Diran Apelian has been elected a member of National Academy of Engineering (February 2009). "For contributions to solidification proc-essing and for outstanding leadership in engi-neering education and university-industry col-laboration." Election to the National Academy of

Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineer-ing literature," and to the "pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in tradi-tional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing in-

novative approaches to engineer-ing education." (From the NAE Website.)

Prof. Apelian is honored at the MTE Seminar on March 4, 2009

National Academy of Engineering Member

I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E :

Research 3

Faculty News 3

Student News Alumni News

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Publications

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Conference Proceedings

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Dean of Graduate Studies

WPI Materials Science and

Engineering S U M M E R 2 0 0 9 V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E 1

S P E C I A L P O I N T S O F I N T E R E S T

Spotlight on Awards 2 Message from the Director

Research Projects What’s New Microscope Spectrometer Materials Camp Commencement Surface Metrology Lab Materials Advantage

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Provost John Orr announced officially on June 3, 2009 that Professor Richard D. Sisson, Jr. has accepted the position of Dean of Gradu-ate Studies and will be taking on this role be-ginning July 1. Prof. Sisson has compiled a distinguished record at WPI as a teacher and

a funded researcher. He brings a wealth of experience as well as a clear vision for the graduate programs at WPI. In this half-time position Rick will have an office in the pro-vost’s area while also maintaining his office in the Me-chanical Engineering Department

Greetings from Washburn Shops! We have decided to jump into the fun world of newsletters to let you know the exciting new research, courses and events in MTE. The highlights of the past year are pre-sented in this newsletter. Thanks to the efforts of Rita Shilansky this newsletter has been completed over the past six months. We plan on creating a new newsletter annu-ally. MTE is growing by leaps and bounds. In September we will have nearly 40 full time graduate stu-dents in our MS and PhD pro-grams! Our Materials Advantage Student Chapter keeps winning prizes and growing with under-graduate student members from chemical and mechanical engi-neering and even a few civil engi-neers. To our alumni – please let us know how and what you are doing. We would like to learn about your re-cent accomplishments as well as any new personal events (weddings, births etc.). Please let us know if you are looking for new or experienced materials scientists or engineers, maybe we can help. Thanks for reading this newsletter. Let us know what you think. As always your advice will be greatly appreciated. Rick

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Chet Inman Award ASM Worcester Chapter

MQP Award 2009

Spotlight on Awards

Congratulations! Prof. Diana Lados is the recipient of the prestigious "Orr Early Career Award". This award is given by the Orr Family through the Materials Division of ASME to recognize early career research excel-lence in the areas of experimental, computational, and theoretical fa-tigue, fracture, and creep. The Award was conferred at the ASME 2008 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE) held in Boston, MA on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. At this event, Prof. Lados also presented the Orr Lecture entitled "Fatigue Crack Growth in Metallic Materials: Mechanisms and Design Considerations".

Congratulations to Amanda Young and Lester Li who recently were awarded the ASM International Worcester Chapter MQP Award 2009. Their project was titled "Composite Pd Membranes for Hydrogen Separation". This is the third year, the Worcester Chapter of ASM In-ternational sponsored a competition for the best MQP presentation in the Mechanical Engineering Department with special emphasis on ma-terials research.

In memory of Chester M. Inman, who helped found the Worcester Chap-ter, this scholarship is presented annually by the Worcester Chapter of ASM International to a regional student in the field of metallurgy or mate-rials science. The ASM Worcester Chapter held its annual awards night on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 in Higgins House at WPI, Worcester. The award this year was awarded to Jodi Lowell, a Graduate Student in Materials Science and Engineering.

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Orr Early Career Award

Founders Society (SDFA) of America Scholarship

WPI alumni Jack Lilley (MS MTE ‘91) has been awarded the SFSA Briggs Award. As part of that prize Jack sent $1500.00 to WPI’s Mate-rials Science and Engineering program to be given as a scholarship to an outstanding student with an interest in metal processing. Danielle Belsito has received this SFSA scholarship based on her outstanding academic accomplishments. She is currently completing her MS the-sis on the mathematical modeling of the heat treatment of steel.

Faculty News

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Pictures from the party at Higgins House 12/2/08

Research Assistant Professor Mohammed Maniruzzaman left WPI in December 2008 to join Caterpillar, Inc. in Peoria, IL. During the past 10 years at WPI, Manir published over 50 papers ( journal articles and conference proceedings). He became well known in the heat treating industry as an expert in the quenching of steels and aluminum. We wish him much success and his family the best of everything in their new life in Peoria.

The push is on to install information technology (IT) tools to replace the paper-based systems now used at many medical facilities in the United States. This digital transition is often cited by President Barack Obama as the best approach now available to reduce costs and im-prove patient care in the U.S. health care system. To understand how

best to realize those potential benefits, Isa Bar-On (Materials/Manufacturing) and colleagues Sharon Johnson and Diane Strong (Management) have launched a three-year study of health information technology systems (HIT) now in various stages of implementation at four medical organizations, two in the United States and one each in Canada and Israel.

Funded by a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, the study will focus on the primary care setting with the goal to develop new insights and best practices to help guide future HIT implementations at other medical facilities. “It is really very similar to the problems encountered in manufacturing. The goal is to re-duce cost while improving quality and safety. Thus we can use what we have learned from manufacturing and extend it to health care delivery”, says Isa Bar-On.

"

Prof. Bar-On and Colleagues Measure the Impact of Electronic

Medical Records

External Funding

During the period July 1,2008 to January 30, 2009 the MTE faculty members submitted 10 grants. The amount of the awards received during this period amounted to $1,174,286.00. Recently Awarded: Apelian, Diran for “Modeling task for WPI’s Metal Processing Institute, from Advanced technology Institute, $8,400. Apelian, Diran for “High Performance Die Casting Alloys”, from Advanced Technology Institute, $10,000. Bar-On, Isa, (Co—PI) for “AOC: Health Information Technology as an Agent of Change for Improving health Care Delivery Process, $749,985. Brown, Christopher for “Special Problems in Grinding” from Supfina, $25,000. Lados, Diana for “Fatigue Crack Propagation Mechanisms in Cold Spray Materials for U.S. Army Applications from the Army, $53,818 (5-years total $284,084). Liang, Jianyu for “Integrated studies on the Interfaces in Nanocomposites and Nanoimprinting” from the University of Akron, $33,889. Liang, Jianyu (Co-PI) for “MRI: Acquisition of a Modulated Differential Scanning Calorimeter and Spectroscopic Ellipsometer for Characterizing Complex Fluids” from NSF, $233,194. Liang, Jianyu for “Phase II Nano-Engineered Anode Materials for Rapid Recharge High Energy Density Lithium-Ion Batteries” from Lithion, Inc., $$50,000. Makhlouf, Makhlouf (Co-PI) for “High Performance DieCasting Alloys” from Advanced Technology Institute, $10,000.

Md. Maniruzzaman joins Caterpillar, Inc.

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New Students The Materials Science and Engineering Program has added 14 new students to the program in the Fall 2008 and 3 students in Spring 2009. We have a new diverse group with one student from India, one from Italy, one from Taiwan, six from China and the rest from the USA.

Alumni News

Pres entations

Holiday Social December 17, 2008

Student News

Top student contributor to the IBM Smarter Planet University Jam

Congratulations to Chris Lammi who is being recognized as one of twenty top student con-tributors to the Jam around the globe. These top students made insightful and/or innovative contributions to the Jam discussion on how technology and business can help build a smarter planet in areas such as education, healthcare, energy, traffic and water.

The Women of Heat Treating Olga (Olly) Karabelchtchikova (‘08) was listed as one of The Women of Heat Treating in the February Issue 2009 of The Monty Newsletter (www.themonty.com). The article stated that Heat Treat-ing has been a male dominated industry and wanted to see who the best known, most respected, and most influential women in the

North American heat treating industry are. Olly is employed at Caterpillar, Peoria, IL. The reason why she was chosen the article quotes, “Olly is a very talented “up and comer” in the industry with outstanding experiences and references. She’ll be in the industry for a long time to come and we can expect to see her name more in the fu-ture.”

Graduate stu-dents enjoying the holiday luncheon at the end of the Materials Sci-ence and Engineering fall seminar series. They all brought something for everyone to share.

Shuhui Ma (’06) came for visit with her baby Michelle. She works for Tiffany’s in RI and is married to Toby Bergstrom.

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Publications P A G E 5 V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E 1

N.R. Pradhan, H. Duan, J. Liang, and G.S. Iannacchione, “Specific Heat and Thermal Conductivity Measurements Parallel and Perpendicular to the Long-axis of Cobalt Nanowires”, Nanotechnology 19 (2008) 485712.

S. Dougherty, J. Liang and T. Kowalik, “Template-assisted Fabrication of Protein Nanocapsules”, Journal of Nanoparticle Research (Online first).

S. Dougherty and J. Liang, “Fabrication of Segmented Nanofibers by Template Wetting of Multilayered Alternating Polymer Thin Films”, Journal of Nanoparticle Research (Online first).

H. Duan, J. S. Gnanaraj , X. Chen, B. Li , and J. Liang, “Study of Fe3O4-based Cu Nanostructured Electrode for Li-ion Battery”, Journal of Power Sources 185 :512–518 (2008).

A. Varde, S. Bique, E. Rundensteiner, D. Brown, J. Liang, R. Sisson, E. Sheybani, and B. Sayre, “Component Se-lection to Optimize Distance Function Learning in Complex Scientific Data Sets”, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 5181 :269-282 (2008).

X. Chen, H. Duan, Z. Zhou and J. Liang, “Fabrication of Free-standing Cu Nanorod Arrays on Cu Disk by Template-Assisted Electrodeposition”, Nanotechnology 19 (2008) 365306.

Mohammed Maniruzzaman, Eric Wallhagen, and Richard D. Sisson, Jr., “Effect of Aging on Tensile Properties of CAST AL ALLOY”, Heat Treating Progress, October 2008, pp. 46-49.

Md. Maniruzzaman, Richard D. Sisson, Jr., Stephen R. Crosby, and Charlie Gure , “Failure in Steel Forging”, Fail-ure Analysis of Heat Treated Steel Components, 2008, pp133-149.

O. Karabelchtchikova, Chr. A. Brown, R.D. Sisson, Jr., “Effect of surface roughness on the kinetics of mass trans-fer during gas carburizing”, HTM Journal of Heat Treatment and Materials, 63 (2008) 5, (formerly HTM Z. Werkst, Warmebeh, Fertigung), pp. 257-264.

Daniel H. Herring and Richard D. Sisson, Jr., “The Heat Treatment of Fasteners – Embrittlement Issues-“ (Part 7), published in Fastener Technology International/ December 2008/January 2009, pp.32-34.

B. Dewhirst, S. Li, P. Hogan, D. Apelian, “Castability Measures for Diecasting Alloys: Fluidity, Hot Tearing, and Die Soldering”, La Metallurgia Italiana, March 2009, pp. 39-44.

K. Symeonidis, D. Apelian, M.M. Makhlouf, “Controlled Diffusion Solidification: Application to Metal Casting”, La Metallurgia Italiana, May 2009, pp. 39-44.

G. Tryggvason, D. Apelian, “Re-Engineering Engineering Education for the Challenges of the 21st Century”, IEEE Engineering Management Review, Volume 37, No. 1, First Quarter, 2009, pp. 38-43

S.K. Chaudhury, D. Apelian, J. Keist, P. Meyer, D. Massinon, and J. Morichon, “Fatigue Performance of Fluidized Bed Heat Treated 319 Alloy Diesel Cylinder Heads”, accepted for publication in Mat & Met Trans.

S.K. Chaudhury, D. Apelian, J. Keist, P. Meyer, D. Massinon, and J. Morichon, “Microstructure And Mechanical Properties Of Heat Treated 319 Alloy Diesel Cylinder Heads”, accepted for publication in Mat & Met Trans.

O. Karabelchtchikova, R.D. Sisson, Jr., “Effect of Alloy Composition on Carburizing Performance of Steel”, ac-cepted by Journal of Phase Equilibria and Diffusion, 2009

Tracey S Vincent, Yan Itovich, and Isa Bar-On, "Quantitative Edge Cross-section Angle Impact on Conductor Loss" accepted for publication in the IEEE Journal for the Transactions on Components and Packaging Tech-nologies, July 2009.

P A G E 6

Xiaoshu Dai pre-senting at the 33rd Internatinal Con-ference and Expo-sition in Daytona Beach, FL

Conference Proceedings Virendra S. Warke, Richard D. Sisson, Jr., and Makhlouf M. Makhlouf, “Predicting the Effects

of Heat Treatment on Pressed and Sintered Steel Parts,” Proceedings of the 2008 Inter-national Congress on Power Metallurgy and Particulate Materials, June 2008, Washing-ton, DC.

T. Vincent and I. Bar-On, “Conductor Edge Definition Influence on High Frequency Electrical Loss,” Proceedings and Presentation, MS& T, October 5-9th, 2008, Pittsburgh, PA.

R. D. Sisson*, J. O'Shaughnessy, K. Rong, J. Bergendahl, D. Apelian, Teaching and Learning the Design, Development and Evaluation of Sustainable Materials Selection and Proc-esses”, 33rd International Conference and Exposition on Advanced Ceramics and Com-posites, January 18-23,2009, Daytona Beach, FL.

X. Dai, S. Shivkumar, Production of Novel Architectures Through Controlled Degradation of Electrospun Precursors, 33rd International Conference and Exposition on Advanced Ce-ramics and Composites, January 18-23,2009, Daytona Beach, FL.

Chang-Kai Wu, Makhlouf M. Makhlouf, “Predicting Residual Stresses Caused by Heat Treat-ing Cast Aluminum Alloy Components” ,TMS 2009 138th Annual Meeting & Exhibition, February 15-19, 2009, San Francisco, CA.

A. Mandal and M.M. Makhlouf, “Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cast Hypereu-tectic Al-Si Alloys with High Magnesium Content”, TMS 2009 138th Annual Meeting & Exhibition, February 15-19, 2009, San Francisco, CA.

Gang Wang, Mohammed Maniruzzaman and Richard D. Sisson, Jr., “A comparison of gas and low pressure carburization of 9310 and 8620 steels - a numerical simulation study”, TMS 2009 138th Annual Meeting & Exhibition, February 15-19, 2009, San Francisco, CA.

Christopher J. Lammi and Diana A. Lados, “Modeling of Residual Stress Fields in Structural Materials: Computational, Mechanical, and Metallurgical Approaches”, TMS 2009 138th Annual Meeting & Exhibition, February 15-19, 2009, San Francisco, CA.

Christopher J. Lammi and Diana A. Lados, “Effects of Processing Residual Stresses on Fa-tigue Crack Growth Behavior of Structural Materials”, TMS 2009 138th Annual Meeting & Exhibition, February 15-19, 2009, San Francisco, CA

Anastasios G. Gavras and Diana A. Lados, “Fatigue Crack Growth Behavior of Long and Small Cracks in Structural Materials”, TMS 2009 138th Annual Meeting & Exhibition, February 15-19, 2009, San Francisco, CA

D. Apelian, J.L. Jorstad, “Sustainable Development for the 21st Century: Challenges and Op-portunities for Light Metals”, in the Proceedings of LMT—Light Metals Technology 2009, July 2009, Queensland, Australia, published by CAST.

N. Sun, D. Apelian, “Friction Stir Processing of A206 and A367 Al Alloys: Microstructure and Mechanical Properties” in the Proceedings of LMT—Light Metals Technology 2009, July 2009, Queensland, Australia, published by CAST.

Group Picture from TMS 2009 138th Annual Meet-ingAnd Exhibition Chris Lammi, Lance Wu Yong Ho Sohn Richard Sisson, Jr. Diana Lados Jodi Lowell, Diran Apelian, Kevin Rong, Kyu Cho Anastasios Gavras, Kimon Symeonidis Brendan Chanelle Gang Wang

W P I M A T E R I A L S S C I E N C E A N D E N G I N E E R I N G

Research Projects

P A G E 7 V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E 1

The Influence of Conductor Topography on Elec-tronic Conductor Loss for Microelectronics Appli-cations Advisor Prof. Isa Bar-On

Student : Tracey Vincent Height map measurement of Chemically etched surface

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) suffer from signal attenuation due to elec-trical loss. The electrical loss has several loss components and one of the major loss components is conductor loss. Conductor loss is a poorly predicted phenomenon, especially for microelectronics circuits. The shape of the conductor material, at the conductor extremities, strongly influences the conductor loss performance and the conductor shape is dependent on the fabrication method and processing variables. A major processing variable is the surface roughness of the PCB sub-strate. Surface roughness determines the conductor-ceramic interface for thick and thin-film fabrication, and influences the conductor edge topography for thick-film fabricated circuits. There are different surface finishing processes that are used to finish the surface of the PCB sub-strate.

The surfaces of several ceramic substrates, with a range of surface roughnesses, were measured with an Olympus, LEXT OLS3100, scan-ning laser confocal microscope; some results are shown in Figs. 1-3. The surface measurements were made in the surface metrology lab at WPI http://www.me.wpi.edu/Research/SurfMet/. These substrates were used to build PCB samples and the interface and edge topographies measured and compared to conductor loss measurements.

One Dimensional Bio-nanomaterials for controlled drug and gene delivery Advisor Prof. Jianyu Liang

Student : Shelley Dougherty

Tem image showing avidin and Glucose oxidase nanotube walls.

Bio-nanomaterials have recently begun to spark a great amount of interest for biomedical applications. Nanotubular structures are becoming attractive options in drug and gene delivery be-cause of how greatly nanostructure size affects cellular uptake. This project focuses on template-assisted techniques to fabri-cate one-dimensional nanostructure using polymers and pro-teins.

Transitional metal oxide-based Cu nanos-tructured electrode for Li-ion battery Advisor Prof. Jianyu Liang

Students : Huanan Duan, Xiangping Chen

SEM photos of Sn02 particles Obtained in electrodeposition conditions

Developing Li-ion batteries with high specific capacities and high current densities as power sources for many applications is of great interest. Seeking a suitable electrode material is critical to achieve that goal. In this project, nanostructured electrodes using transitional metal oxides such as Fe3O4, SnO2, and TiO2 as the active material for Li-ion cells are fabri-cated by a two-step electrochemical process. Electrochemical property will be evaluated by conventional charge/discharge tests.

Electrospinning of Carbon Nanotube Rein-forced Polymeric Materials Advisor: Prof. Satya Shivkumar

Student: Xiaoshu Dai TEM image shows carbon nanotube incorporated within electrospun Polyvinylpyrrolidone fiber

Electrospun fibers can assemble into membrane structures which is an entirely new way to manufacture high surface area membranes for all types of applications. One interesting new application is conductive polymeric membranes. The use of carbon nanotubes can achieve the conductivity of organic poly-mers as well as improve the mechanical properties of the mem-brane materials. Carbon nanotubes can be dispersed in an aqueous polymer solution with the aid of a surfactant. Process-ing characteristics of electrospun polymer solutions has been examined such as the dispersion of the nanotubes within the fibers as well as the impact of the addition of surfactant on the morphology of the electrospun structures.

Hot Tearing in Cast Al Alloys: Mechanism, Meas-ures and Effects of Process Variables

Advisor Prof. Diran Apelian

Student : Shimin Li

SEM view of the surface of a hot tear in B206 (Al-Cu family alloy) permanent mold casting (not grain refined). The failure surface reveals a den-dritic morphology.

With increasing use of light metals in automotive and aerospace applica-tions, control of castability indices in aluminum alloys is becoming more and more critical. For casting alloys, castability refers to a set of charac-teristics that determines the suitability of an alloy for that specific casting process and ultimately for producing sound castings. The two main castability indices of an alloy are fluidity and the tendency to hot tear. This project focuses on studying hot tearing during solidification of alu-minum alloys. The objective is to establish the mechanism that controls the formation of hot tears and develop a reliable experimental method-ology/ apparatus to quantitatively measure the hot tearing tendency. The effects of process variables on hot tearing susceptibility of commercial cast alloys will be investigated.

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JSM-7000F in HL 047

SPECTRO MAXx M

The

What’s New in Our Labs

New Electron Microscope

Funded by the Lufkin Trust, a high-resolution analytical scanning electron micro-scope is recently installed in the Higgins lab. This JSM-7000F thermal field-emission gun SEM has a unique in-the-lens TFEG design, enabling high probe current at lower voltage in a small spot size. It is equipped with an Oxford Energy 250 Energy Dispersive X-ray Microanalysis System with Analytical Drift Detector. The high probe current and the high x-ray detection efficiency of the Analytical Drift Detector make the routine analytical work at least ten times faster than the JSM-840 SEM. This state-of-the-art microscope will provide the resolution, quality, speed, and flexibility demanded by today’s materials research, dramatically up-grade WPI’s capabilities in materials characterization and foster new research pro-jects in materials science and engineering and nanotechnology

Materials Camp

A new optical emission spectrometer (OES) , SPECTRO MAXx M, supplied by SPECTRO Analytical Instruments, has been installed in Washburn Shops 245. SPECTRO is one of the worldwide leading suppliers of analytical instruments for optical emission and X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, and SPECTRO MAXx M is their newest generation of the stationary metal analyzers. Our new SPECTRO MAXx M will be used by the students and staff to accurately determine the chemi-cal composition of the alloys being developed or used in our research projects. The OES will be used in CHTE to measure the carbon and nitrogen concentration pro-files in carburized, nitrided or carbonitrided steels. These concentration profiles will be compared to the computer predicted profiles to validate the models. In addition, the OES will be used to determine the alloy compositions for the new Aluminum and Magnesium Alloys being developed by the ACRC team.

Lecture hall during camp

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The ASM Materials Camp New England Area held a one day program to excite and encourage young people to pursue careers in materials science and/or applied science and engineering disciplines. The students selected to attend this materials Camp participated in various learning areas designed to demonstrate the nature of materials and how materials are engineered through processing to perform as de-sired. The camp was held on May 11, 2009 and was open to HS sophomores and juniors.

Spectro Max OES Spectrometer

Congratulations to our MTE Graduates. Commencement was held here at WPI on Saturday, May 16, 2009. This year, we had three PhD and six Master of Science candidates, eight of them were able to participate at the commencement ceremony.

Commencement 2009

Brian A. Dewhirst, PhD Kimon Symeonidis, PhD (ME) Virendra S. Warke, PhD

Laura Clark Ning Sun Xiaolan Wang

Chang-Kai Wu Wen Di Lui Dawei Zhang

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Surface Metrology Lab

P A G E 1 0 V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E 1

Brendan Powers, doctoral student, focusing in on Olympus Laser Scanning Confocal Micro-scope (LEXT 3100) and abrasive super finishing.

Since September the Surface Metrology Lab has a new Olympus Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope (LEXT 3100). The microscope measures surfaces in three dimensions with resolutions below 100nm. The microscope, which is worth about $170,000, is entrusted to the lab through the generosity of Olympus. The lab built a scanning laser profiler for meas-uring runway textures for NASA. This was part of a project to control wear and friction between pavements and the space shuttle tires. The lab also has a UBM scanning laser profiler, generously donated by Solarius Development. The lab uses software (Surfract.com) that Brown and WPI students have developed for scale sensitive fractal analysis and Mountains ® Analysis Software, donated by Digital Surf in France.

The mission of WPI’s Surface Metrology lab is to create, discover and convey knowledge related to topographical phenom-ena. The main thrust of the work in WPI’s lab has been to learn how to measure and analyze surfaces in order to discrimi-nate and correlate surfaces with different processing and performance.

Brown teaches the only graduate engineering course in the US concentrating on surface metrology. The only other signifi-cant activity on surface metrology in an academic lab in the US is Jay Raja’s group in the Center for Precision Metrology at UNC-Charlotte. There is more activity in Europe. The lab at WPI grew out of Professor Christopher Brown’s work on scale-sensitive fractal analysis by virtual tiling, which he began in the late 1980s at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.

Brown and his students have patented a triangular tiling algorithm for determining area-scale relations. They have also developed length-scale and filling-scale analyses. Area-scale in particular has proven to be useful for understanding adhe-sion and carburization. They have developed techniques for scale-based discrimination and correlation, which identify the scale ranges at which phenomena dependent on topography are occurring.

The lab participates in national and international conferences and standards activities. Brown is the vice-chair of ASME B46. Area-scale and length-scale analyses have been US standards since 2002 and are expected soon to become ISO standards. These analyses are now being included in other commercial software packages in France and Austria.

The lab has been working in some interesting and diverse areas, including carpets, with Syracuse University; skin and teeth, with the University of Arkansas; food, with the Catholic University in Santiago; stem cell scaffolds, with the Bio-engineering Institute at WPI; adhesion, with EMPA Thun in Switzerland; abrasive processes with Supfina in Rhode Island; pavements, solar adsorption, fuel cells with the Fuel Cell Center at WPI; carburization with the Metals Processing Institute at WPI; and reflectance-based texture measurements inspired by activities at the Worcester Art Museum.

The lab is hosting an International Conference on Surface Metrology (www.surfacemetrology.org) 26-28 October, which is intended to include diverse disciplines with common interests in measuring and analyzing surface to-pography and roughness.

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Height map of a super finished ball valve from Supfina Machine Co. North Kingston, RI. Measured on the Olym-pus LEXT OLS-3100.

Caption describ-ing pic-ture or graphic.

Materials Advantage

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The Material Advantage organization at Worcester Polytechnic Institute held a series of events as a form of recruitment to interest those students that may have a desire to study in the field of materials science and engineering as well as those that may just want to learn a little bit more about the topic itself. The first event that was held was an aluminum castings lab which occurred in a series of two sessions. The second event was a seminar where students got the chance to listen to some graduate-level students give their “elevator speech” about their research topics, learned about Material Advan-tage and some of its benefits, and then participated in an experiment involving food made with different ingredients to determine the product’s dependence on each. The first event was a 2-day effort in which students were given a brief introduction to casting, a short explana-tion of current Masters and PhD casting projects, and then a hands-on lost-wax casting demonstration. The hands-on portion involved students forming wax figures, immersing them in plaster to form the mold, and then casting the parts. Students kept their parts and some chose to further the project with polishing their alumi-num figures. Our members received the Most Creative Recruitment Strategies Award during the spring 2009 Membership Challenge from ASM International for this entry.

During the second recruitment, students were shown a video on the material science camp that is put on by local chapters of ASM and asked to volunteer at the event that is going to be held in May. After the presenta-tion, a table was shown that had been prepared by the officers containing chocolate chip cookies. Each of the plates contained cookies in which the recipe had been altered slightly to offer a different texture, taste, smell, and/or look. Some examples include using shortening or margarine instead of butter, not using baking soda, using twice the amount of baking soda, leaving out the eggs. A control in which the original recipe was used was also present. Students were asked to come up to the table and taste a few of the options and record their thoughts. Each type of cookie was then discussed by the students and reasoning for why the characteristics of each type of cookie were explained after each ingredient had been discussed.

Both of these activities combined with the aluminum casting lab offered students a chance to see that materials science and engineering is present in a multitude of places and is not limited to one field. The presentation of the cookies also demonstrated to the students that materials science may even be encountered in places where one may not expect it to. After both events, we received a lot of positive feedback from the students.

The members were also a major component to the planning of the ASM Camp New England for High school students. Our representatives were the main interface with the Worcester Polytechnic Institute‘s administration and facilities, worked out many of the on-site logistics, as well as participated with the individual modules. A large percentage of the Materials Advantage members participated in this event.

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Worcester Polytechnic Institute Materials Science and Engineering Program Washburn Shops 244 100 Institute Rd. Worcester, MA 01609

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