2013-2014 Woodruff School Annual Report

125 Years...

1888

George W.

Woodruff

1985

George P.

Burdell

1927

2013

...of Engineering the Future 2 0 1 3 – 2 0 1 4

A n n u a l

R e p o r t

Letter from the chair It is hard to believe that our yearlong celebration of 125 years of mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech has come and gone. Few, if any, mechanical engineering programs can claim to be the founding discipline at such a preeminent institution as Georgia Tech. It was both humbling and inspiring to look back and reflect upon the many significant contributions made by our students, alumni, faculty, and staff that have advanced human enterprise. Mechanical engineering set Georgia Tech’s initial trajectory through its challenging and difficult early years and the Institute’s “CanDo” attitude can be traced directly to those founding leaders.

I am extremely optimistic about our next 125 years. Mechanical engineering continues to build its reputation as the foundational discipline of the 21st century. A recent GE article highlighted their critical need for “digital mechanical engineers.” Our program continues to attract outstanding students from Georgia, the nation, and many international locations. I am particularly proud of our faculty. This past year nine Woodruff School faculty members were promoted.

In the past two years, seven of our junior faculty members have received NSF CAREER awards. In the past year we recruited ten new faculty members and one academic professional. These women and men are of the highest quality and will emerge as future leaders of the School, as well as in their fields of expertise. Our students and future students will continue to enjoy a superior educational experience. Go Jackets!

Best Regards, Bill Wepfer, Eugene C. Gwaltney, Jr. School Chair and Professor

$9,000,000 $1M $.5M

$2M $1.5M

$12,500,000 our goal

raised $3M $2.5M

$4M $3.5M

$5M $4.5M

$6M $5.5M

$7M $6.5M

$8M $7.5M

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$10M $9.5M

$11M

$10.5M

$12M

$11.5M

$12.5M

In celebration of our 125th anniversary, our goal is to raise $12.5M toward scholarships, professorships, and capital improvements of our School. We are closing in on that goal, but we need your help to reach it by the end of 2014. Contact Tom Lawley, Director of Development, to learn how you can support the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

About the Woodruff School The first degree offered at the Georgia School of Technology, as the Institute was called at its inception in 1888, was the Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. Today, the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering offers:

3 bachelor of science programs 6 master of science programs 2 doctor of philosophy programs

354 women 275 international

+

379 PhD

163 distance learning 126 women 231 international

Degrees Awarded, 2013-2014

509 216 66 BS Degrees

MS Degrees

No.

91

undergraduate students

435 MS

3

FAculty

2,177

graduate students

No.

5

No.

8

national ranking of national ranking of national ranking of ME undergraduate program, ME graduate program, NRE graduate program, U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, released Fall 2013 released Spring 2014 released Spring 2014

Enrollment, Fall 2013

814

rankings

PhD Degrees

number of full-time, tenure-track faculty

+

33 adjunct appointments 33 research faculty 8

academic professionals

21 senior faculty with endowed or distinguished chairs 32 faculty with NSF Early CAREER Awards 4 National Academy of Engineering members who hold emeritus or adjunct appointments

62 staff members Finances

FY14 Expenditures GT Foundation

$33.23M

$4,498,942

new sponsored research awards for FY14

Sponsored Research $29,551,216

State

$26,898,648

2013-2014 News Highlights The 125th Anniversary year of the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering gave way to groundbreaking research and collaborative work with industry and peer institutions by our professors, students, and alumni. Research was supported and rewarded with many grants and awards. The following are just a select few of our top news stories from ME125.

NIH Awards $2M for Engineering Approach to Understanding Lymphedema

$2.9M DoD Award to Optimizing Energy on Military Bases

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Georgia Tech a $2M research grant to unravel the mechanical forces at play in lymphedema, a poorly understood disease with no cure and little hope for sufferers. Lymphedema develops when the body fails to circulate lymphatic fluid, a mixture of immune cells, proteins, and lipids. This fluid builds up in the arms, legs and genitals — sometimes causing extreme swelling and permanent remodeling of the tissue. The mechanisms involved in the progression of the disease are unclear, so Professor Brandon Dixon’s lab is using an engineering approach to studying the disease. This innovative methodology could lead to new technologies to test and treat lymphatic disease.

Delivering liquid fuel to energy-hungry forward operating bases can be both costly to the U.S. military and risky to those who transport the fuel. For those reasons, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) wants to reduce liquid fuel consumption at these bases by expanding the use of alternative energy sources and by improving energy efficiency. A $2.9M cooperative agreement with Georgia Tech will advance that goal by developing information that military resource planners can use to optimize energy consumption depending on mission needs and local conditions. By developing, evaluating, and integrating dynamic modeling and simulation tools for this task, the researchers, including Professors Yogendra Joshi, Samuel Graham, and Satish Kumar, will help the DoD meet energy needs while reducing liquid fuel consumption and logistics support.

1888

John S. Coon is the first professor of ME and the first Chair of ME

H.L. Smith, the first graduate of Georgia Tech, is the first student to receive a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering (the only major offered

for eight years at Georgia Tech)

1890

The Academic Building (Tech Tower) and the Shop Building are built; classes begin Georgia Tech’s first official seal is made in the Foundry by ME students

DoE Grant Funds Development of Improved Nanoscale Additive Manufacturing A Department of Energy (DoE) grant funds research to advance an additive manufacturing technique for fabricating three-dimensional (3D) nanoscale structures from a variety of materials. Using focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID), the research will focus on dramatically accelerating growth, improving the purity, and increasing the aspect ratio of the 3D structures. Proof of principle for using thermally-energized gas jets as part of the FEBID technique was originally reported

by Professor Andrei Fedorov’s group in the journal Applied Physics Letters in 2011.

Top Women in Biotech 2013 by FierceBiotech Deborah Kilpatrick, MSME 1994, PhDME 1996, and former George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering Advisory Board chair and member, as well as current Georgia Institute of Technology Advisory Board member, was among 13 named Top Women in Biotech 2013 by FierceBiotech.

Human Arm Sensors Make Robots Smarter Using arm sensors that can “read” a person’s muscle movements, Professor Jun Ueda and others, including Professor Emeritus Wayne Book, have created a control system that makes robots more intelligent. The sensors send information to the robot, allowing it to anticipate a human’s movements and correct its own. The system is intended to improve time, safety, and efficiency in manufacturing plants. Ueda will continue to improve the system using a $1.2M National Robotics Initiative grant supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to better understand the mechanisms of neuromotor adaptation in human-robot physical interaction. The research is intended to benefit communities interested in the adaptive shared control approach for advanced manufacturing and process design, including automobile, aerospace, and military.

First reference to Georgia Tech students as Yellow Jackets in the Atlanta Constitution

1905

George P. Burdell, Georgia Tech’s long-lived mythical student created

by William Edgar Smith (BME 1930) begins attending classes

George W. Woodruff enters Tech as a freshman in ME

1913 John Henry “Uncle Heinie” Henika becomes foreman of the Wood Shop

1927 J. S. Coon becomes the first President of the Atlanta section of the ASME

Building the Future Power Grid Professor Bert Bras is collaborating with Ford Motor Company to examine how to optimize the driving and charging habits of people using Ford’s C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrids. To complete his assessment, Bras will use data from Ford’s MyFord Mobile app that provides real-time battery charge status and automatically schedules recharging at lower-cost, off-peak times. Bras is also collaborating with Ford on its MyEnergi Lifestyle initiative, which showcases how combining renewable energy generation with time-flexible loads optimizes energy consumption in homes with plug-in vehicles and smarter, more-efficient home appliances.

Bras, along with ME Professor Chris Paredis and Architecture Professor Godfried Augenbroe, created a computer model that calculates the electricity use of a typical family in their home for one year.

Heat-Conducting Polymer Cools Hot Electronic Devices at 200°C Polymer materials are usually thermal insulators. However, by harnessing an electropolymerization process to produce aligned arrays of polymer nanofibers, researchers have developed a thermal interface material able to conduct heat 20 times better than the original polymer. The modified material can reliably operate at temperatures of up to 200 degrees Celsius. The research, led by Professor Baratunde Cola and supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), was reported in the journal Nature Nanotechnology and involved researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Texas at Austin, and the Raytheon Company. Virendra Singh, a Woodruff School research scientist, and Thomas Bougher, a Woodruff School Ph.D. student, are the paper’s co-first authors.

NSF CAREER Awards Drs. Alexander Alexeev, Antonia Antoniou, and Brandon Dixon were each awarded a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Early Faculty Career Development (CAREER) Award. The CAREER Program offers the NSF’s most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the effective integration of research and education within the context of the mission of their organizations. To date, 32 Woodruff School faculty members have earned CAREER Awards.

The School of Nuclear Engineering is established, offering only graduate degrees

1932 The Georgia Tech Nu Chapter of the Mechanical Engineering Honorary Society of Pi Tau Sigma is established

1962

1985 The School of Mechanical Engineering is renamed for its benefactor, George W. Woodruff, during Georgia Tech’s centennial anniversary

Woodruff School Establishes International Joint Degrees The Woodruff School has established a joint Master of Science degree program (pending final approval by SACSCOC) with one of Europe’s top technical universities, the University of Stuttgart in southern Germany.

This two-year program will require students to spend a year at each institution studying and conducting research, leading to the receipt of a single MS degree in mechanical engineering from both schools. The Woodruff School is also proud to announce the establishment of a joint Doctor of Philosophy degree (pending final approval by SACSCOC) with Seoul National University, South Korea’s premier academic institution.

This program will have participating students spend a minimum of one year abroad at their host institutions conducting research under the direction of their co-advisors.

Experiments Determine Real-World Limits of Graphene Graphene is touted not just for its electrical properties but also for its physical strength and flexibility. The bonds between carbon atoms are well known as the strongest in nature, so a perfect sheet of graphene should withstand just about anything. But materials scientists know perfection is hard to achieve.

Professor Ting Zhu at Georgia Tech and Jun Lou at Rice University have measured the fracture toughness of imperfect graphene for the first time and found it to be somewhat brittle. While it’s still very useful, graphene is really only as strong as its weakest link, which they determined to be “substantially lower” than the intrinsic strength of graphene. That’s important for engineers to understand as they think about using graphene for flexible electronics, composite material, and other applications in which stresses on microscopic flaws could lead to failure.

Harold Gegenheimer (BME 1933) gives the Woodruff School an endowment to establish a lecture series on innovation to support student programs that encourage creativity, innovation, and design

1995

“Waviness” Explains Why Carbon Nanotube Forests Have Low Stiffness A new study has found that “waviness” in forests of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes dramatically reduces their stiffness, answering a long-standing question surrounding the tiny structures. Instead of being a detriment, the waviness may make the nanotube arrays more compliant and therefore useful as thermal interface material for conducting heat away from future high-powered integrated circuits. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) supported research in Professor Suresh Sitaraman’s lab, which was published in the journal Carbon.

The Woodruff School is designated as an ME Heritage Site by the Landmarks Program of the ASME, the only educational institution to be recognized

2000 MRDC II is dedicated as the J. Erskine Love Jr. Manufacturing Building two years after the Love family created an endowment for the Woodruff School

2013 The 125th anniversary of the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech

Learn more on the interactive timeline at

me125.gatech.edu

Awards & Promotions Faculty Alexander Alexeev NSF Career Award; Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure

Olivier Pierron 2013 GWW Teaching Fellow; Class of 1940 Course Survey Teaching Effectiveness Award Raghu Pucha 2014 GWW Teaching Fellow

Antonia Antoniou NSF Career Award; 2014 GWW Teaching Fellow

Farzad Rahnema Georgia Power Company Distinguished Professor

Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure

Jonathan Rogers 2014 GWW Teaching Fellow

Bert Bras Brook Byers Professor

David Rosen International Freeform and Additive Manufacturing Excellence (FAME) Award; Morris M. Bryan Professorship

Baratunde Cola 2013 GWW Teaching Fellow Chaitanya Deo Woodruff Faculty Fellow Brandon Dixon NSF Career Award; CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award Craig Forest Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure Andrés Garcia Regents' Professorship; Rae S. and Frank H. Neely Endowed Chair Srinivas Garimella International Sorption Heat Pump Conference Best Paper

Karim Sabra Woodruff Faculty Fellow Nader Sadegh 2014 GWW Teaching Fellow Bill Singhose Promoted to Full Professor Hazel Stevens Promoted to Research Scientist II Todd Sulchek Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure Jun Ueda NSF Award, National Robotics Initiative; Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure

Samuel Graham Leadership Georgia Class of 2014; Rae S. and Frank H. Neely Endowed Chair

Bojan Vukasinovic Promoted to Senior Research Engineer

Tequila Harris Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure

Shannon Yee 2014 GWW Teaching Fellow

Peter Hesketh 2014 Outstanding Achievement Award from the Sensor Division of ECS David Hu Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure Laurence Jacobs ASME Fellow Roger Jiao 2013 GWW Teaching Fellow Kyriaki Kalaitzidou Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure Surya Kalidindi Humboldt Research Award Satish Kumar 2013 GWW Teaching Fellow; Sigma Xi Young Faculty Award

Shuman Xia 2013 GWW Teaching Fellows Min Zhou Woodruff Professorship

Michael Jasper Semmes Scholarship Alisha Kasam Fulbright Scholarship; Churchill Scholarship; NSF Grad Fellowship John Kearny 2nd Place TiE Atlanta Business Plan Competition Charlsie Lemons NSF Grad Fellowship Lei Ma Sigma Xi Research Award: Best PhD Dissertation Allison J. Mahvi ASHRAE Grant-in-Aid Kevin Manktelow Sigma Xi Research Award: Best PhD Dissertation Hamidreza Marvi Sigma Xi Research Award: Best PhD Dissertation Nazanin Masoodzadehgan Sam Nunn Security Fellowship Mihir Pathak Presidential Management Fellow Alexander Rattner International Sorption Heat Pump Conference Best Paper Chelsea Silberglied 2013 ASME Foundation FIRST Clarke Scholarship

Ting Zhu SES Young Investigator Medal

Marcel A. Staedter ASHRAE Grant-in-Aid Yaroslav Vasyliv NSF Grad Fellowship

Staff Evron Irving Promoted to IT Support Professional Senior Steven Sheffield Promoted to Machine Shop Manager

Students

Michael Leamy 2014 Hesburgh Award Teaching Fellow

Alfred DeAngelis NSF Grad Fellowship; NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Chris Paredis INCOSE Outstanding Service Award

Michael Hirsch 2013 ASTM International Graduate Scholarship

Cole Simpson NSF Grad Fellowship; Fulbright Scholarship

Harrison Bartlett NSF Grad Fellowship

Todd McDevitt National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Grant Award

Ravi Haksar NSF Grad Fellowship

Lei Zhu 2014 GWW Teaching Fellow

Thomas Kurfess National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Grant Award

Julie Linsey 2013 GWW Teaching Fellow

Anurag Goyal ASHRAE Grant-in-Aid

Thomas Boziuk 2nd Place TiE Atlanta Business Plan Competition

Joshua Ebin CoE Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award Alexandra Flohr National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter) University Innovation Fellow

James Wilbanks NSF Grad Fellowship Toby Xu 2nd Place TiE Atlanta Business Plan Competition

Alumni Hisham Hegab Named Dean of Engineering at Louisiana Tech Deborah Kilpatrick Top Women in Biotech 2013 by FierceBiotech Donald Rhymer ASME McDonald Mentor

Alumni – your name belongs here!

Email

communications@me.gatech.edu to keep us informed of your accomplishments and to appear in the next Woodruff School Annual Report.

New Faculty & Staff

advisory board Mr. David P. Adams III, BME 1986 President, Adams Capital, Inc. Mr. Thomas G. Arlotto, BME 1982 Vice President, Maestro Strategies LLC

Hailong Chen Assistant Professor began Nov. 2013

Katherine Fu Assistant Professor begins Nov. 2014

Frank Hammond Assistant Professor begins Apr. 2015

Dr. Farshad Ali Karimi-Azad, BME 1982 President, BHI Energy Dr. Rebeccah Brown MSME 2000, PhDME 2003 Vice President, Product Development, Quality Assurance & Regulatory Affairs, MiMedx Group, Inc. Mr. Michael H. Burnside, BME 1974 Retired, Catchlight Energy

Marta Hatzell Assistant Professor begins Aug. 2015

Hang Qi Associate Professor began Jan. 2014

Devesh Ranjan Associate Professor began July 2014

Mr. R. Keith Chambless, BME 1980 President, GeoFields, Inc. Mr. Ralph Cleveland, BME 1986 Global Head of Customer Operations, American International Group Mr. Stanley W. Connally, Jr., BME 1993 President & CEO, Gulf Power

Christopher J. Saldana Assistant Professor began Aug. 2014

Kathryn Wingate Academic Professional began Aug. 2013

Cassandra Telenko Assistant Professor begins Jan. 2015

Michael Varenberg Assistant Professor began Sept. 2014

Aaron Young Assistant Professor begins Aug. 2015

Jason Barnes, Lab & Facilities Coordinator, began Aug. 2014; Katherine Drake, Academic Assistant, began Sept. 2013; Lynette Duffy, Admin. Professional, began Aug. 2014; Miffanwy Grayson, Admin. Professional, began Sept. 2013; Charu Kumar, Research Technician, began July 2014; Sara Kunicki, Admin. Professional Sr., began Mar. 2014; Brandon Royal, Mechanical Specialist, began Oct. 2013; Calla Talman, Academic Advisor, began July 2013; Maureen Williams, Admin. Professional Sr., began Oct. 2013

Stay Connected

me.gatech.edu

nremp.gatech.edu me125.gatech.edu facebook.com/MEGeorgiaTech twitter.com/MEGeorgiaTech linkdin.com/MEGeorgiaTech

Mr. James Dullum, BME 1974 Senior Partner, Fieldstone Equity Dr. Johney Green, Jr. MSME 1993, PhDME 2000 Director, Energy & Transportation Science Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Mr. Blake Moret, BME 1985 Senior Vice President, Control Products & Solutions, Rockwell Automation Ms. Emily Muhlberger BME 2004, MBA 2009 VP, Program Manager-Global Wealth & Investment Management, Bank of America, Charlotte, NC Mr. Floyd R. Nation, BME 1968 Partner, Winston & Strawn LLP Mr. Brian C. Palmer, BME 1981 President & CEO, Measurement & Control, GE Energy Dr. JohnĂŠ M. Parker BME 1992, MSME 1995, PhDME 1997 Associate Professor, University of Kentucky Mr. Carl Ring, BME 1978 Chairman, Ring Container Technologies Dr. Finis Southworth Chief Technology Officer, AREVA Inc. Ms. Stella M. Sudderth, BME 1980 Owner, MRU, Inc. Dr. Karen A. Thole Department Head, The Pennsylvania State University

Mr. Barry Holden, BME 1970 President, Hoover Treated Wood Products, Inc.

Dr. Lindsey Thornhill BME 1984, MSME 1986, PhDME 1996 Asst. VP and Division Manager, Science Applications International Corp.

Mr. Dennis W. Kelly, BME 1976 Director, Smithsonian National Zoological Park

Mr. Manuel Walters, BME 1992 Contracting & Procurement Manager Shell Oil Products US

Mr. Nelson McRay BME 1985, MSME 1987 Global Program Manager, Global Nonwovens Division, Kimberly-Clark Corporation

Mr. Nils Young, BME 1968 Founder & Director, DBS Manufacturing, Atlanta

Dr. Matthew P. Miller MSME 1990, PhDME 1993 Professor, Cornell University

Contact Us

Acknowledgements

Georgia Institute of Technology George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering 801 Ferst Drive Atlanta, Georgia 30332

Editor: Melissa Zbeeb

404-894-3200 information@me.gatech.edu

Dr. John F. Zino, PhDNE 1999 Manager, Stability & Radiological Nuclear Analysis COE, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas, LLC

Contributors: Alexander Alexeev, Antonia Antoniou, Bert Bras, Wayne Book, Thomas Bougher, Baratunde Cola, Brandon Dixon, Andrei Fedorov, Samuel Graham, Deborah Kilpatrick, Brett Israel, Yogendra Joshi, Satish Kumar, Jason Maderer, Paul Neitzel, Virendra Singh, Suresh Sitaraman, John Toon, Jun Ueda, Bill Wepfer, Melissa Zbeeb, Ting Zhu

youtube.com/MEGeorgiaTech

Photography: Candler Hobbs, Rob Felt, Gary Meek

flickr.com/MEGeorgiaTech

Design: Sarah Collins Printing: The Flint Group

Copyright 2014 by The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering