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Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering and
Engineering Science
Visit us online:
www.engr.utk.edu/maes/
Dr. Don Dareing
MAES Department Head
Two graduate students presented their research work in national
meetings this summer.
Thada Somphone discussed the nonlinear electro-mechanical coupling in smart electro-strictive materials during the 1999 ASME Mechanical and Materials Conference held at Virginia Tech June 27-30. He currently holds an Office of Naval Research Historically Black Engineering Colleges Future Faculty Fellowship.
Chin Tee reported his studies on the heat conduction in porous
carbon foams at the 24th Biennial Conference on Carbon held in Charleston,
S.C., July 11-16. The project is funded by Lockheed Martin Energy
Research. Both students are working with Dr. Allen Yu.
Thirteen students won third place in the sixth annual Great Moon
Buggy Race sponsored by NASA-Huntsville. They also won the "Bravest
Entry Award" for their courage and determination. Team members
designed, built and tested a human-powered lunar rover. Two drivers
assembled the rover and drove it over a one-half mile course with
numerous obstacles on a simulated lunar terrain. The team members
were Hani Ayesh, James Basler, Aaron Berry, Wayne Brewer, Mubasher
Cheema, Doug Collins, Chris Eash, Nathan Fowler, David Gilliam,
Louna Koeut, Amy Parton, Alan Rigby and Tracie Weber.
The faculty sponsors were Drs. Chris Pionke and David
Irick.
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Dr. Pionke
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Dr. Chris Pionke has been selected by the National Alumni Association
as an outstanding teacher. He teaches engineering fundamentals for
lower division engineering students in the Engage program.
Dr. Allen Yu received a Chancellor's Award for Excellence
in Full-time Teaching during the Chancellor's Awards Honors Ceremonies
this year.
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Nuclear
Engineering
Visit us online:
www.engr.utk.edu/nuclear/
Dr. H. Lee Dodds
NE Department Head
The NE department presented a free one-day workshop in July for
middle and high school science teachers on "Nuclear Fundamentals."
The workshop was co-sponsored by the local Oak Ridge/Knoxville chapter
of the American Nuclear Society. Thirty-seven science teachers attended
the workshop. The second annual Science Teacher Workshop on Nuclear
Fundamentals is tentatively scheduled for July, 2000.
The NE department presented five one-week short courses during the
34th Tennessee Industries Week (TIW-34) to over 20 students from
the U.S. and abroad. Courses were presented on maintenance and reliability
engineering by Dr. Belle Upadhyaya et al.; neural networks
and fuzzy logic in engineering by Dr. Wes Hines and Dr.
Bob Uhrig; radiological assessment by Dr. Larry Miller
et al.; nuclear criticality safety by Dr. Lee Dodds et al.;
and Monte Carlo analysis by Dr. Ron Pevey and Dr. Paul
Stevens. The 35th Tennessee Industries Week is tentatively scheduled
for August 14-18, 2000.
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Dr. Upadhyaya
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Dr. Belle Upadhyaya joined with colleagues from the Instrumentation
and Controls Division of ORNL and North Carolina State University
in a project funded by the US Department of Energy on the subject
of "Reliable Control Architectures for Future Nuclear Power
Plants." The project is part of DOE's Nuclear Engineering Research
Initiative and is funded at $1.5 million dollars over three years
which is shared by UTK, NCSU and ORNL.
Dr. H.L. Dodds, professor and head of the UTK Nuclear Engineering
Department, recently received a national award from the American
Nuclear Society. Please see the Kudos page.
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NE news continued
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Dr. Pevey
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Dr. Ron Pevey is presenting his introductory nuclear criticality
safety course, NE 421, to students at North Carolina State University
(NCSU) live via the Internet as well as to UTK students who are
in his classroom. This new distance education initiative is the
result of a request from NCSU for a course exchange between the
two nuclear engineering departments.
Dr. Larry Townsend has been selected by NASA to chair a Radiation
Health Panel for the Mars 2003/2005 Project. He has also been invited
to be a Plenary Speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Radiation Research
Society in Albuquerque, N.M. in April, 2000.
Graduate student Jennifer Parsons received an Outstanding
Student Research Award from the Los Alamos National Laboratory for
research that she conducted at LANL this past summer.
Three nuclear engineering graduate students have received $3,000
supplemental scholarships from the American Nuclear Society for
the 1999-2000 academic year. The students, Jason Crye, Thomas
Miller and Brandon Rasmussen competed nationally against
other NE graduate students from across the US in winning these scholarships.
Graduate students John Neal and Dan Stephens have
also been awarded three-year NASA Research Fellowships.
A Nuclear Engineering Department Board of Advisors has been appointed
for a four year term. The members are: Dr. Bert Ackerman (Chair),
President of SpinLab; Dr. Mike Kuliasha, Director of the Computational
Physics and Engineering Division of ORNL; Mr. Jon Rupert, Chief
Engineer of TVA-Nuclear; and Dr. John Auxier, President of Auxier
and Associates.
New Staff:
LaShel Brown--accounting clerk
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Center For Materials
Processing
Visit us online:
www.engr.utk.edu/cmp
Dr. Carl McHargue
CMP Director
An agreement has been prepared to initiate collaborative research
between Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) and the CMP. Initial
studies will involve the research of Dr. Roberto Benson,
Materials Science and Engineering, UTK, and Professor Jacobo Reyes,
Applied Physics, UCV, on the development of polymer composites reinforced
with natural fibers. The current studies by Benson and Dr. Maria
Martinez-Pardo, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares,
Mexico, on the effects of gamma irradiation on the mechanical properties
of polymer film will become a part of this collaboration.
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Dr. McHargue
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Dr. Carl J. McHargue, CMP Director, represented the Accreditation
Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) at a seminar in Sao
Paulo, Brazil, in August. The seminar was organized by the Polytechnic
Institute, University of Sao Paulo to consider the development of
a new engineering curriculum to meet the challenges of the 21st
century. McHargue presented a talk on "Impact of EC2000 on
Engineering Programs in the United States" and consulted with
the USP faculty on issues of accreditation and assessment of quality
in engineering education.
New Office Location:
513 East Stadium Hall
Knoxville, Tenn. 37996-0750
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