K.M. Kopp-Vaughan, M. Gluesenkamp and G.B. King), Proceedings of the Central States Section Meeting, The Combustion Institute, CD-ROM, Tuscaloo-sa, AL, April 20-22, 2008.

“Simultaneous Hydroxyl Concentration and Pressure Time-series Measurements in a Self-excited Acoustically-driven Tube Combustor,” (with M. Gluesenkamp, K.K. Venkatesan, A. Noble, G.B. King, N.M. Laurendeau and K.M. Kopp-Vaughan), Proceedings of the Central States Section Meeting, The Combustion Institute, CD-ROM, Tuscaloosa, AL, April 20-22, 2008.

“Nitric Oxide Concentration and Lifetime Measurements using Picosecond Time-resolved Laser-induced Fluores-cence,” (with K.K. Venkatesan, A. Noble, K. Kirkegaard, G.B. King and N.M. Laurendeau), Proceedings of the Central States Section Meeting, The Combustion Institute, CD-ROM, Tuscaloosa, AL, April 20-22, 2008.

“Rare Earth Element Doped Ceramics and Their Lifetime Characteristics with Varying Temperature,” (with M. Ma-jewski and E.H. Jordan), Proceedings of the 46th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Paper No. AIAA-2008-266, Reno, NV, January 7-10, 2008.

“Two-point Scalar Time-series Measurements and Simula-tions in Turbulent Partially Premixed Flames,” (with G.B. King and N.M. Laurendeau), Proceedings of the AFOSR/ARO Meeting on Chemical Propulsion, CD-ROM, Boul-der, CO, June 11-13, 2007.

Jiong Tang “A Sensitivity Enhancing Control Approach for Structural Model Updating,” (with L. Jiang and K.W. Wang), Pro-ceedings of the American Society of Mechanical Engineer-ing (ASME) International Design Engineering Technical Conferences (IDETC), 21st Biennial Conference on Me-chanical Vibration and Noise, DETC2007-34399, Las Ve-gas, NV, September 4-7, 2007.

“Investigation of Granular Damping in Transient Vibra-tions using Hilbert Transform Based Technique,” (with X. Fang and H. Luo), Proceedings of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) International Design Engineering Technical Conferences (IDETC), 21st Bi-ennial Conference on Mechanical Vibration and Noise, DETC2007-34900, Las Vegas, NV, September 4-7, 2007.

“Parametric Analysis of Damage Detection using Piezoelec-tric Transducer and Lamb Wave Approach,” (with X. Wang and Y. Lu), Proceedings of the American Society of Me-chanical Engineering (ASME) International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE), Design Engineering, DE-42010, Seattle, WA, November 9-13, 2007.

“Design of Dual-stage Actuation System for High Precision Optical Manufacturing,” (with W. Dong and Y. ElDeeb), Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, Smart Structures / NDE, V6928, San Diego, CA, March 8-12, 2008.

1� Department of Mechanical Engineering • University of Connecticut

Patents Awarded

Wei Sun“Virtual Heart Valve,” Publication date: 13.09.2007. In-ternational Patent Application No. PCT/US2007/005463 (with Dr. H.C. Cao).

“Enhanced Statistical Damage Identification Using Fre-quency Shift Information with Tunable Piezoelectric Cir-cuitry,” (with J. Zhao), Proceedings of SPIE - The Interna-tional Society for Optical Engineering, Smart Structures / NDE, V6932, San Diego, CA, March 8-12, 2008.

“Damage Identification Using Piezoelectric Impedance and Spectral Element Method,” (with X. Wang), Proceed-ings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engi-neering, Smart Structures / NDE, V6932, San Diego, CA, March 8-12, 2008.

“Robust Calibration for Localization in Clustered Wire-less Sensor Networks,” (J.J. Cho, Y. Ding and Y. Chen), Proceedings of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE2007), Scottsdale, AZ, Sept. 22-25, 2007.

“Dynamic Data-driven Fault Diagnosis of Wind Turbine Systems,” (Y. Ding, E. Byon, C. Park, Y. Lu and X. Wang), Proceedings of the International Conference of Computa-tional Methods in Science and Engineering, Part I, LNCS 4487, pp. 1197-1204, Corfu, Greece, September 25-30, 2007.

Bi Zhang “Laser Truing and Dressing of Bronze-bonded Diamond Grinding Wheel and its High-Speed Grinding Perfor-mance,” (G.Y. Chen, L.F. Mei, W.M. You, J.Y. Yu and K. Huang), Proceedings of the Advances in Abrasive Technol-ogy X SME, ISAAT, pp. 607-614, Dearborn, MI, Septem-ber 26-28, 2007.

“Wear Performance of Ground Nanostructured Ceramic Coatings,” (X.M. Cheng), Proceedings of the Advances in Abrasive Technology X SME, ISAAT, pp. 475-482, Dear-born, MI, September 26-28, 2007.

New Grant Awards

Shiva Kotha“Importance of Beta-Catenin Signaling in Osteo-cytes Associated with Anabolic Load,” National Institute of Health, 8/08-5/1�, $1,757,809.

Amir Faghri (PI), Theodore Bergman (Co-PI), and Ranga Pitchumani (Co-PI)“Novel Thermal Energy Storage for Concen-trating Solar Power,” Department of Energy, 1/09-1�/11, $1,�90,��. Eric Jordan (PI), Mark Aindow (Co-PI), C. Barry Carter (co-PI), Wilson Chiu (Co-PI), Steven Suib (Co-PI), Fotios Papad-imitrakopoulos (Co-PI)“Acquisition of Dual Beam Focused Ion Beam/Scanning Electron Microscope (FIB/SEM),” Department of Defense / Defense University Research Instrumentation Program, 4/08-4/09 $700,000.

Mun Y. Choi“Flex Droplet Flame Extinguishment in Micro-gravity,” NASA, 8/08-1�/11, $��0,000.

Tai-Hsi Fan (PI), Nejat Olgac (Co-PI)“New Concepts in Fluidics and Mechanics for Controlled Micro-injection,” National Science Foundation, 08/08-07/10, $�00,000.

Nejat Olgac“Simple and Cost Effective Storage of Mouse Sperm,” National Institute of Health and Mass-chusetts General Hospital, �/08-4/09, $9�,918.

Wilson Chiu“GOALI: Pore-Scale Understanding of Ohmic Polarization in Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Elec-trodes,” National Science Foundation, 10/08-9/09, $90,000. Jiong Tang“Highly Sensitive and Robust Damage Detec-tion of Periodic Structures with Piezoelectric Networking,” DoD/AFOSR/University of Mich-igan, �/08-5/10, $8�,�91.

Kevin D. Murphy“Collaborative Research: Improvement of MEMS Performance by Structural Vibrations - Theory and Practical Implementations,” National Sci-ence Foundation, 08/08-07/11, $50,000.


Thomas Barber “Senior Design Projects,” (with all department faculty), Corporate Supporters, (ongoing), $149,411.

Theodore L. Bergman “NSF Workshop for Frontiers in Transport Phenomena Re-search and Education: Energy Systems, Biological Systems, Security Information Technology and Nanotechnology,” (with A. Faghri), National Science Foundation, 04/15/06 - 08/31/07, $150,000.

“SGER: Engineered Microclimates for Enhanced Biomass Production,” (with Y. Li), National Science Foundation, (7/31/07 - 7/31/08), $80,000.

“Smart Salt Selection,” (with R. Bogner), GlaxoSmithKline, 12/23/05 - 10/22/2006, $68,052.

Zbigniew M. Bzymek“Research and Teaching of Industrial Modeling,” (with M. Nunez), Department of Defense/ Architecture Framework/ Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology, 04/14/08 - 05/31/09, $44,200.

Baki M. Cetegen “Optical Diagnostic Tools for Fuel Cell Development and Operational Control,” (with M. Renfro), Connecticut Innovations Inc. and UTC Power, 08/01/07 - 08/31/09, $264,000.

“GOALI: Experimental and Computational Study of Bluff-body Flame Stabilization with Non-homogeneous Upstream Mixing,” (with M. Renfro), National Science Foundation, 06/01/06 - 05/31/09, $200,000.

“Solution Spray Plasma Processing of Nano-structured Ceramic Coatings,” (with E.H. Jordan, M. Gell and N. Padture), Office of Naval Research, 01/01/05 - 12/30/07, $1,000,000.

“Engineered Nano-composite Oxides for High Durabil-ity Missile Domes,” (with E. Jordan, M. Aindow, and M. Gell and Inframat Corporation, M.I.T. and U. Michigan), Department of Defense/DARPA, 04/16/07 - 4/31/10, $2,808,000.

Wilson K. S. Chiu “Effects of Impurities on Fuel Cell Performance and Du-rability,” (with U. Pasaogullari, T.M. Molter, M. Aindow and S. Suib) Department of Energy, 11/01/05 - 10/31/10, $1,900,000.

Current Grants and Contracts“Understanding Hole Pattern Formation during Micro-structured Optical Fiber Draw,” National Science Founda-tion, 10/01/03 - 09/30/07, $296,016.

“Carbon Nanotube Synthesis by Open-Air Laser-Induced Chemical Vapor Deposition,” National Science Founda-tion, 09/01/07 - 08/31/10, $382,284.

“Advanced Fuel Cell Research for Weapon Applications,” Office of Naval Research, 08/23/04 - 09/30/07, $48,000.

“Structural Imaging and Optimization of Microtubular Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Electrodes,” Army Research Office, 04/01/05 - 09/30/08, $150,000.

“REU for FRS 523455,” National Science Foundation, 10/01/03 - 09/30/07, $5,000.

“Fuel Cell Performance Using Hydrogen Peroxide Refor-mate as the Oxidant,” Office of Naval Research, 01/01/07 - 12/31/09, $210,000.

Amir Faghri “Analysis of Heat Pipes for Heat Recovery from High Tem-perature,” Exxon Mobil Research and Engineering Com-pany, 02/15/07 - 02/15/09, $49,500.

“Transport Phenomena in Micro-Miniature Passive Feed Direct Alcohol Fuel Cells,” National Science Foundation, 09/01/07 - 08/30/10, $300,342.

“NSF Workshop for Frontiers in Transport Phenomena Research and Education: Energy Systems, Biological Sys-tems, Security Information Technology and Nanotechnol-ogy,” (with T.L. Bergman), National Science Foundation, 04/15/06 - 08/31/07, $150,000.

“Graduate Fellowships in Alternative and Renewable Ener-gy Conversion Technologies,” (with R. Pitchumani), U.S. Department of Education, GAANN Program, Graduate Fellowships in Alternative and Renewable Energy Conver-sion Technologies, 08/15/07 - 08/14/10, $383,643.

Tai-Hsi Fan “Quantitative Analysis of Molecular Transport and Popu-lation Kinetics of Stem Cell Cultivation in a Microflu-idic System,” (with J.C. Conover and X. Yao), Connecti-cut Department of Public Health, 03/02/07 - 03/01/09, $200,000.


Xinyu Huang “Telecom Backup Power,” (with K. Reifsnider), United Technologies/UTC Power/UTC Fuel Cells, 07/15/06 - 07/14/08, $150,000.

“Specialty Coatings Development for Fuel Cells,” (with K. Reifsnider), Tanury Corporations, $100,000.

Horea Ilies “CAREER: Geometric Singularities in Design and Man-ufacturing,” National Science Foundation, 08/01/07 - 07/31/10, $400,000.

“SGER: A Mechanics Framework for the Analysis and Design of Protein Based Nano Machines,” (with K. Ka-zerounian), National Science Foundation, 8/1/2007 - 07/31/2008, $100,000.

“Assessment of UGS Digital Manufacturing Solutions,” Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology, 05/01/08 - 05/31/09, $103,000.

“COGEM: Constrained Geometric Morphing,” National Science Foundation, 03/01/06 - 03/31/09, $320,000.

“IREE Supplement,” National Science Foundation, 03/01/06 - 03/31/09, $50,000.

Eric H. Jordan “Engineered Nano-Composite Oxides for High Durability Missile Domes,” (with M. Aindow, B.M. Cetegen and M. Gell and Inframat Corporation, M.I.T. and U. Michigan), Department of Defense/DARPA/Raytheon, 11/01/06 - 4/31/10, $2,808,000.

“Solution Spray Plasma Processing of Nano-structured Ceramic Coatings,” (with B.M. Cetegen, M. Gell and N. Padture), Office of Naval Research, 01/01/05 - 12/30/07, $1,000,000.

“Optical NDI of Thermal Barrier Coatings,” National Sci-ence Foundation STTR Jointly with Southwest Sciences, 01/01/08 - 12/31/08, $50,000.

“GOALI: Development of Temperature Sensing Doped Particles for Plasma Deposition Diagnostics,” (with M. Renfro), National Science Foundation, 10/1/06 - 11/30/09, $350,000.

Kazem Kazerounian “Design and Development of a New Massage Chair System,” OSIM International, 07/01/07 - 06/30/09, $96,678.

“SGER: A Mechanics Framework for the Analysis and Design of Protein Based Nano Machines,” (with H. Ilies), National Science Foundation, 08/01/07 - 07/31/08, $99,958.

“Design and Development of Sensory Computer Con-trolled Manipulators,” New Dimension Technologies Cor-poration, 12/15/06 - 12/14/08, $124,589.

Nejat Olgac “A New Paradigm for Intelligently Managing the Time Delay,” Department of Energy, 08/01/04 - 09/30/07, $126,000.

“A Novel Microinjection Process Using Rotational Oscilla-tions,” National Institute of Health (jointly with Harvard Medical School and UC Davis), 09/01/04 - 09/30/08, $204,500.

“Novel Framework for Optimizing Non-Uniform Pitch Milling,” National Science Foundation, 06/15/05 - 05/31/09, $260,000 (with $6,000 REU Supplement).

“IREE for 523915,” National Science Foundation, 06/15/05 - 05/31/2009, $14,500.

“Swarm Behavior during Conflicts: From Biological to En-gineered Systems,” US Army Research Office, 08/01/07 - 07/31/10, $271,000.

“Productivity Improvements for Rough Milling of Blade Slots on Titanium Disks,” United Technologies and Pratt & Whitney, 01/01/06 - 12/30/07, $52,000.

Ugur Pasaogullari “CAREER: Role of Interfaces on Transport Phenomena in Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells,” National Science Founda-tion, 02/01/08 - 01/31/13, $400,000.

“Effects of Impurities on Fuel Cell Performance and Dura-bility,” (with W.K.S. Chiu, T.M. Molter, M. Aindow and S. Suib), Department of Energy, 11/01/05 - 10/31/10, $1,900,000.

“Ammonia-Borane Pyrolysis: Analysis and Characteriza-tion,” (with T. Molter, S. Suib and B. Wilhite), Ensign-Bickford, 09/01/06 - 08/31/07, $194,896.

“Thermal Fluid Analysis of Ammonia-Borane Pyrolysis,” (with T. Molter and S. Suib), Ensign-Bickford, 09/01/07 - 04/30/08, $90,533.

“Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Portable Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells,” Design by Analysis, Inc., 05/15/07 - 08/15/07, $24,939.


“Effect of Permeation on Net Water Transport Coefficient in Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells,” Nissan Motor Co., 02/01/08 - 01/31/09, $41,577.

Ranga Pitchumani “Investigations on Transport Phenomena Governing Fab-rication of Microstructures via Microcasting of Nanopar-ticulate Slurry,” National Science Foundation, 09/01/05 - 08/31/09, $324,000.

“Graduate Fellowships in Alternative and Renewable En-ergy Conversion Technologies,” (with A. Faghri), U.S. De-partment of Education, GAANN Program, Graduate Fel-lowships in Alternative and Renewable Energy Conversion Technologies, 08/15/07 - 08/14/10, $383,643.

“Rapid Replication of Electroforming Micromolds for Fab-rication of High Aspect Ratio Microstructures,” National Science Foundation, 09/01/07-08/31/10, $300,001.

Kenneth Reifsnider“Enabling Fuel Cells for Distributed Telecom Backup Pow-er Applications: Accelerated Reliability Testing Capability and Methods,” CT Clean Energy Fund Yankee Program, 08/15/06 - 08/14/07, $600,000.

“Telecom Backup Power,” (with X. Huang), United Technologies/UTC Power/UTC Fuel Cells, 07/15/06 - 07/14/08, $150,000.

“Cold Temp Fatigue,” Exxon Mobil, 02/15/07 - 02/14/08, $67,568.

Michael W. Renfro “GOALI: Experimental and Computational Study of Bluff-body Flame Stabilization with Non-homogeneous Upstream Mixing,” (with B.M. Cetegen), National Science Foundation, 06/01/06 - 05/31/09, $200,000.

“CAREER: Characterization of Propagating and Reced-ing Flame Edges in Composition and Velocity Gradi-ents,” National Science Foundation, 02/01/03 - 01/31/09, $417,999.

“Study of Combustor Acoustics Using Time-Series and Instantaneous Flame-Structure Measurements,” Air Force Office of Scientific Research, 12/01/05 - 11/30/08, $450,000.

“GOALI: Development of Temperature Sensing Doped Particles for Plasma Deposition Diagnostics,” (with E. Jor-dan), National Science Foundation, 10/1/06 - 11/30/09, $349,850.

“PLIF and Diode Laser Measurements in Ultra-Compact Combustor,” Department of Defense/Air Force/Spectral Energies, LLC, 01/15/08 - 08/15/08, $49,464.

“Bluff-Body Flame Holding under Partially-Premixed Conditions,” Pratt & Whitney, 01/01/05 - 12/31/07, $39,000.

“Optical Diagnostic Tools for Fuel Cell Development and Operational Control,” (with B.M. Cetegen), Connecticut Innovations Inc. and UTC Power, 08/01/07 - 08/31/09, $264,000.

Jiong Tang “Modeling and Control Improvement for High Preci-sion Optical Manufacturing,” Gerber Scientific, Inc., 11/01/2005 - 06/30/2009, $279,198.

“Granular Damping Analysis and Design for Vibration Suppression,” National Science Foundation, 08/15/03 - 07/31/08, $251,558.

“Sensor Small Team: Robust Wireless Piezoelectric Sensor Network for Structural Health Monitoring,” National Sci-ence Foundation, 08/01/04 - 07/31/09, $150,000.

“Multifunctional Adaptive Piezoelectric Sensory System for Structural Damage Detection,” National Science Founda-tion, 08/15/05 - 07/31/09, $117,000.

“DDDAS: A Framework for the Dynamic Data-driven Fault Diagnosis of Wind Turbine Systems,” National Sci-ence Foundation, 06/01/06 - 05/31/09, $212,250.

“Highly Sensitive and Robust Damage Detection of Peri-odic Structures with Piezoelectric Networking,” Air Force Office of Scientific Research through Penn State University, 12/15/06 - 11/30/09, $135,963.

“IREE Supplement,” National Science Foundation, 06/01/06 - 05/31/09, $32,350.

Bi Zhang “Software-Supported High Efficiency Grinding,” Con-necticut Center for Advanced Technology, 1/1/2008 - 12/31/08, $67,172.

�0 Department of Mechanical Engineering • University of Connecticut

Professional Activities and ServiceThomas BarberMember, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Member, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronau-tics (AIAA).

Member, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) - Computational Fluid Dynamics Technical Committee.

Member, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronau-tics (AIAA) Professional Education Technical Committee.

John C. BennettMember, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Member, American Association of Colleges and Universi-ties (AAC&U).

Member, Tau Beta Pi Society.

Theodore L. BergmanFellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Member, Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineer-ing (CASE).

Zbigniew M. BzymekMember, Pi Tau Sigma Honorary Society.

Member, New York Academy of Sciences.

Member, Engineering Committee of the Polish Academy of Science.

Baki M. CetegenFellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Member, American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE)

Member, Combustion Institute.

Treasurer, Combustion Institute Eastern States Section, 1997 to 2007.

Vice-Chair, Executive Committee of Combustion Insti-tute, Eastern States Section.

Member, National Science Foundation Combustion and Plasma Systems Proposal Review Panel, 2007.

Member, Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.

Member, External Advisory Board, Connecticut Global Fuel Cell Center, 2008 - present.

Wilson K. S. ChiuMember, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Vice Chair, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Heat Transfer Division K-15 Technical Commit-tee on Transport Phenomena in Manufacturing and Mate-rials Processing, 2007 - present.

Secretary, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Advanced Energy Systems Division, Systems Analysis and Fuel Cell Technical Committee, 2008 - pres-ent.

Member, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Heat Transfer Division K-15 Technical Commit-tee on Transport Phenomena in Manufacturing and Mate-rials Processing, 1999 - present.

Member, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Advanced Energy Systems Division, Systems Analysis and Fuel Cell Technical Committee, 2006 - pres-ent.

Associate Editor, International Journal of Thermal Scienc-es, 2007 - present.

Editorial Board Member, The Open Energy and Fuels Jour-nal, 2007 - present.

Board Member, The Open Renewable Energy Journal, 2008 - present.

Member, ECS Energy Technology Division, 2008 - pres-ent.

Member, External Advisory Board, Connecticut Global Fuel Cell Center, 2006 - 2007.

Technical Committee Representative (KCR), Heat Transfer Division K-15, ASME International Mechanical Engineer-ing Congress and Exposition, 2008.

Co-Topic Organizer, Systems Analysis and Fuel Cell Tech-nical Committee, Advanced Energy Systems Division,

�1Annual Report �007-�008

ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, 2008.

Session Organizer, American Society of Mechanical Engi-neers (ASME) Summer Heat Transfer Conference, 2008.

Session Chair and Co-Chair, American Society of Me-chanical Engineers (ASME) International Mechanical En-gineering Congress and Exposition, 2007.

Speaker, ‘Research Funding & Proposal Writing, Tips for Tenure and Promotion: A Symposium for New and Pro-spective Faculty,’ Sponsored by the Mechanical Engineer-ing Department Heads Committee, ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, 2007.

Session Chair, 16th Discrete Simulation of Fluid Dynam-ics: Micro, Nano and Multiscale Physics for Emerging Technologies Conference, 2007.

Session Chair, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)-JSME Thermal Engineering Summer Heat Trans-fer Conference, 2007.

Session Chair, 5th American Society of Mechanical Engi-neers (ASME) International Fuel Cell Science, Engineer-ing & Technology Conference, 2007.

Mun K. ChoiMember, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Member, American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE)

Member, Combustion Institute.

Member, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Session Organizer, Emerging Frontiers of Combustion Ses-sion, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Expo-sition (IMECE) Conference, November 2008.

Scientific Member and Special Lecturer, The 4th Interna-tional Conference on Cooling and Heating Technologies (ICCHT2008), October 2008.

International Session Chair, Topical Simulations, Diagnos-tics, and Experiments in Fire and Combustion Systems’ ses-sion, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Heat Transfer Conference, July 2007.

Organizer, National Conference of the Pi Tau Sigma Me-chanical Engineering Honor Society, Georgia Institute of Technology, GA, February 2008.

David (Ed) CrowMember, National Academy of Engineering.


Amir FaghriFellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Associate Fellow, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).


Honorary Editorial Advisory Board, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer.

Editorial Advisory Board, International Journal of Numer-ical Methods for Heat and Fluid Flow.

Honorary Member, Editorial Advisory Board, Internation-al Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer.

Editorial Board, Journal of Heat Transfer Research.

Editorial Board, Journal of Applied Thermal Engineering.

Executive Editor, Heat Transfer Engineering Journal (Ther-mal Storage & Heat Pipes).

North American Editor, Journal of Enhanced Heat Transfer.

Honorary Member, International Scientific Commit-tee, VII Minsk International Seminar: Heat Pipes, Heat Pumps, Refrigerators, Minsk, Belarus, 2008.

Member, International Advisory Board, The 9th Interna-tional Heat Pipe Symposium, Selangor, Malaysia, 2008.

Member, Council of Advisors, College of Engineering, University of California, Riverside.

Member, Board of Directors, Roller Bearings of America, Co.

Horea IliesMember, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

General Program Co-Chair, American Society of Mechani-cal Engineers (ASME) 2008 IDETC & CIE Conferences.

Program Committee, American Society of Mechanical En-gineers (ASME) Design Automation Conference.

�� Department of Mechanical Engineering • University of Connecticut

Eric H. JordanFellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Member, Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE).

Kazem KazerounianFellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Associate Editor, Mechanism and Machine Theory, 2002 - present.

Member, Organizing Committee, Conference on Interdis-ciplinary Applications of Kinematics (IAK 2008).

Member, Management Committee, ASME Journal of Medical Devices.

Vice Chairman and Treasurer, American Society of Me-chanical Engineers (ASME) Design Division Executive Committee 2007 – 2008.

Member, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Design Division Executive Committee, 2004 – 2010.

Executive, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers in Engineering Conference, 2005-2007.

Shiva KothaSession Chair, Biomaterials, Biomedical Engineering Soci-ety (BMES), Los Angeles, CA, 2007.

Session Chair, Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Conference.

Kevin MurphyMember, American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).

Nejat OlgacFellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).


Program Chair, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, Los Angeles, CA, 2009.

Ugur Pasaogullari

Member, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Member, Electrochemical Society (ECS).

Ranga PitchumaniFellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).


Associate Editor, American Society of Mechanical Engi-neers (ASME) Journal of Heat Transfer.

Editorial Board Member, Journal of Thermoplastic Com-posite Materials.

Keynote Speaker, Symposium in Honor of Professor Suhas P. Sukhatme, Joint Indian Society for Heat and Mass Trans-fer (ISHMT)/ American Society of Mechanical Engineers ASME Heat and Mass Transfer Conference, Hyderabad, India, January 2–5, 2008.

Michael W. RenfroMember, Combustion Institute.

Session Chair, “Laminar Flames,” Combustion Institute, Central States Section.

Session Chair, “Turbulent Flames,” Combustion Institute, Eastern States Section.

Session Chair, “Engineering Analysis, Virtual Engineering and Manufacturing I” 5th International ASME Confer-ence on Fuel Cell Science, Engineering and Technology, Brooklyn, NY, June 2007.

Executive Board Member, Combustion Institute, Eastern States Section.

Academic Advisory Board Member, Department of En-ergy, University Turbine Systems Research Program.

Member, Combustion Program Review Committee, Na-tional Science Foundation, 2007.

Wei SunMember, Council of Cardiovascular Radiology and Inter-vention, American Heart Association.

Member, Biomedical Engineering Society.

Member, American Society of Biomechanics.


Jiong Tang

��Annual Report �007-�008


Organizer, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems Symposium, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Conference on Smart Materials, 2008.

Organizer, Sensors, Instrumentation, and Measurement Track Symposium, 4th Annual Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Conference on Automation Science and Engineering, 2008.

Organizer, Analysis and Control of Vibrations and Wave Propagations Symposium, American Society of Mechani-cal Engineers (ASME) International Mechanical Engineer-ing Conference and Exhibition, 2007.

Organizer, Damage Detection, Model Updating and Sys-tem Identification of Mechanical Systems Symposium, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) In-ternational Design Engineering Technical Conferences, 2007.

Bi ZhangMember, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Associate Member, International Institute for Production Engineering Research (CIRP).

Member, Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME).

Member, American Society for Precision Engineering (ASPE).

Member, Japan Society for Precision Engineering (JSPE).

Current and former faculty gathered to celebrate Prof. Jeffers’ career

Professor Robert Jeffers retires after 40 years at UConn

The send-off reception for retiring profes-sor Dr. Robert Jeffers brought together many current and former Mechanical Engineering faculty members, staff, and student well-wish-ers. Prof. Jeffers retired after serving for more than 40 years in the Mechanical Engineering department. He will continue to participate actively in the department as an undergradu-ate advisor to mechanical engineering stu-dents, and will occasionally teach classes.


Ph.D. Dissertations �007-�008 Saptarshi BasuAdvisor: Professor Baki CetegenThesis Title: ‘Optical Diagnostics and Computational Modeling of Reacting and Non-Reacting Single and Multiphase flows’

Srinath ChakravarthyAdvisor: Professor Wilson ChiuThesis Title: ‘Thermal Processing and Failure of Micro-structured Optical Fibers’

Ali ErgencAdvisor: Professor Nejat OlgacThesis Title: ‘A Novel Method for ICSI: Rotationally Oscil-lating Drill, Design, Control and Monitoring’

Xingjie FangAdvisor: Professor Jiong TangThesis Title: ‘A Comprehensive Investigation of Granular Damping’

Hassan FazeliniaAdvisor: Professor Nejat OlgacThesis Title: ‘A Novel Stability Analysis of Systems with Multiple Time Delay and Its Application to High Speed Milling Chatter’

Eric GreeneAdvisor: Professor Wilson K.S. ChiuThesis Title: ‘Modeling and Experimental Validation of Parametric Changes on the Polarization Characteristics of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells’

Roham SolasiAdvisor: Professor Kenneth ReifsniderThesis Title: ‘Mechanical Behavior, Modeling, Strength and Failure Analysis of Polyelectrolyte Membranes’

Liqun XingAdvisor: Professor Kenneth ReifsniderThesis Title: ‘Progressive Failure of Large Deformation Woven Composite under Dynamic Loading’

Xingjian XueAdvisor: Professor Jiong TangThesis Title: ‘System Level Modeling and Component Level Control of Fuel Cells’

Graduate Program

Graduate Student Research CompetitionOn April 25th, nine Mechanical Engineering Master’s and Doctoral students presented their research results to faculty and students in this year’s Graduate Research Competition.

Four students, awardees Kyle Grew, Swetaprovo Chaudhuri, Huseyin Erdim and Mark Majewski were selected for awards ranging from $3,000 to $1,375.

Presentations included work on porous membrane transport, geometric design, premixed flame stability, and optical temperature sensing of ceramic coatings.

Director of Graduate Studies Prof. Renfro, first place awardee Kyle Grew, and Department Head Prof. Cetegen


Master’s Degrees Defended �007-�008Thesis

Bing BaiAdvisor: Nigel SammesThesis Title: ‘Characterization of Bismuth Oxide Doped Scandia Stabi-lized Zirconia as an Electrolyte for SOFCs’

Peter BohnenkampAdvisor: Kazem KazerounianThesis Title: ‘Methodolgies for Efficient Structure and Conformational Change Prediction of Peptide Based Nanosystems’

Geoffrey E. HansenAdvisor: Eric JordanThesis Title: ‘Piezo Luminescence Photo Spectroscopy of Engine Run Turbine Blades’

William Holden Advisor: Nigel SammesThesis Title: ‘Evaluation of Fast Ion Conductors for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells’

Gregory JewettAdvisor: Amir FaghriThesis Title: ‘Thermal Fluids Management Systems for a Passive Direct Methanol Fuel Cell’

Andrew LysaghtAdvisor: Wilson K. S. ChiuThesis Title: ‘Role of Surface Species and Thermophoresis in the Carbon Nanotube Chemical Vapor Deposition Process’

Christopher MaddenAdvisor: Kazem KazerounianThesis Title: ‘Geometric Path Planning with Functional Peptide Based Nano Systems’

Jesse ParkerAdvisor: Kazem KazerounianThesis Title: ‘Enabling Tools in the Mechanical Analysis of Protein Molecules’’

Matthew Teicholz Advisor: Eric JordanThesis Title: ‘The Fabrication of Dense, Thick Coatings Using the Solution Precursor Plasma Spray Process’

Yue ZouAdvisor: Kenneth ReifsniderThesis Title: ‘Hygrothermal Mechanical Properties and Durability of Lonomer Membranes’

Non-Thesis

Alexander LassmanAdvisor: Nigel Sammes

Niko LockibyAdvisors: Kevin Murphy /Thomas Barber

Adam NogiecAdvisor: Kazem Kazerounian

Heidi Stinauer Advisor: John Bennett

Egon SalimusajAdvisor: Thomas Barber

�� Department of Mechanical Engineering • University of Connecticut

http://www.engr.uconn.edu/me/seniordesign/

The Senior Design Program is a year-long capstone experience in which Mechanical Engineering seniors tackle open-ended engineer-ing problems and formulate solutions. Student teams work on projects defined by industrial sponsors (or participate in a larger feder-ally funded research project) with an industry representative mentor and a faculty advisor. From concept generation to exploration of alternative designs, using technical skills, analysis-based innovation, engineering judgment and prototyping, teams produce a work-ing tangible or virtual demonstration by year-end which answers the proposed industrial need. Their results are presented to the UConn community and visitors, industrial mentors and a panel of judges at the culminating May event, “Demonstration Day.” Prizes are awarded to the top projects each year. The 2007-2008 academic year featured 34 projects, listed below.

Senior Design Program

Team 1: Helicopter Maintenance Crane - Mobile Base Design & Analysis

Student Team: Kenneth Johnson, Andrew Johnston, Kirk ScheelSponsor: HABCO Inc.Faculty Advisor: Prof. Eric Jordan Sponsor Advisors: David Plis, Vinnie Sanchez, Vinay Patel, Bruce Prokesh

The HABCO Inc. team designed im-provements to a mobile base for a U.S. Army maintenance crane. The base system is capable of supporting 1300 lbs, is easily moved by one person, and does not require any changes to the existing crane system. A counterweight design concept was determined to be the most effective way to replace the current base. The design effectively reduced the size, while a handle/wheel system with power-start technology maxi-mized the maneuverability. Assembly was made easier by a winch system previously used in the existing base. FEA anal-yses were performed on the crane/base system to prove the safety and functionality of the design. In addition, a SolidWorks animation was created to simulate the use of the crane/base system in a hangar setting for the purpose of demonstrating its use to potential customers.

Team 2: Impact of a Power Uprate on Advanced Passive Pressurized Reactor Containment Design

Student Team: Adam Mcguire, Milan Lucic, Michael Cavicchi Sponsor: Westinghouse Electric Co.Faculty Advisor: Prof. Wilson ChiuSponsor Advisor: Charles Kling

Team 3: Modeling of Oil Flow in Reactor Coolant Pump Thrust Bearing Assembly

Student Team: Arkadiusz Jaworski, Charles Solberg Sponsor: Westinghouse Electric Co.Faculty Advisor: Prof. Ugur Pasaogullari Sponsor Advisor: Weston Boyd

Team 4: Dynamic Pull Through Force Test Rig

Student Team: Mark Seibold, Paul DiGianvittorio, Steven FlynnSponsor: Otis Elevator Faculty Advisor: Prof. Kevin Murphy Sponsor Advisors: Randy Dube, Tony Cooney

Team 5: Constant Force Elevator Safety Mechanism

Student Team: Donorae Davis, Brad Lively, Leeshan Reid Sponsor: Otis ElevatorFaculty Advisor: Prof. Robert JeffersSponsor Advisor: James Draper

Team 6: Diesel Engine Brake Design Automation Using Pro/Engineer and MathCAD

Student Team: John Ackley, Cien Kim, Eric Rosier Sponsor: Jacobs Vehicle Systems Faculty Advisor: Prof. Michael Renfro Sponsor Advisors: Jeff Mossberg, John Schwoerer

Team 7: Regenerable Thermal Energy Storage Device

Student Team: Colette Opsahl, Evan Schickel Sponsor: Hamilton SundstrandFaculty Advisor: Prof. Baki CetegenSponsor Advisors: Gregory Quinn, Gary Adamson

Team 8: Mixing Study in a Multi-Dimensional Motion Mixer

Student Team: Roshan Shah, Jason TomeiSponsor: UConn School of PharmacyFaculty Advisor Prof. Ted BergmanSponsor Advisor: Prof. Bodhi Chaudhuri

Team 9: Unilever Bottle Sorting Chute

Student Team: Dale Humphries, Mike Doyle, Kyle Johnson Sponsor: Unilever Corporation Faculty Advisor: Robert JeffersSponsor Advisors: Dmitry Vodonos, Rupinder Singh

The Unilever team redesigned the existing bottle sorting chutes used in the Clinton, CT plant to allow one chute to accomodate all four bottle sizes used by the company. The main products produced at the Clinton facility are shampoo, body wash/cologne, petroleum jelly, and hairspray. To design a success-ful replacement chute the team considered material choices, chute adjustability, chute dimensions and clearances, and noise considerations. After many different design prototypes and revi-sions, the team and Unilever chose a “V” shaped chute design with an adjusting mechanism to accommodate the four bottle sizes. In

First Place

Third Place


addition, the chute design includes proper clearances to eliminate a common problem of bottle jamming and sound reduction mechanisms to reduce machine noise levels.

Team 10: Gravimetric Flow Monitor and Control

Student Team: Rick Leites, Arturo Meneses Sponsor: Henkel LoctiteFaculty Advisor: Prof. Jiong TangSponsor Advisors: Steve Hemsen, John Breault

Team 11: Improving the Accuracy and Repeatability of the Block Shear Method

Student Team: Andrew Amann, Caleb DeValve Sponsor: Henkel LoctiteFaculty Advisor: Prof. Ranga PitchumaniSponsor Advisors: Pat Courtney, John Cocco

The Henkel team conducted a top to bottom analysis of the ASTM D4501, a standard for block shear testing of adhesive joint shear strength used by Henkel This method had been found to produce inconsistent results, with an undesirably high coefficient of variance between data points. The team determined that the development of a curing fixture to be used in conjunction with a testing fix-ture would better control the specimen geometry. Analysis was based on finite element calculations related to the ad-hesive joint combined with past experience of laboratory technicians familiar with the standard method. Fixtures were engineered and put into place within the method to signifi-cantly increase control over statistical variations introduced during the bonding and testing process. It is concluded that the improved methodology reduced the coefficient of vari-ance and increased the reliability in the resulting data, as well as simplifying the assembly and testing of the resulting block shear specimens.

Team 12: Reduction of Shearing in Transport Rollers

Student Team: Mariuz Duda, John Fayer Jr. Sponsor: Pitney BowesFaculty Advisor Prof. Horea IliesSponsor Advisor: Jim Salomon

Team 13: Siemon Cabling System

Student Team: Christian Hilmar, Thomas O’Connor, Michael PetersonSponsor: Siemon CompanyFaculty Advisor: Mr. Marty WoodSponsor Advisors: Lyle Menard, Randy Below, Drew Campbell

Team 14: Industrial Material Spreader Cut-Off Mechanism

Student Team: Nemer Noujaim, Gregory Cyr, Charles ThistleSponsor: Gerber TechnologyFaculty Advisor: Prof. Bi ZhangSponsor Advisors: Thomas Gordon, Darryl Stein

Team 15: Accoustic Damping in Air Gauges

Student Team: Nicholas Gatto, Brian Kutrumbos Sponsor: ASMLFaculty Advisor: Prof. Tom BarberSponsor Advisor: Geoffrey Schultz

Team 16: Air Curtain Design

Student Team: Timothy Russell, Jessica Crowe Sponsor: ASMLFaculty Advisor: Prof. Tai-Hsi Fan Sponsor Advisor: Herman Vogel

Team 17: External Lubrica-tion in a Tablet Press

Student Team: Alexander Dickau, Adam Gower, John Tobin Sponsor: PfizerFaculty Advisors: Prof. Bi Zhang [ME], Prof. Robin Bog-ner [Pharmacy] Sponsor Advisors: Daniel O. Blackwood, Bruce C. Cathcart

The Pfizer team developed an external lubrication system design for a tablet press that eliminates deficiencies of current commercial lubrication methods. These problems in-clude tablet defects, non-uniform lubrication, down-time for cleaning, and excess tablet coating. When the exterior of a tablet is coated with too much lubrication, the hydrophobic properties of the lubrication make the tablet insoluble in the human gastrointestinal tract. Timing, calibration, and the method of transportation of the magnesium stearate (a fine powder that flows poorly and agglomerates easily) were all important components in the new design. The team’s final design consisted of a rotating disk which acts as a measur-ing and timing device, changing the angular velocity and the size of the cavities according to the tablet press. Suction from a venturi device moves the lubricant from the disk to the nozzle, where a wedge is used for proper distribution onto the tooling.

Team 18: Research and Development for Optimization of Precision Injection Molding of Optical Lenses

Student Team: Dominic Discale, Ryan Rossi Sponsor: Essilor GentexFaculty Advisor: Prof. John Bennett Sponsor Advisor: Eric Begg

Team 19: Helicopter Vibration Suppression Device

Student Team: William Rooney, Taylor Wender Sponsor: Sikorsky Faculty Advisor: Prof. Nejat OlgacSponsor Advisor: William Welsh

Second Place

Faculty Prize


Team 20: Development and Implementation of Outer Electrode Design

Student Team: Chris Plocharsky, Luis Sanchez, Andres TeranSponsor: TRUMPF, Inc.Faculty Advisor: Prof. Amir FaghriSponsor Advisor: Walter Kampitsch

Team 21: Alternative Design of External Manifold Retention System for Fuel Cell Stacks

Student Team: Ryan Chung, Gregory Niedbala, Kyle ParlanteSponsor: UTCPowerFaculty Advisor: Prof. Bi Zhang and Prof. Xinyu HuangSponsor Advisor: Donald Jacques

Team 22: Validation of S-Duct Inlet Distortion Prediction at Static Conditions

Student Team: Justin Heiss, Stephanie Santoro, Sarah ZimmermanSponsor: Pratt & WhitneyFaculty Advisor: Prof. Thomas Barber Sponsor Advisor: Steve Zysman

Team 23: Hypocycloidal Crank Driver Air Compressor

Student Team: Daniel Morse, Tram Pham, Patrick Pollin, Tom ReadSponsor: Technical Mgmt Resources (TMR)Faculty Advisors: Prof. Ugur Pasaogullari and Prof. John BennettSponsor Advisor: Tom Read

Team 24: Retractable Leg Rest for Massage Chairs

Student Team: Jason Anderson, Brian Anderson, Geoffrey Dean Sponsor: OSIM International Ltd.Faculty Advisor: Prof. Kazem KazerounianSponsor Advisor: Boon Buan Lim

Team 25: Integration of Massage Expert Control System

Student Team: Vincent Lazzaro, Joseph Longo Sponsor: OSIM International Ltd.Faculty Advisor: Prof. Kazem KazerounianSponsor Advisor: Boon Buan Lim

Team 26: Hinge Design

Student Team: Nicholas Goodine, Michael Pollack, Nathaniel SladeSponsor: OSIM International Ltd.Faculty Advisor: Prof. Eric JordanSponsor Advisor: Adam Fitzgerald

Team 27: Resin Transfer Molding (RTM): Material Char-acterization, Flow Modeling, and Validation

Student Team: Amber Black, Samuel Brewczynski, Jessica DeMartino, Dan Hoinsky Sponsor: GKN Structures, Inc.Faculty Advisors: Prof. Thomas Barber and Prof. Leon ShawSponsor Advisor: Jeff Mogavero, Chris Feeney, Steve Hayse

Team 28: Emergency Descent Device

Student Team: Michael Piccirillo, Bernard Nasser Jr., Brian Shea Sponsor: Capewell ComponentsFaculty Advisor: Prof. Eric JordanSponsor Advisor: Adam Fitzgerald

Team 29: Development of a Telescoping Tele-Power Pole

Student Team: Matthew Timlin, Thomas Zachariah, Christopher D’Amico Sponsor: Wiremold LegrandFaculty Advisors: Mr. Marty Wood and Prof. Zbigniew BzymekSponsor Advisor: Daron Callahan

Team 30: Catalyst Preparation for Single Walled Carbon Nanotube Growth (Accelerated M.S. Project)

Student Team: Jeffrey Lombardo Sponsor: National Science FoundationFaculty Advisor: Prof. Wilson K. S. Chiu

Team 31: Stabilized Flame Reignition in a Counterflow Burner (Accelerated M.S. Project)

Student Team: Naison Mastrocola Sponsor: National Science FoundationFaculty Advisor: Prof. Michael Renfro

Team 32: Dual-Stage Actuator Design for High-Precision Machining (Accelerated M.S. Project)

Student Team: Michael DelfantiSponsor: Gerber CoburnFaculty Advisor: Jiong Tang

Team 33: Optimization of Vibrational Damping in Two-Dimensional Structures

Student Team: Robert Giokas, Braden Swan, Jesse BensonSponsor: Electric BoatFaculty Advisor: Kevin MurphySponsor Advisors: Dawn Barrasso, Phil Engel, Richard Dugan, Scott Dobson

Team 34: Measurement and Modeling of Bone-mounted Implant Displacement

Student Team: Brian Lasko, Jeffrey StackSponsor: Windham Dental Group Faculty Advisor: Prof. Horea IliesSponsor Advisor: Dennis Flanagan DDS

Documents

ME Annual Report 07 08