Professor A. Sherif El-Gizawy and Joshua Arnone, a mechanical and aerospace engineering doctoral student in the foreground, discuss a computer model predicting how a bone implant made using a rapid manufacturing technique will perform. Photo by Anupam Radhakrishnan

By Vicki Hodder, CoE senior information specialist

A Mizzou Engineering professor is working to refine an advanced manufacturing technique that may make conventional aircraft assembly lines a thing of the past.

A. Sherif El-Gizawy, a mechanical and aerospace engineering faculty member, has received nearly $88,000 from The Boeing Co. to adapt an advanced manufacturing technique for its use in aircraft production. The manufacturing technique—known as “rapid manufacturing”—uses a single computer-guided machine instead of typical manufacturing processes that require numerous expensive tooling machines to build complex components.

“You don’t use a special tool for each shape,” El-Gizawy said. “The savings are tremendous here.”

El-Gizawy’s two-year project centers on a rapid manufacturing technique and high-temperature plastic developed by Stratasys Inc., a Minnesota-based company that produces computer-controlled manufacturing machines. While industry has for decades used computer-aided machines to build model manufacturing components to aid in design and development, machines that can build a useable part directly from a computer program have hit the market only relatively recently.

Industry observers hail rapid manufacturing techniques for their potential to cut costs and time from such standard manufacturing methods as plastic injection molding or die casting and the assembly process they require. Rapid manufacturing also offers extensive control over a component’s internal structure, allowing the construction of more intricate designs, El-Gizawy said.

Boeing has sponsored El-Gizawy’s research project—providing machines worth about $400,000 as well as material—to help determine whether Stratasys’ rapid manufacturing machine and plastic can meet its design production requirements. El-Gizawy and mechanical and aerospace engineering graduate students Joseph Cardona, Brian Graybill and Joshua Arnone will work on two Stratasys machines at Boeing’s Advanced Manufacturing R&D Phantom Works in St. Louis to explore the best process design to produce finished products with the required quality and cost.

Their work also involves determining the properties of the newly developed high-temperature plastic.

“We’ll conduct experimental investigations to measure changes in the material as we change the process design,” Cardona said.

El-Gizawy also will develop a computer model for Boeing that can predict the properties of products made through the Stratasys process with various materials and under varying conditions. The model will help determine what material and conditions would best meet Boeing’s requirements, El-Gizawy said.

The Stratasys technology—with its potential for great precision—may be adaptable for medical use as well, El-Gizawy said.

He is investigating the possibility of using the Stratasys process to create such biomedical products as a bone implant fine-tuned enough to allow a patient’s own bone to grow through and into it. The Stratasys material has much to recommend it, El-Gizawy said.

“This is a plastic, but it is very close to metal in terms of strength and toughness,” he said.

Those properties have prompted Arnone to focus his research on the possibility of using the specialized Stratasys material as a bone graft substitute.

The Stratasys plastic has the potential to provide surgeons with a material that is strong as well as compatible with the human body—two characteristics not typically found together in existing bone graft substitutes, Arnone said.

“This is a material that could be always ready in the operating room,” Arnone said.

MU Engineers Without Borders President Cole Duckworth, a civil engineering senior, helped lay the foundation in 2007 for a flood prevention project in Brazil by surveying the site.

By Vicki Hodder, CoE senior information specialist

Members of a Mizzou Engineering student group hope to build better educational opportunities for a Brazilian city even as they deepen their own experience.

MU’s Engineers Without Borders Club (EWB) is working to design a project to alleviate storm water flooding at a vocational school in Santarem, a city along the Amazon River in Brazil. Working with a Brazilian nonprofit organization called Fundacao Esperanca that runs the school, the EWB plans to send a contingent to Santarem next summer to help flood proof the site, said EWB President Cole Duckworth, a civil engineering senior.

“Education really is the focus for this project,” Duckworth said. “Because if it’s flooded, there’s no point in having built the school.”

The Santarem project represents a five- to 10-year commitment for the humanitarian Mizzou organization, launched locally in 2006 to improve the quality of life in developing nations through sustainable engineering projects. The national EWB organization is about eight years old and based in Colorado, according to its Web site.

Mizzou’s chapter sent a team to Santarem in 2007 to survey the nonprofit’s 20-acre school site, mapping the topography and seeking the source of its flooding woes. Now the Mizzou group is analyzing its team’s findings to determine the most effective and easily maintained storm water management measures.

The project design must take into account the Amazon region’s unique characteristics, such as its concentration of disease-transmitting mosquitoes and heavy rainfalls, Duckworth said. It also must be largely maintenance free, he said.

“This is an interesting and challenging project because of the absence of design data that we use on domestic projects in the United States, the lack of construction equipment and materials, land ownership issues, the difficulty in finding funding for construction and our knowledge that there will be no maintenance of the system after construction,” said Robert Reed, a Mizzou Engineering research associate professor and the group’s adviser.

Among the projects that the EWB team is considering are energy dissipation structures to settle sand that the storm water tends to carry with it and stabilizers to prevent channel erosion, Duckworth said.

Whatever shape the project takes, EWB members will gain hands-on engineering experience while learning about another culture. That’s an aspect of the project that Duckworth finds particularly appealing.

“Establishing a relationship and learning how to communicate effectively with another culture really adds a unique and exciting dimension to the project that both sides can benefit from,” Duckworth said.

Contact Cole Duckworth for additional information or to contribute to the MU Engineers Without Borders Club.

Craig Kluever, an MU mechanical and aerospace engineering professor, has been named a “fellow” of the American Astronautical Society.

By Vicki Hodder, CoE senior information specialist

Mizzou Engineering Professor Craig Kluever will be honored next month by America’s premier space science and exploration association for his contributions to the field.

Kluever, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor, has been named a “fellow” by the American Astronautical Society (AAS). The Virginia-based association will officially recognize its four new “fellows” during a national conference luncheon slated for Nov. 18 in California.

“It’s just a nice honor,” Kluever said. “It’s nice to be recognized by your peers; I appreciate it very much.”

Kluever entered the aerospace engineering field in 1986, working in Rockwell International’s space shuttle program for three years. Since joining MU in 1993, Kluever has focused on aerospace guidance and control research and orbital mechanics.

Kluever is known in the field for his excellent work in determining the best route for spacecraft interplanetary travel using low-thrust propulsion systems, said Christopher Hall, a Virginia Tech aerospace and ocean engineering professor and department head who nominated Kluever for the honor.

“These low-thrust propulsion systems are relatively new additions to the hardware options for spacecraft, and so understanding how best to use them in space missions is an important research topic,” Hall said.

Kluever’s new AAS rank also recognizes his contributions to the astronautics society, AAS Executive Director James Kirkpatrick said. Kluever served for three years as managing editor of an AAS publication, The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences, as well as on several technical AAS committees.

The AAS, which includes roughly 1,500 national and international members, has elected about 430 “fellows” since its founding in 1954, Kirkpatrick said.

The MU Center for Sustainable Energy is encouraging researchers throughout Missouri to work together to harness the energy potential of algae like those shown above in hopes of providing a source of inexpensive biodiesel fuel. Photo courtesy of Michelle Liberton, International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability

By Vicki Hodder, CoE senior information specialist

MU Center for Sustainable Energy members are joining forces with researchers throughout the state in hopes of harvesting the enormous energy potential contained within algae microorganisms.

The center served as host Sept. 12 at an on-campus workshop designed to encourage collaborative development of an efficient process for converting algal oil into biodiesel fuel. Center and university leaders believe Missouri can lead the nation in developing algae-to-fuel conversion technology.

“There’s a broad investment in biosciences across Missouri,” said Robert V. Duncan, MU’s vice chancellor for research. “It’s not much of a retooling to take this investment in biosciences and apply it quite directly to algal biodiesel energy.”

Researchers for decades have seen energy promise in algal biodiesel but been stymied by production costs. A three-step process currently governs algal biodiesel conversion: Producers must grow the algae; they must remove virtually all of the water from the algae once it’s grown; and finally, they must extract oil from the dried algae to transform into biodiesel fuel.

Interest in algal biofuel has increased as the biodiesel industry has grown during the last several years. U.S. biodiesel production has jumped from 15 million gallons in 2002 to 450 million gallons in 2007, estimates the National Biodiesel Board (NBB), a national trade association based in Jefferson City, Mo.

Feedstock supplies have not been able to keep pace with demand, NBB representative Alan Weber said during last month’s workshop. Weber said he believes algal biofuel holds “a lot of potential” for helping meet that demand in the long term.

Among those discussing ways of reducing the cost of producing algal biodiesel at the workshop was biofuel researcher Richard Sayre, director of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center’s Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels.

Sayre described a “milking technology” he is working on that would remove algal oil without killing the algae. Other potential strategies for increasing production include adding glycerol to algae containers, Sayre said.

“There are tricks you can do with algae that you can’t do with plants,” he said.

Other Missouri organizations that joined MU center leaders to discuss advancing algal biofuel technology development include Lincoln University, the Midwest Research Institute, the Missouri University of Science and Technology and Washington University.

Research that Mizzou Engineering’s Verne Kaupp is conducting to help leaders forecast energy demands is among the existing projects that the new MU Center for Sustainable Energy aims to support by encouraging coordination and collaboration.

By Vicki Hodder, CoE senior information specialist

University of Missouri’s College of Engineering and College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources are seeking campuswide participation in a new center focused on developing renewable energy resources.

The MU colleges jointly launched the Center for Sustainable Energy last spring in hopes of establishing Missouri as a leader in the nation’s search for energy sustainability. Center organizers aim to support and coordinate cooperation among campus as well as statewide researchers and educators.

“We’re trying to be more than the sum of our parts,” said Gary Stacey, the MU center’s director and a plant sciences professor. “We’re really trying to catalyze and synergize.”

Center leaders sought to jump-start that cooperation during a Sept. 24 introductory meeting in which they invited MU colleagues to help develop strategies for collaboration. Organizers also have started campaigning for statewide collaboration on sustainable energy matters, proposing partnerships and sponsoring a workshop in which they sought to enlist researchers from throughout Missouri in a cooperative effort to harness the energy potential of algae microorganisms.

The center’s blueprint calls for expanding that coordinating role to cover a number of fronts.

MU’s new sustainable energy center will support initiatives in research, education, public service, energy-related technology commercialization and policy and resource management, said Robert Reed, a College of Engineering research associate professor who is helping Stacey develop the center.

Campus faculty members have been working for years on energy-related initiatives, Reed said. Coordinating that work will multiply its effectiveness, center leaders believe.

A sampling of existing MU energy-related projects includes:

• Verne Kaupp’s effort to create a Web-based tool capable of predicting the effects of climate change on regional weather variables—such as rain and temperature—a season or two ahead to help public and private leaders forecast energy demand and manage resources. Kaupp, an electrical and computer engineering research professor, leads an intercollegiate team that will use NASA satellite data and model forecasts to design the weather tool.
• Jinglu Tan’s work to improve how Missouri uses biomass by developing a systemic model designed to enhance sustainability while minimizing environmental impacts. Tan, chair of MU’s biological engineering department, also seeks to develop biomass technologies that will fit in well with state resources and constraints.
• Centers led by Bin Wu and Marie Steinwachs that help Missouri businesses and industries reduce their energy consumption and minimize their effect on the environment. Both the Industrial Assessment Center led by Wu and the Missouri Environmental Assistance Center led by Steinwachs also offer internships that provide students with experience in on-site environmental and energy assessments and research.

As they work to enhance these and other existing programs, center organizers hope to help supply a sustainable energy-savvy work force. They are proposing an energy minor for engineering students that would provide theoretical and practical training in a wide range of energy-related subjects.

“Recent employment forecasts and federal budgeting indicate a continuing increase in employment for engineers in the energy sector,” Reed said. “So this minor will make our students more competitive with graduates from other universities.”

Other MU education efforts will target broader audiences. For example, Stacey said renewable energy center faculty members are leading an upcoming University of Missouri Extension workshop series focusing on how farmers should respond to the growing bioenergy industry.

Much of the center’s mission involves gathering and analyzing information so that new or growing energy providers can organize effectively. Biomass, wind, thermal and solar energy producers require energy efficiency and demand data, and the university is uniquely positioned to provide it, Reed said.

“There’s a huge need out there that’s not being met,” Stacey said. “And that’s what we’re trying to address.”

College of Engineering Dean Jim Thompson will use a $450,000 federal grant to support nuclear education and research.

By Vicki Hodder, CoE senior information specialist

Responding to a nationwide shortage of engineers for the nuclear industry, Mizzou Engineering is launching a two-pronged program to encourage both scholarship and training in the field.

“Our goal is to build a core of individuals who are both high-impact researchers and educators so that they can effectively educate future generations of nuclear engineers,” College of Engineering Dean Jim Thompson said.

The College of Engineering has received a $450,000 grant from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to finance nuclear education program development and research conducted by two junior faculty members, Scott Kovaleski and Patrick Pinhero. The three-year grant will run through 2011.

Demographics and societal trends have combined to create a shortage of workers in the nuclear energy industry. Nuclear utility workers as a whole are aging—their median age is 48, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) based in Washington, D.C.—even as the power industry feels the pinch caused by a steady decline in the number of students earning nuclear engineering bachelor’s degrees following the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident.

While the number of nuclear engineering students started growing again about six years ago, nuclear work force demands have increased even more sharply. Sparked by high oil prices and carbon emission concerns, the nuclear industry has not only revived but has begun to expand. An NEI tally lists about 30 nuclear power plants in the NRC licensing pipeline, following decades of stagnation.

MU’s College of Engineering aims to supply some of the nuclear expertise required by current and planned nuclear power plant expansion.

With the University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR) as a research and educational resource, the college will use the NRC grant to fund the nuclear research of Kovaleski, an electrical and computer engineering assistant professor, and Pinhero, a chemical engineering associate professor. Their work will act as “seeds for future growth” of research and students, according to Thompson.

Kovaleski’s nuclear research focuses on developing neutron-generating accelerators much smaller than current models. Already working with a graduate student on an engine for a portable nuclear materials detector, Kovaleski plans to develop an entire sensor system that would stimulate a detectable emission of nuclear materials rather than try to detect the weak natural emissions as do most existing detection systems.

Pinhero is researching both nuclear reactor materials and fuel handling. He is working to develop materials with which to build advanced reactor systems operating at very high temperatures as well as investigating ways to recycle nuclear fuel so it can be used again.

The NRC program supporting Kovaleski and Pinhero addresses shortages in nuclear engineering and radiochemistry faculty, noted Mark Prelas, a nuclear engineering professor and director of research at MU’s Nuclear Science and Engineering Institute (NSEI). Academic nuclear engineering programs have been losing faculty to the nuclear power industry and government organizations as well as to attrition, Prelas said.

Engineering leaders also plan to encourage students to take advantage of a nuclear engineering minor created by NSEI in 2004 and administered by chemical engineering Associate Professor Paul C. H. Chan. Some 85 percent of the engineers at a typical American utility power plant are mechanical, electrical, chemical or civil engineers, said William Miller, one of the nuclear engineering professors who also administers the nuclear engineering minor.

“You don’t need to have an entire degree in nuclear engineering to work in the industry, you just need to have some understanding of it—and that’s what the nuclear engineering minor does,” Miller said. “The bottom line is, you need a lot of nuclear-trained engineers.”

As well as highlighting the nuclear minor and offering a planned curriculum incorporating it, Pinhero and Kovaleski plan to ensure that nuclear engineering courses, developed by NSEI Professor Tushar Ghosh and Associate Professor Robert Tompson Jr., receive regular classroom time. Pinhero said he will offer new courses in reactor design, advanced reactors and the nuclear fuel cycle.

“It is the simplest of all things: ‘If we build it, they will come,’” Kovaleski said.

By Vicki Hodder, CoE senior information specialist

A Mizzou Engineering graduate student is receiving international recognition for his work to develop an engine for a portable nuclear materials detector far smaller and less costly than existing devices.

Andrew Benwell, an electrical and computer engineering doctoral student, won the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management’s (INMM) J. D. Williams Student Paper Award on July 17. Judges working in the nuclear materials management professions selected Benwell’s paper from 17 submitted by U.S. and international students, an INMM spokeswoman said.

“I wouldn’t have been able to apply my research to such a timely problem at a lot of universities,” Benwell said. “I’m really glad Mizzou is being recognized for the research opportunities it provides.”

Benwell’s paper details engineering theory behind a component of a compact nuclear detection device that aims to fill gaps in America’s nuclear detection effort caused by the large number and variety of entry points into the United States.

Working with Assistant Professor Scott Kovaleski, Benwell devised the device to employ “active interrogation” screenings that would stimulate a detectable reaction in nuclear materials rather than try to pick up on the low levels of radioactivity those materials naturally emit.

“We stimulate nuclear materials to reveal themselves by inducing a reaction with a particle we generate, in our case neutrons,” Kovaleski said. “Think of this as a game of Marco Polo. We yell, “Marco,” by generating neutrons, and the nuclear material must yell, “Polo”—by radioactively decaying—if it encounters a neutron.”

What makes Benwell and Kovaleski’s device unusual is its reliance on a piezoelectric transformer, which creates the high voltage required to make neutrons in such a compact package. The device’s transformer would amplify the voltage supplied by a small battery or another electrical source to create those neutrons, then use the neutrons to probe suspected targets for identifying nuclear characteristics, Benwell said.

The clear reaction generated by the neutrons makes it more likely that nuclear materials—even some that may be shielded—will be detected, Benwell said.

Moreover, Benwell said his nuclear detection device is considerably more portable and cost-effective than existing devices.

“We think we can fit the whole thing into a case the size of an iPod or less with this piezoelectric material,” Benwell said. “And our materials would reduce costs a great deal.”

Kovaleski said he hopes to have a working prototype of the device within a year and to pursue the development of an entire system along the same lines.

By Vicki Hodder, CoE senior information specialist

Mizzou Engineering plans to power up the electrical and computer science workforce by financially backing students pursuing those fields.

With the aid of a National Science Foundation grant totaling nearly $520,000, Mizzou’s electrical and computer engineering department will launch a scholarship program next fall that aims to encourage student enrollment and retention. Awardees will receive two-year scholarships based on academic merit and need, as well as faculty and peer mentoring, said Gregory Triplett, an electrical and computer engineering assistant professor who is the grant’s principal investigator.

“It is critically important to produce more electrical and computer engineers, who will have a significant impact on emerging technical challenges,” Triplett said.

The retention program, called Increasing Retention for Electrical and Computer Engineers (IncREaCE), will offer two-year scholarships to at least 24 freshmen over a three-year period. Program plans call for targeting women and students from groups under-represented in engineering for the scholarships, which will require that recipients meet citizenship, enrollment, academic and financial need criteria.

Triplett hopes the program will bring the retention rate of electrical and computer undergraduate students between their freshman and junior years to more than 90 percent. That rate has been as low as 60 percent in recent years, and was about 78 percent in 2005, he said.

Such figures reflect a nationwide decline in electrical and computer engineering student enrollment. Undergraduate enrollment in those areas bucked general engineering enrollment trends by declining 14.7 percent between 2004 and 2007, said Michael Gibbons, director of data research for the American Society for Engineering Education.

“Everything else is going up, while this is going down,” Gibbons said.

Technological advances in the meantime have strengthened demand for electrical engineers. While government and industry opinions vary on the strength of market demand for American electrical engineers—due to a trend toward exporting some engineering jobs to other countries in order to lower costs—the field continues to grow, Gibbons said.

Indeed, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), an international technology organization, recently reported in its flagship publication that the salaries employers are paying electrical engineers are on the rise.

That comes as no surprise to Triplett, who points to the role electrical and computer engineers play in energy, power efficiency, communications and other disciplines that affect core U.S. interests.

“The ability to attract and retain prospective engineering students has become a much larger concern that impacts U.S. global competitiveness, educational technological infrastructure, workforce diversity, and homeland security issues, to name a few,” Triplett said.

Mizzou Engineering’s seismic design team has won its first outing in a national seismic design competition.

MU’s three-member team won a $500 prize July 29 by taking top honors in a first-time competition sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration, the Transportation Research Board, the South Carolina Department of Transportation and the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research. Four other teams from across the nation were selected to compete in the contest, held during the 6th National Seismic Conference on Bridges and Highways in Charleston, South Carolina.

“Winning this contest tells us we’re on the right track and makes us even more enthusiastic to keep competing,” said Team Captain Matthew Wheeler, a civil engineering sophomore.

The University of Colorado at Boulder earned second place at the competition, and Oregon State University took third place, said competition organizer Juan Caicedo, a University of South Carolina assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering.

Each student team competed to build the most earthquake-resistant model bridge using the fewest K’nex pieces possible. Judges scored the bridges on the amount of material used, which corresponded to construction cost, as well as on their ability to withstand weight and shaking. Construction time also played into the final score.

Wheeler attributed Mizzou’s win to the relatively small number of K’nex pieces—168—the team used to build its 6.5-foot long bridge. To reflect real-world priorities, Wheeler said team members focused on keeping their entry’s “cost” as low as possible while meeting safety standards.

“You identify exactly what needs to be done, and you do that without compromising safety,” he said.

The team, which also includes civil engineering sophomores Sean Collier and Jeremiah Kasinger, plans to continue competing. Though the seismic conference isn’t slated to hold another competition until 2010, Mizzou’s team will seek out other contests in hopes of extending its winning streak, Wheeler said.

“We learn a great deal about engineering while competing,” Wheeler said. “It really helps us learn how engineering works, from the recognition of a problem to its solution.”

Mizzou Engineering summer campers viewed laser research through a new perspective recently as they kicked off a week of hands-on engineering lessons.

The students listened to light as they experimented with a laser that generates sound waves, and looked at the colors of wavelength numbers. These and other experiments were designed to introduce young engineers to the biomedical tools and techniques that promise great advances in health care, said John Viator, a biological engineering assistant professor who led the lesson.

“It’s exciting to speak to young people who have ideas about how they want to be scientists,” Viator said. “With this type of exposure to actual lab science, students can begin to formulate ways to take their enthusiasm and apply it to their future education and careers.”

Nearly 75 high school students from across the country attended the College of Engineering’s trio of six-day summer camps held on campus throughout July. Campers explored engineering through a mix of lectures, activities and team design competitions aimed at giving them practical experience in engineering’s various disciplines.

High school senior Carlton Reininger, of Valencia, Calif., said that experience helped him determine which engineering field to pursue. While Reininger’s high school math and physics classes already had sparked his interest in engineering, he said talking to Mizzou Engineering’s professors about their research convinced him he wants to go into industrial or mechanical and aerospace engineering.

Other campers had settled on an engineering discipline but wanted to learn more about Mizzou.

“I’m thinking about going here, so I thought I’d get acquainted with the campus and some of the staff,” said Columbia resident Isaac Zachary, a Hickman High School junior.

Camp organizers said they focus both on recruiting student engineers and encouraging broader educational goals through the program. Engineering Recruiting Coordinator Laura Forbes, who helped lead the camps, urged participants to continue developing their math and science skills whether or not they attend Mizzou.

“We’d love for this camp to persuade the students to go into engineering—to get their degrees here at Mizzou Engineering—but as long as we encourage them to pursue higher education, we feel we’ve done our job,” Forbes said.

Michael Taberner, a high school senior from Tehachapi, Calif., said his week at the Mizzou Engineering summer camp confirmed his plans to earn a computer engineering degree. Having a career in which he was able to design his own software would be “something from my dreams,” Taberner said.

“It was a great camp; I really liked it,” Taberner said. “I’m definitely going to go into software engineering.”