UCF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering | 1
Contents Letter from the Chair
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Design! Build! Fly!
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Fellowship Fever
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Momentum is an annual publication that highlights the achievements of the students, faculty, staff and alumni from the University of Central Florida’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
Tracking the Industry
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COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE Dean Michael Georgiopoulos, Ph.D.
Space Explorer
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Page 10
Smart Manufacturer
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Space Odyssey
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CAREER Climbers
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The Secret Life of a Universal Creative Engineer 16 Joyriding
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Meeting of the Minds
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DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL AND AEROSPACE ENGINEERING Chair Yoav Peles, Ph.D.
PUBLICATION PRODUCTION Marisa Ramiccio Communications Coordinator Cover Photo Credit: Steven Sobol, Valencia College
CONNECT WITH US
Page 13 @ucfmae mae.ucf.edu
Race to the Top
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Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering University of Central Florida 12760 Pegasus Blvd. Orlando, FL 32816-2450
letter from the
chair
Dear Friends, Despite the challenges made by the pandemic, the UCF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering has much to be proud of. As we gradually learned to live, effectively work and excel with restricted access to research and teaching labs, classrooms and faceto-face interactions, our students and faculty continued to make great achievements. On multiple levels, they’ve demonstrated the potential impact that they have on local and national industries. We are also honored to have an amazing group of graduate students. They’ve conducted research at the highest level with numerous publications in top scientific journals. All of this couldn’t be possible without our dedicated staff members who supported and enabled us to continue these activities. The fifth edition of Momentum features several highlights from this past year. In 2020, three faculty members in MAE received the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award. This year, two more were added to this impressive list: Assistant Professors Robert Steward
and Samik Bhattacharya. To put things in perspective, with about 100 departments in the university, only 12 faculty members received the award in 2020 and only five received it this past year. As you flip through the pages of this magazine, you will be able to read the stories of these two assistant professors as well as the accomplishments of several other faculty members. You will also learn about the achievements of our students, such as the team that competed in the AIAA Design Build Fly competition and placed first in the nation and second in the world. They also won first place for the department in the college’s Senior Design Showcase. Another Senior Design Team created a modified ride-on car for a local boy as part of the Go Baby Go! program, which creates modified cars for children with mobility issues. You’ll read about the out-of-thisworld achievements of aerospace engineering student Jillian Gloria, pictured on the cover, who dreams of becoming an astronaut. The department also has an impressive history mentoring and recruiting students who have received prestigious fellowships from NSF,
NASA, the Department of Defense, and more. This year isn’t different, as you will see when you turn the page. As many of you might be aware, MAE faculty members have been extremely busy working with, and fostering collaborations with many local, national and international industry partners. Our Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research, established more than a decade ago by Professor Jayanta Kapat, is an incredible success story that is chronicled on page eight. I’m optimistic that this coming year will be even better than the last one, and that together we will continue to make this university a premier institute of the highest caliber in research and education. I hope that you will enjoy reading this magazine. I wish you a very rewarding and exciting year — but more importantly — a safe and healthy one. Sincerely, Yoav Peles Chair, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering University of Central Florida
UCF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering | 3
UCF PLACES FIRST IN NATION, SECOND IN WORLD AT AIAA STUDENT COMPETITION
A team of eight University of Central Florida aerospace engineering students designed, built and flew the best remote-controlled aircraft in the United States in an international competition sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Besting 90 teams that made it to the final round of AIAA’s 2021 Design Build Fly competition, UCF’s aircraft achieved a virtual tie with the winning team from Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering in India, which was given a tie-breaking advantage by contest judges, according to AIAA. Teammates David Silva-Melendez ’21, Harshavardhan Bangaru ’21, Jack Faysash ’21, Dillon Graves ’21, Mariangelo La Rosa ’21, Kyle Ramos ’21, Andrew Schroeder ’21 and Devin Unterreiner ’21, who all received aerospace engineering degrees earlier this year, spent their senior year designing, building, testing and
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flying the aircraft they nicknamed The Knightmobile. The competition entry also served as the team’s senior design capstone project, a requirement for graduation from the UCF College of Engineering and Computer Science. AIAA’s Design Build Fly competition provides university students with hands-on aerospace engineering experience and a way to test their skills against teams from around the world. Teams were challenged to create aircrafts with a deployable surveillance subsystem. Because of the pandemic, teams were asked to submit detailed reports as well as videos of their projects in place of an in-person event. Against the 90 other finalists, including schools like Embry-Riddle University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, UCF’s team successfully performed four different missions that tested the aircraft’s ability to take off, fly, remain aerodynamically stable,
perform surveillance, deliver a payload and land flawlessly. This year marks the best result in UCF’s 10-year history competing in AIAA’s Design Build Fly. “From the get-go, we set a winning mentality to place first in the competition,” says team leader Silva-Melendez. “We gave everyone a role to do and attacked the design problem with a divide and conquer mentality. With the pandemic, this year’s competition proved to be extra challenging in terms of communication, manufacturing, pace of work and teamwork.” As with any engineering project built from the ground up, UCF’s team overcame some obstacles including early flight stability challenges and, later, testing failures with the payload. “We relied on our determination to win, and our engineering principles to eventually make the system work within the aircraft,” says SilvaMelendez.
MAE Students Win Top Awards at AIAA Regional Conference U
work within the aircraft,” says SilvaMelendez. Despite the social-distancing constraints and strict competition deadlines, the team collectively spent more than 50 hours a week to bring the project to fruition, which included weekly remote team meetings, testing the aircraft and all of its components on a weekly basis, and performing test flights in an Apopka airfield for remote-controlled planes. Silva-Melendez credits the win to team advisor George Loubimov of UCF’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and to UCF’s AIAA student chapter for provided funding, materials and historical contest knowledge. “The fact that it was part of an academic capstone project significantly raised the workload for the team,” says Loubimov. “It also created human resource limitations, compared to other teams competing,” noting that many aircrafts from other
universities were built by student clubs. UCF’s senior design academic requirement meant that no more than eight people could be on the team. This isn’t the first accolade UCF’s Design Build Fly team has received. Their project was named the best from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science’s Senior Design Showcase on April 23. Four members of the team have already landed engineering jobs. AIAA celebrated the 25th anniversary of Design Build Fly this year. Written by Kimberly J. Lewis and Marisa Ramiccio for UCF Today.
To view a video of a Knightmobile test run, visit our YouTube channel: bit.ly/YouTubeMAE.
CF mechanical and aerospace engineering students are flying high after attending the AIAA Region II Student Conference, which allows graduate and undergraduate students to compete in oral and technical paper competitions. MAE claimed a total of three awards, including both first and second place in the Undergraduate category. The winners are Drew Vigne, B.S.ME; and Vanessa D’Esposito, B.S.AE. As the first place winner, Vigne will receive $500 and the opportunity to attend and present his paper at the AIAA SciTech Forum, which will take place in January 2022. His paper will also be published in the SciTech Forum proceedings. A group of MAE students also took second place in the Teams category as well as a $300 prize. The team included Celeste Newman, B.S.AE; Hunter Quebedeaux, B.S.ME; and Ryan Ketzner, B.S.AE for their paper, “Dynamics of a 9-DOF Heterogeneous Robotic Platform for Spacecraft Motion Emulation.” This year’s conference was held virtually via Microsoft Teams and hosted by the student branch at the University of Alabama. It was also the first time in five years that MAE students have participated in the event. “In this untraditional year, the AIAA Regional Student Conferences continued to support students with practical experience and feedback from professionals in the aerospace field,” said Dan Dumbacher, the AIAA executive director, in a release. “We look forward to seeing what these students will do in the future!” AIAA hosts six student conferences, one for each of its regions. Region II, which UCF competed in, encompasses the southeastern states including Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. UCF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering | 5
NASA SPACE TECHNOLOGY GRADUATE RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY
UCF broke its own record this year when 16 students and alumni were named National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows, and an additional seven received honorable mentions. Three of those recipients and four of the honorable mentions came from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Several other MAE students have been selected for prestigious fellowships with NASA, the Department of Defense, and Virgin Galactic, among others. Learn more about all of these students and how UCF prepared them for the fellowship experience.
NSF GRADUATE RESEARCH FELLOWS
Jake Carter ‘19 B.S. in Mechanical Engineering
Brendon Cavainolo B.S. in Aerospace Engineering
Robert Greene ’20 B.S. in Aerospace Engineering
T he NSF Graduate Research Fellowship started in 1952 and was the first graduate research program of its kind. Almost 50 years later, the program
is still going strong with more than 13,000 applicants this year. Three of the awardees from UCF are MAE students as are four of the honorable mentions: mechanical engineering doctoral student Jessica Baker ‘20, aerospace engineering doctoral student Jacklyn Higgs, aerospace engineering doctoral student and alumnus Zachary Stein ‘20 and mechanical engineering undergraduate student Zachary Whitacre. “I have added confidence about the skills I have,” Whitacre said. “UCF research opportunities have opened doors for me to grow as a person and a researcher in my field.”
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Caroline Anderson Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering
A s a child growing up on the Space Coast, Caroline Anderson ’19
would stand in her backyard and watch the space shuttles launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Her lifelong passion for space, coupled with mentorship from several local women who worked as engineers in the space sector, led her to pursue a career in aerospace engineering. Now, Anderson will move from a spectator to an actor in the space industry through the NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunity (NSTGRO) program. She is one of 58 participants across the nation selected for a fully funded fellowship open only to graduate students at accredited U.S. universities who demonstrate the potential to assist NASA in creating new and innovative space technologies. “I’m so excited to learn from and work with leading engineers in my field, as we’re on path for a new era of human space exploration,” says the Palm Bay, Florida, native. “I’ve wanted to work with the NASA Ames aerothermodynamics branch, and this fellowship opens the door to do so while I develop my doctoral thesis.” Anderson will work on a project that she proposed in collaboration with a NASA subject matter expert who will assist her with the research. As a space enthusiast, she says this experience is a dream come true.
NATIONAL DEFENSE SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP
X-FORCE FELLOWSHIP
Perla Latorre Suarez B.S. in Mechanical Engineering
Aref Abdala B.S. in Aerospace Engineering
T he X-Force Fellowship, sponsored by the National Security Innovation Network and the Department of Defense, gives students the chance to apply
their technical and entrpreneurial expertise to real-world issues that can affect the military. Both Suarez and Abdala will work on a project in conjunction with one of the DoD’s military partners. At the end of the fellowship, they will deliver a prototype to their sponsors. “I am thankful for this amazing opportunity to help with national security problems while gaining professional experience,” Abdala said. “I will have a chance to devise solutions to some of the military’s problems and can figure out if I want to pursue this career path when I graduate.”
PATTI GRACE SMITH FELLOWSHIP
Alexandria Baca B.S. in Aerospace Engineering
Loubensky Baine B.S. in Aerospace Engineering
B aca and Baine are inaugural recipients of the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship for Black aerospace undergraduate students. The fellowship is an official
spinoff of the Brooke Owens Fellowship, and is designed to promote diversity in the aerospace industry. Baine will intern as an aerospace systems engineer at Black Sky while Baca will intern as an engineer at Virgin Galactic. “I want to make something of myself; to be able to make my community proud and show them that if I, a young woman of color, can make it into a field that is less than 10 percent filled with individuals that look like me, then they have the strength and capacity to accomplish their dreams as well,” Baca said.
Zachary Stein ‘20 Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering
T he National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship
is awarded to students who demonstrate the ability and aptitude for advanced training in science and engineering. Stein is one of 200 awardees out of the nearly 8,000 applicants this year. The award will cover the cost of his research as well as the tuition for his doctoral studies over the next three years. He will use the funding to explore how to create more durable materials for aircraft. “I was very excited to be able to have this opportunity,” said Stein, a Burnett Honors Scholar. “I know it will be a game changer for this research.” Stein also received a Fulbright fellowship in 2019 to conduct research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne, Germany. He previously traveled to the DLR as part of the NSF International Research Experence for Students. He also received an honorable mention for the NSGF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2021. “There are so many opportunities to take part in,” he said. “I wouldn’t be where I’m at without UCF.”
To read the full stories on all of our fellows, visit mae.ucf.edu/more-news.
UCF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering | 7
TRACKING THE INDUSTRY Mitsubishi Power and UCF Develop NOx Tracking Tool to Provide Transparency into Emissions from the U.S. Power Industry
Mitsubishi Power Americas and the University of Central Florida
have formed an industry-education partnership to establish a reliable and accessible source of information that tracks nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions as the U.S. power generation industry undergoes an energy transformation to decarbonize. The online Power Generation NOx Tracker uses data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency database as analyzed by UCF’s Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research (CATER) to show trends over time. The NOx Tracker is accessible at no cost to the public and interested parties such as industry,
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research, government and nongovernment organizations. This is the second tracker Mitsubishi Power has helped launch in its efforts to inform the public and industry about progress toward decarbonization. The Carnegie Mellon University Power Sector Carbon Index, which estimates the carbon dioxide intensity of the U.S. power sector using publicly available data sources, launched in 2017. The 1990 U.S. Clean Air Act amendments brought additional standards to the power sector to reduce the level of nitrogen oxides emitted into the atmosphere. Nitrogen oxides are pollutants produced when nitrogen and oxygen react at
high temperatures, such as in power plants, automobiles, boats, and heavy vehicles. The EPA reported annual nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants fell by 87% from 1995 to 2020. “As a university our role is to teach and produce research that solves a public challenge,” says Jayanta Kapat, the UCF engineering professor who leads CATER and is responsible for the data analysis on the NOx Tracker. “Innovation driven by industry and academia is changing the power generation landscape. We need to make sure as we advance that we do so responsibly. There has been concern that as the power generation industry decarbonizes, nitrogen oxides would become a problem;
however, the tracker shows that nitrogen oxides have been declining significantly to low levels. This reflects successful innovations. Monitoring will help us all stay on track as we move forward.” Experts at UCF’s CATER are evaluating and developing technology to address nitrogen oxides as well as other pollutants regulated by the U.S. Clean Air Act and monitored by the EPA. UCF engineers developed the NOx Tracker with the support of Mitsubishi Power to not only track the cumulative percent change in nitrogen oxide emissions, but also to follow the cumulative change in sulfur dioxide and overall power generated. This helps researchers and industry
better understand and solve complex technological challenges as they work toward a more reliable, secure and cleaner energy future. Kapat and UCF post-doctoral scholar Ladislav Vesely will be updating the tracker every quarter. Paul Browning, president and CEO of Mitsubishi Power Americas, says, “Reducing power generation emissions, not only from carbon dioxide but also from nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides, is essential in the overall energy transition path our industry is on. Mitsubishi Power is addressing all of these emissions while developing a variety of decarbonization technologies. The NOx Tracker is yet another
effort by Mitsubishi Power to bring transparency to air quality issues during this energy transition and to highlight the industry’s progress. It complements our overall mission of providing power generation and energy storage solutions to our customers, empowering them to affordably and reliably combat climate change and advance human prosperity. Together with our partner UCF, we are enabling and informing a Change in Power.” Written by Zenaida Gonzalez Kotala for UCF Today.
Check out the NOx Tracker at cecs.ucf.edu/nox.
UCF UCF Department Department of of Mechanical Mechanical and and Aerospace Aerospace Engineering Engineering || 99
SPACE EXPLORER Aerospace engineering student Jillian Gloria strives to make the most of her STEM education and hopes one day to become an astronaut.
J illian Gloria of Orlando has always been inspired by space exploration,
and as a junior pursuing aerospace engineering at UCF, she has held multiple research positions and worked with industry as she prepares to someday become an astronaut. Her most recent project came out of her involvement with UCF physics Assistant Professor William Kaden’s Research Group where she had the opportunity to study water evolution processes that take place on the moon. Within this group, Gloria focused on developing hardware used to study the changes in chemistry on models of the moon and increase efficiency in thin film growth. These models were made of aluminosilicates minerals that play an important role in finding water on the moon. The lab simulated the effects of space weathering on the moon by growing aluminosilicate thin-films 10 | MOMENTUM Fall 2021
in a vacuum in the lab and exposing them to different forms of radiation testing. This work led to a coauthorship on a NASA-funded paper recently published in the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology. The understanding of such processes gleaned from this type of work will help NASA plan exploration missions by providing an improved map to search for water on the moon, says Kaden. “Understanding how water evolves on the moon is one of the big questions scientists must answer as we look to move life off Earth,” Gloria says. “This research could have big implications in the future of solar radiation as it pertains to using the moon’s surface water to create a stable environment for human life there.” Gloria also will be expanding her research alongside Professor Seetha Raghavan in partnership with the German Aerospace Center. Gloria
will study materials that experience stresses during flights that hit Mach 5 or more, specifically spacecraft. She begins her work this semester at UCF thanks to a National Science Foundation Research Fellowship, and she expects to complete her work in Germany this summer. “I am so grateful to be at UCF,” Gloria says. “It has given me the chance to work on real NASA missions, but even more importantly provided me the opportunity to work with the very scientists I look up to.” She documents her research on an Instagram account, @enjillneer, which she started to encourage others to pursue a STEM degree. “I strongly believe there is a huge gap in the STEM initiative between inspiring kids at a young age and when they get to college and begin pursuing a STEM degree,” she says. “So often they begin to fail classes and want to drop out.” Her own hard work as a trasnfer
student from Valencia College is a testament to the intentional effort and intensity with which she has pursued STEM. It is with this in mind that she participates in various STEM outreach opportunities in the community and beyond, including with Orange County Public Schools, the Central Florida STEM Education Council, Barnes & Noble, and NASA Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex, as well as a LinkedIn commercial and Fox’s Xploration Outer Space TV show. At the show, she was a finalist in an annual student astronaut contest. In her involvement with OCPS she has the opportunity to speak to K-12 students about their interests in STEM as well as share her story in hopes of inspiring students of all ages and demographics to pursue a STEMbased degree. She views herself as a hardworking dreamer who has had many doors opened. Those who work with her say she’s opened most of those doors through her hard work and enthusiasm. “Jillian has deep enthusiasm for space and that motivates her to seek out opportunities to build the science and engineering that the space program needs,” says Phillip Metzger, a researcher at the Florida Space Institute (FSI) at UCF. He had the opportunity to work alongside Gloria on a NASA-funded project at the Exolith Lab at FSI. “She is already making a strong contribution to space, even before graduating.” Gloria plans to continue her contribution to the exploration of space with the hope of someday landing on a planet and discovering new life. She hopes to seek her master’s degree at UCF after she graduates next summer. Written by Simone Rousseau for UCF Today.
Gloria Competes on Fox’s Mental Samurai
If you think UCF aerospace
engineering student Jillian Gloria looks familiar, then you may have seen her compete on Fox’s Mental Samurai. The show, hosted by actor Rob Lowe, quizzes contestants with brain-teasing questions as they move around the set in a rotating capsule. Gloria appeared in the sixth episode of season two, and although she didn’t win, she did walk away with $3,500 as well as a few astronaut-like tumbles in the rotator. “I kind of took it as like a training exercise, to be honest,” the aspiring astronaut told the Orlando Sentinel. “I thought, ‘I’m going to do the best I can to think critically in a stressful environment and hopefully, I’ll perform exceptionally.’” You also may have seen Gloria in a 2017 commercial for LinkedIn. She starred in a “Journey Through a Profile” video, which featured her as a fictional aerospace scientist
who is offered a teaching job after updating her profile. The goal of the advertising campaign was to inspire LinkedIn members to update and complete their profiles. The video has been viewed more than 645,000 times on YouTube. Most recently, Gloria was featured on UCF’s Research in 60 Seconds, a video series that showcases students from across campus as they explain the focus of their research in just one minute. Her research shows how water evaporates on the moon, which can help NASA scientists find water in their quest to create a sustainable presence there. Photos courtesy of FOX/UCF/Jillian Gloria. To view the Research in 60 Seconds video, and to read Gloria’s intervew, visit bit.ly/Gloria60.
UCF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering | 11
Smart Manufacturer:
Dazhong Wu Among 20 Most Influential Academics in Manufacturing T he Society of Manufacturing Engineers has named Assistant
Professor of Mechanical Engineering Dazhong Wu one of the 20 Most Influential Academics. He is the only professor from UCF and the only academic from the state of Florida to be included on the list, which was published in the latest issue of SME’s magazine Smart Manufacturing. SME’s experts and industry peers selected the honorees for their role in shaping the next generation of manufacturing engineers and technologists across a variety of disciplines. Wu says he feels honored and humbled by this distinction. As an influential academic, he hopes to impress upon his students the important role that smart manufacturing plays in society. “Manufacturing is an essential component of economic growth,” Wu says. “I hope that mechanical engineering students will not only learn the fundamental knowledge of advanced manufacturing, but also become manufacturing engineers who can solve real-world problems.” Wu joined UCF in 2017 after serving as a senior research associate 12 | MOMENTUM Fall 2021
at Penn State University’s Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering. He earned his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and his master’s degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. He manages the Additive Manufacturing and Intelligent Systems Lab at UCF, where he and his team develop novel smart manufacturing systems as well as improve the reliability and safety of complex systems. His published work has been cited more than 3,600 times, according to Google Scholar. Smart Manufacturing highlights Wu’s work in predictive modeling, which uses machine learning and industrial sensors to detect and prevent the manufacturing defects of high-end products such as turbine blades. He’s created predictive modeling tools that are key enablers of manufacturing automation, known as Industry 4.0 or the Fourth Industrial Revolution. “The predictive modeling tools we developed enable engineers to predict the surface roughness and mechanical properties of 3D printed parts as well as cutting tool wear in machining,” Wu says. “These tools also allow engineers
to detect manufacturing defects through real-time sensor data and machine learning.” He and his team are developing tools and processes to fabricate lightweight and high-performance carbon fiber reinforced composite materials that can significantly improve the fuel economy of automobiles and aircrafts. Eventually, he’d like to create cost-effective tools to enable machines to work smarter, not harder. “My vision for the manufacturing industry is that manufacturing machines equipped with low-cost sensors are able to make intelligent decisions automatically based on the knowledge extracted by artificial intelligence techniques,” he says. “I hope that my team will contribute to the next industrial revolution.” Written by Marisa Ramiccio for UCF Today.
To learn more about Wu’s manufacturing research visit mae.ucf.edu/dazhongwu.
UCF Researcher Part of Team That Will Send Rotorcraft to Saturn’s Moon Titan
T he helicopter that arrived on the Red Planet on Feb. 18 as part of the
Mars 2020/Perseverance mission is not the only rotorcraft NASA is sending into space. A team of scientists, including a University of Central Florida researcher, is working to help NASA design a rotorcraft to explore Saturn’s moon Titan. The mission and lander are called Dragonfly and are planned to launch in 2027 and reach Titan by the mid-2030s. Michael Kinzel, an assistant professor in UCF’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, is working with NASA as part of the Dragonfly mission. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory is managing the mission for NASA and will build and operate the rotorcraft-lander. Kinzel’s team is supporting the aerodynamic design of the rotorcraft’s fuselage. With low gravity and an atmosphere that’s thicker than Earth’s, Titan is better suited to a flying vehicle than a wheeled surface rover like those that have been used to explore Mars. Kinzel’s group is using advanced computer simulations of the gas flow Dragonfly will experience as it flies on Titan, which will help inform how the vehicle is designed. The simulations
are useful for ensuring the flight distance from one landing site to the next is maximized, as well as to understand flight scenarios that will be encountered on Titan. “These computer models are high-fidelity simulations that are between design and experimental testing,” Kinzel says. “Our research is important because it helps the team understand Dragonfly flight in the context of real Titan conditions, which is hard to test experimentally. It reduces costs and increases the likelihood of success.” Kinzel is an expert in aerodynamics and computational modeling of fluid flows, and has a background in supporting designs for helicopters, submarines and torpedoes for defense research. The mission’s principal investigator is Elizabeth Turtle, a research scientist at the Johns Hopkins APL. As principal investigator, she is responsible for making sure that the Dragonfly mission achieves its science goals — exploring Titan to understand its environment and the organic chemistry that has occurred there — as well as keeping the project budget and schedule on track. Titan has similar chemicals to what scientists think Earth was like before life began. As a result, Dragonfly’s mission is to characterize the
habitability of Titan’s environment, to investigate how far prebiotic chemistry has progressed, and even to search for chemical signatures that could be indicative of water-based or hydrocarbon-based life – as well as to see how effective a multirotor aircraft is in planetary exploration. “We don’t know how chemistry took the leap to biology on Earth, but we do know that Titan has had all of the ingredients necessary for life, at least life as we know it,” Turtle says. “Mike’s team has been modeling the interaction of the Dragonfly rotorcraft with the atmosphere,” she says. “His models reveal how much atmospheric drag the rotorcraft will experience during flights and will help with streamlining the design to make it more aerodynamic for efficient aerial exploration of Titan.” Kinzel received his doctorate in aerospace engineering from Pennsylvania State University and joined UCF’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace engineering, a part of UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, in 2018. He is also a member of UCF’s Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research. Written by Robert Wells for UCF Today.
To learn more about Kinzel’s work on the Dragonfly mission, visit mae.ucf.edu/CFAL.
UCF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering | 13
Assistant Professor Robert Steward (far right) works with a student in his lab.
Robert Steward
T
he body is often referred to as a machine and if that’s the case, Robert Steward is a mechanic trying to find out what causes the heart and blood vessels to break. In this analogy, heart disease and diabetes are the breakdowns. Using his background in cell biology and engineering, Steward looks at the cells that line inside of blood vessels to examine the mechanics at work. He uses an automated fluorescent microscope coupled with complex mathematical algorithms to see, model and calculate the mechanical forces generated by cells. This hightech system allows him to determine how strong cells are working. In the case of heart disease, the cells appear to exert more pressure, which then also impacts blood flow. If we can better understand these dynamics, we may be able to develop mechanicbased therapies to help stop or potentially eliminate heart disease, he said. The technique is applicable to other kinds of cells that he hopes his work is a stepping-stone that can be used to add the knowledge necessary to find a cure to heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Steward says the CAREER grant will help him fund his lab and provide more time to spend mentoring students. For him, helping students find their way, especially into research areas that aren’t yet established, is part of his core mission. 14 | MOMENTUM Fall 2021
The Chicago native is the only biomedical or mechanical engineer working with cell mechanics at UCF. “I found cell mechanics by accident,” he says. “I knew I wanted to work in the medical field, and I knew I liked engineering, but I had no idea I could combine the two.” He attended Clarke Atlanta University, an Historically Black College and University, which he says played a big role in finding his way to a doctoral degree and more opportunities to better his life. Through the university he was able to get a National Institutes of Health fellowship. Even then, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. The fellowship came with funding to cover two years of research anywhere, but it didn’t come with instructions. “I didn’t know what to do,” he says. “So, I started calling universities and telling them I have funding, am studying mechanical engineering and I wanted to do research in biology, do you have a lab that might be a good fit?” After several phone calls he ended up at the University of Maryland at College Park working with a professor in the orthopedic biomechanics lab during the summer after his junior year of college. The following year he made another round of cold calls and ended up at Carnegie Mellon University, where he would eventually earn his doctorate. He also met a mentor that helped shape his future. Next stop was Harvard University where he completed post-doctoral
work and was able to work alongside medical doctors. It was a life-changing experience. “Doctors are no-nonsense,” he says. “They would tell me, that’s great, but how is that going to help me help my patient. I really liked that environment.” That was one big reason he joined UCF in 2015. It was an opportunity to work in engineering and alongside doctors again. Steward’s lab is at the Lake Nona campus and he splits his time on the main campus where he teaches engineering classes. The best part about the CAREER grant, he says, is the ability to mentor more students and spend more time in the lab, which will lead to more discoveries and publications. “I didn’t know graduate school was an option,” he says. “I didn’t know I could turn my love of engineering into this amazing career. I didn’t see a lot of people who looked like me once I started doing research. The difference for me was meeting the right mentors. I want to be that for my students. I know because I’ve lived it. So that’s why this grant means so much to me. It will buy me more time to mentor students.”
Samik Bhattacharya
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orking in a corner of a warehouse on UCF’s main campus, Assistant Professor Samik Bhattacharya taps instructions onto a computer keyboard, which sends
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Assistant Professor Samik Bhattacharya (left).
Meet our 2021 recipients of the NSF CAREER Award. a do-it-yourself contraption sailing through a translucent tank full of water. Suspended in the water is a piece of black material, which cuts through the turbulent water slightly bending as it moves. “We can learn a lot from nature,” Bhattacharya says while students tweak a laser to better see what is going on in the water. “The morphing wings of a giant manta [ray] glide effortlessly through turbulent waters. We want to learn the mechanics behind how the manta and dolphin maneuver to apply them to underwater vehicles so they can be flexible and fast.” If the mechanics can be cracked, unmanned water vehicles could be greatly improved. These vehicles are used by industry seeking out potential underwater gas and oil deposits, while some scientists use them to explore the deepest depths of the ocean floor. Militaries around the world also use these vehicles to detect and disarm or destroy underwater mines. “They are used when it is too dangerous for people,” says Bhattacharya. “But their use is limited because they are not very flexible, and they fail in turbulent waters. We are trying to make them highly maneuverable, which would make them a lot more useful.” That starts with understanding the mechanics behind highly flexible and pliable things in liquid, such as the fins and tails of stingrays and dolphins. His lab includes computers that model these and other creatures’ flexible
wings and fins. But the center piece is the custom-made water tank system and laser that helps him see how his tweaks to materials work in water. The tank allows him to test the strips of material in calm and turbulent water, which his team controls from a computer station. His students run multiple tests in the tank and observe the bending dynamics on the computer screen. Sensors measure the forces and feed the data to the computer. Hands-on experience and experimentation are key to advancing the understanding of fluid dynamics and helping future engineers be ready for anything, said Bhattacharya. For Carlos Soto, who is pursuing a master’s degree in aerospace engineering, working in the lab is an opportunity to continue his love of math and robotics while getting involved. He helped build the DIY contraption that pulls sample materials through the water tank. “Dr. Bhattacharya encourages you to ask hard questions,” he says. “He helps if you ask, but he really encourages you to get there yourself. And he is very patient.” The CAREER grant means that Bhattacharya’s lab will be able to expand its work and continue to support the training of his promising students. Written by Zenaida Gonzalez Kotala for UCF Today. Photos by Clarise Quinit and Karen Norum.
Total number of MAE faculty members who have received NSF CAREER Awards.
40
Percent of the university’s total awardees that came from MAE in 2021.
5
Total number of MAE faculty members who have been awarded within the past two years.
To learn more about our faculty’s research, visit mae.ucf.edu/lab-directory. UCF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering | 15
The Secret Life of a Universal Creative Engineer By Marisa Ramiccio
When Universal Studios Hollywood reopened in April, a host of new
furry friends had moved into the theme park. The Secret Life of Pets was brought out into the open with the help of mechanical engineering alumna Jennifer Ambrose, a technical manager for Universal Creative. Ambrose worked behind the scenes to ensure that Universal Studios met the technical, creative and safety aspects of Universal Studios’ newest ride, The Secret Life of Pets: Off the Leash. The ride takes guests through the streets of Manhatten where they encounter the stars of the movie’s franchise: Max, Duke, Snowball, Gidget and Chloe. The attraction debuted in April as part of the theme park’s reopening and received positive reviews from guests. “I think one of the best parts about working on theme park attractions is being able to see guests enjoy your work,” Ambrose said. “It makes me feel happy and proud to see such positive guest feedback and reviews.” This is the first attraction that Ambrose has worked on as part of the Universal Creative team, but she played an instrumental role in bringing it to fruition. In conjunction with another technical manager, she 16 | MOMENTUM Fall 2021
oversaw the vendors that created the special effects, animatronics and show equipment. Her job was to make sure that the mechanisms and fur for the animatronics were being created according to plan. “The most exciting part of working on the ride was seeing the figures’ parts and pieces in the shop and then finally seeing them running in the show,” she said. “They all turned out so cute!” Ambrose also left her mark on the ride — in the queue, her name can be found on the spine of a book titled “Golden Silence.” She said there are other books in the queue that reference the staff members’ names and the titles all allude to inside jokes or references. She said the fun and playful atmosphere is one of the things she loves most about her job. “Working for Universal Creative is so much fun,” Ambrose said. “I love that it’s not a boring job and that it’s completely normal to be talking about whether a dog’s tail is wagging at the right speed or talking about if we think that a guest is going to want to climb on scenic elements that they’re not supposed to and how to design for that.” For Ambrose, a California native and theme park fanatic, this job is
truly a dream come true. In high school, she’d visit Disneyland on Fridays after school, and in college, she couldn’t wait for the Universal Knights events. The visits to Universal Studios Orlando may have fueled her passion, but her time spent at UCF helped build her career. She said that the concepts she learned in her mechanical engineering classes are the same concepts she employs every day on the job. She advises current students to pay attention in class and really learn the hard topics because they can pop up again in future projects. She also recommends that students take classes outside of their major. Because engineering is interdisciplinary, she uses principles of electrical engineering as well as mechanical engineering. Above all, she encourages students to consider how their UCF education can be applied to their career. “I work with some of the best in the business, and the opportunity to be so close to the top theme parks and resorts in the world like Universal Orlando is exactly why I chose to attend UCF even though I was an Ambrose points out out-of-state student,” Ambrose her Easter egg in the said. “Don’t be afraid to chase your ride’s queue. dreams.”
Photos courtesy of Universal Studios Hollywood and Jennifer Ambrose.
truly a dream come true. In high school, she’d visit Disneyland on Fridays after school, and in college, she couldn’t wait for the Universal Knights events. The visits to Universal Studios Orlando may have fueled her passion, but her time spent at UCF helped build her career. She said that the concepts she learned in her mechanical engineering classes are the same concepts she employs every day on the job. She advises current students to pay attention in class and really learn the hard topics because they can pop up again in future projects. She also recommends that students take classes outside of their major. Because engineering is interdisciplinary, she uses principles of electrical engineering as well as mechanical engineering. Above all, she encourages students to consider how their UCF education can be applied to their career. “I work with some of the best in the business, and the opportunity to be so close to the top theme parks and resorts in the world like Universal Orlando is exactly why I chose to attend UCF even though I was an out-of-state student,” Ambrose said. “Don’t be afraid to chase your dreams.”
I wonder what those Universal Creative engineers do all day?
Senior Design Project Benefits Local Boy With Rare Disorder Every Senior Design project makes an impact on the students who
develop them, but not every project makes an impact on the community. This year’s Go Baby Go! project is the exception to the rule. A Senior Design team of mechanical engineering students partnered with UCF’s Go Baby Go! program to create a ride-on car for a local 4-year-old boy with a rare disorder. Evan Schaefer was born with Snijders Blok-Campeau Syndrome, which limits his muscle function and mobility. The ride-on car gives him the
ability to move around on his own. The Senior Design team, which includes mechanical engineering majors Zachary Whitacre, Rishi Basdeo, Sophie Hill, Hunter Brake and Dakota Valentine, worked with the Schaefer family for a year to determine what Evan would need from the UCF-themed toy car. They included a joystick for maneuvering as well as a button that plays his favorite sounds when pressed. UCF has partnered with the national Go Baby Go! initiative, which provides modified ride-on cars to children with disabilities, for the past six years.
View the USA Today coverage of this story at bit.ly/UCFGoBabyGo.
UCF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering | 17
Meeting of the Minds Department Hosts NSF Workshop on Thermal Transport
Engineering academics and practitioners from around the
world convened at a six-day virtual workshop recently hosted by the University of Central Florida’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and sponsored by the National Science Foundation. More than 230 people from institutions and agencies such as Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Office of Naval Research, the Department of Energy and Ozyegin University in Turkey, were in attendance. “We were extremely pleased with the turnout. Every session was well attended,” said Yoav Peles, chair of the MAE department and the main organizer of the event. “More importantly, the level of excitement and energy that was displayed by the participants, moderators and panelists was evident throughout the workshop.” The theme of the workshop was thermal transport, or the process of heat transfer, which is prevalent in many engineering applications such as electronics, energy and manufacturing. Individuals from 18 | MOMENTUM Fall 2021
both academia and the industry were brought together to discuss the challenges in this area and to determine where future research should be focused. “To a large extent, the heat transfer scientific community is comprised of individuals, or small groups, working in silos or at least not in a harmonious manner,” Peles said. “We sought to better educate academicians about industrial and government needs and to help develop a loosely defined shared vision about research direction pertinent to thermal transport for the next decade or so.” The event took place via Zoom over two separate weeks in December 2020 and January 2021. Attendees could choose to attend all or some of the six sessions, which focused on topics such as energy, thermal management, and health and sustainability. Panelists included Evelyn Wang, the head of the mechanical engineering department at MIT; Karen Thole, the chair of the mechanical engineering department at Penn State; Michael Ohadi, the program director for the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy; Mark Spector, a program director for the
Office of Naval Research; and Howard Stone, the chair of mechanical and aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. The workshop took more than a year to produce due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was originally scheduled as an in-person event in March 2020, but was re-organized into a virtual conference by Peles and his coorganizers, Professor Jonathan Malen from Carnegie Mellon University and Professor Xiulin Ruan from Purdue University.
“...The level of excitement and energy that was displayed by the participants, moderators and panelists was evident throughout the workshop.” -Yoav Peles
To watch the workshop presentations, visit bit.ly/NSFUCFVideos.
Winning Indy 500 Team Includes MAE Alumnus
When we look back on 2020, we’ll remember it as the year of face
masks, physical distancing and global quarantines. But when mechanical engineering alumnus Adam Jones, ‘13, reflects on 2020, he’ll remember it as the year he worked with the winning team at the Indianapolis 500. “It’s a pretty wild experience,” Jones says. “Winning the 500 is something a lot of drivers — and engineers — go their whole career without doing.” Although professional racing driver Takuma Sato sped the car across the finish line, Jones made sure the engine was perfectly calibrated during the final stretch of the race. The UCF Knight is an engineer for Honda Performance Development, the division of American Honda Motor Co. that designs and manufactures high-performance racing engines. In this role, he serves as the trackside engine calibrator for Honda’s IndyCar program. “It’s my job to fine-tune that last .5-1% of performance from the engine, set it up for the driver’s and team’s preferences, and to make sure that it’s operating within the performance
and durability envelope that the rest of our Honda engines operate in,” Jones says. “As a trackside engineer, I’m the last line of making sure that the product we provide to our teams operates as it should.” Jones has worked with racing teams and drivers outside of the IndyCar series, which culminates in the Indy 500, but has spent the past three seasons with Sato and his current team, Rahul Letterman Lanigan Racing. The team is owned by the 1986 Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahul, businessman Mike Lanigan and former late night talk show host David Letterman. For Jones, working with this team has been a great experience, even during the pandemic. “Even without the fans there the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is electric on race day,” Jones says. “The team I represent Honda with, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, are the best group of guys in the paddock, in my opinion. They make me feel like part of their team every day. Takuma himself is a legend in Japan.” Long before he worked with a racing legend and now two-time winner of the Indy 500, Jones was an auto mechanic, tinkering on cars
and even racing them every now and again. When the Orlando native decided to go back to school to earn an engineering degree, UCF seemed like the natural choice. He was particularly attracted to the Society of Automotive Engineers, which boasts both formula- and Baja-style race teams. The time Jones spent in the SAE garage and in the MAE classrooms helped him land a job that many students dream of. “A lot of people think you have to know someone in the business to land a job like this. I didn’t have any of those connections,” Jones says. “I’ve been building and racing cars, mostly Hondas, my whole life so I’m sure that helped. But getting my degree from UCF and participating in Formula SAE while I was there were important steps that helped me get my foot in the door.” Written by Marisa Ramiccio. Photo by Honda Performance Development.
Are you an alum? Then join our LinkedIn group: bit.ly/MAEGroup.
UCF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering | 19
NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT NO. 3575 ORLANDO, FL
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering College of Engineering and Computer Science University of Central Florida 12760 Pegasus Drive Orlando, FL 32816-2205
UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS
GRADUATE PROGRAMS
DOCTORAL PROGRAMS
Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering
Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering
Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering
Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering
Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering
Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering
Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering
Aerospace engineering student Ashley Cariño was crowned Miss Florida in July and will compete in the Miss USA pageant this fall. 20 | MOMENTUM Fall 2021
