Department News

Visit us online:
engr.utk.edu/maes/

Dr. Don Dareing MAES
Department Head

Based on his contributions in applied thermodynamics and thermoeconomics, Dr. Robert J. Krane has been asked to serve on the Scientific Council of the International Center of Applied Thermodynamics.

Dr. Jack Wasserman conducted a short course on "Vibration Theory, Transduction and Signal Processing for Human Body Vibration Applications" for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control. The first week of January, 11 participants from Morgantown, W.V., participated in the three-day course featuring hands-on training.

A grant from Exxon Chemical Company for nonwoven microfiber research led by Dr. Mancil Milligan has been extended to include $70,000 of funding for 1999. To date, Exxon's contribution to this project has totaled more than $900,000 during the last 14 years.

During the MAES faculty retreat, four professors were honored for their teaching and research accomplishments. Dr. Judy Cezeaux, Dr. Jeff Hodgson, Dr. Mancil Milligan and Dr. Allen Yu each received $2,000 for their outstanding professional contributions to the department.

UTK was selected as one of nine universities to be a participant in the Department of Energy's newly developed Graduate Automotive Technology Education Center of Excellence (GATE). Between 1998 and 2000 the college will receive $500,000 from the DOE for development, materials and fellowships. The GATE initiative is designed to accomplish the following:

• Develop automotive technology that will lead to a clean and ultra-fuel efficient car of the future.

• Enable selected universities to offer a graduate degree in engineering with a focus on one of five advanced automotive technologies. o

• Educate a future work force of cross-disciplinary automotive engineering professionals with experience in developing and commercializing cutting-edge automotive technology.
  

Return to top of page

Visit us online:
engr.utk.edu/dept/nuclear/

Dr. H. Lee Dodds
NE Department Head

In November, NE students celebrated a victory in the 1998 Student Design Contest sponsored annually by the American Nuclear Society held in Washington, D.C. Graduate students Ibrahim Attieh, Deb Bentzinger, Larry Berg, Dan Evans, David Pointer and Mark Wyatt won first place against a graduate team from Georgia Tech. Undergraduate students Christi Duck, Scott Brame, Bill Bird, Michael Eakin and Dang Ho placed second against a team from Purdue University. UTKs NE students have been selected as finalists (either first or second place) in the annual contest in 20 of the past 23 years. This record is unmatched by any other nuclear engineering program in the country. The UTK nuclear engineering design students in the 1998 contest were instructed by Dr. Tom Shannon with assistance from Dr. Lee Dodds.

Several UTK NE students won Outstanding Paper Awards at the national ANS meeting held in Nashville in June 1998. Katherine Goluoglu won first place, Deb Bentzinger won third place and Ralph Demeglio received honorable mention in a special session devoted entirely to student research in Nuclear Criticality Safety. These three graduate students were supervised by Dr. Lee Dodds, Dr. John Mihalczo and Dr. Ron Pevey, respectively.

Mark Wyatt, NE graduate student, presented a technical paper entitled "Characterization of an Enriched Uranyl Fluoride Deposit in a Valve and Pipe Intersection Using Time-of-Flight Transmission Measurements with Cf-252," that was selected as the best student paper at a topical conference sponsored by the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management held in July in Naples, Fla. Wyatt's research was directed by Dr. John Mihalczo.

A major benchmark study on Steam Generator Automated Eddy Current Data Analysis was recently published by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). This research and development project conducted by Dr. Belle Upadhyaya and his graduate students, Wu Yan, Wes Hooper and Ali Erbay, was one of 19 worldwide contributions included by EPRI in its corporate documentation (TR-111463, 1998).

Dr. Larry Miller has agreed to serve as the General Chairman of the SPECTRUM 2000 Conference which is scheduled for Sept. 24-28, 2000, at the Chattanooga Convention Center. The SPECTRUM conferences, held every two years, focus on radioactive waste issues.

Dr. Bob Uhrig, distinguished professor of NE with the UT/ORNL Science Alliance, entered the university's phased retirement program on Jan. 1 after more than a decade of service to the university and ORNL. He plans to continue his research activities in the department at a reduced level for the next four years.

Return to top of page

Dr. Carl McHargue
CMP Director

Last fall, six firms or associations joined the Center for Materials Processing to help support the research of graduate students in materials science and engineering: Welding Research Council, New York; Materials Properties Council, New York; Nupro Corporation, Grand Island, N.Y.; AeroTech Engineering and Research Corporation, Lawrence, Kan.; MTS Systems Corporation (NanoInstruments Laboratory), Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and Carbomedics Inc., Austin, Texas.

The CMP participated in organizing a conference entitled "Impact of Emerging Technologies on Health Care in the 21st Century" which was held Dec. 3 and 4 at the Hyatt Regency in Knoxville. Ten of the 30 papers on biomaterials were presented by teams associated with CMP. The conference, which featured Senator Bill Frist as keynoter, attracted more than 250 participants from across the United States.

During the Annual Meeting of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) in October, Dr. Carl J. McHargue, director of the CMP and materials science and engineering professor, was elected to the Board of Directors for a three-year term. ABET is the body recognized by the U. S. Department of Education and the professional engineering societies to accredit engineering programs in the United States.

Return to top of page