Mechanical Engineering

Stevens Team Recognized at Airplane Design Competition

April 26, 2013

Senior Design “Team Red Bird” wins best oral presentation and 5th overall A Stevens Institute of Technology senior design team made up of Mechanical Engineering majors Syeda Zehra, Matthew Riley, Michaelo Velarde, and Phillmon McFadden has been honored with the Best Oral Presentation Prize, as well as 5th place overall, in the Advanced Class of the 2013 Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Aero Design West Competition for their Heavy Lift Cargo Plane. The project advisor was Dr. Siva Thangam. Mechanical Engineering Laboratory Supervisor Mr. Milan Simonovic assisted with the construction of the plane and Graduate Student Elias Aljallis accompanied and assisted [Read more...]

Stevens Students Win People's Choice Award in National Academy of Engineering Ethics Contest

March 19, 2013

Interdisciplinary collaboration produces video to reassess nuclear energy as sustainable power source. A team of undergraduate students from Stevens Institute of Technology have won the People’s Choice Award in the nationwide National Academy of Engineering Ethics Video Contest for their investigation of nuclear energy as a sustainable power source. Seniors Robert Truppner, Scott Reardon, Frank Coppola, and junior Bryan Vianco created a video titled "Thorium Future" (available for viewing on the OEC site) that explores ethical concerns related to nuclear energy production. Videos in the competition were submitted by students from universities all over the country, including Purdue University, Smith College, [Read more...]

Acoustics Expert Dr. Prasad Gives Keynote Presentation at International Conference

February 28, 2013

Professor Prasad advocates better design to reduce environmental noise When a building is designed, structural integrity and visual appeal are carefully taken into consideration and optimized. The same cannot be said for the acoustic design of buildings, which is often overlooked. As a recognized leader in reducing noise pollution and the Director of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering, Dr. Marehalli Prasad of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology gave the keynote presentation on the importance of acoustics and noise control in the design of buildings at the 2013 International Conference on Advances in Building Science held [Read more...]

Stevens Students Enter National Academy of Engineering Ethics Video Contest

January 14, 2013

Team of engineers proposes reassessment of nuclear energy as a sustainable power source Screenshot from the "Thorium Future" video Technological advances in energy production create exciting benefits and opportunities for society, but they also come with problems and challenges. As part of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Online Ethics Center (OEC) Energy Ethics Video Challenge, a group of students at Stevens Institute of Technology is investigating whether nuclear power deserves renewed consideration as a sustainable energy source. Seniors Robert Truppner, Scott Reardon, and Frank Coppola, as well as junior Bryan Vianco, have created a video entitled "Thorium Future" (available [Read more...]

Stevens Students Successfully Build Submarine for Government Demonstration

December 18, 2012

Stevens students are always working on exciting projects, and a select team of seven just completed one of particular interest to the Department of Defense. At a joint demonstration in November, the team successfully completed a mission to build a vehicle that could locate and disrupt a communications cable 40 feet underwater. For three years Stevens has participated in this government program, called Perseus, which asks schools to design and build equipment that could have military value. This year the program, run by the Defense Department’s Rapid Reaction Technology Office, invited Stevens and three other schools – Georgia Institute of Technology, Florida [Read more...]

Co-op Student Develops Automotive Technologies in France - A Childhood Dream

December 3, 2012

As a youngster in Brazil fascinated with cars, Stevens student Patrick Penna ‘14 dreamed of contributing to research and development in the automotive industry. Approximately one decade, five standardized tests and two continents later, he is now realizing his dream as an intern helping to develop dual-clutch transmission technology at S.T.A., a production subsidiary of Renault, the French vehicle manufacturer. Penna is a Cooperative Education (Co-op) student and Mechanical Engineering major. S.T.A., which specializes in automatic transmissions, is his first co-op assignment. For the entire fall semester, he has been an integral part of the testing and after-sales team in the [Read more...]

Dr. E. H. Yang's Team Awarded AFOSR Grant to Develop Advanced Infrared Detection Technology

September 28, 2012

The research team develops cost-effective, portable wide-spectrum infrared detection using graphene Any object with a temperature above absolute zero emits infrared (IR) radiation, and the ability to detect IR light has profoundly expanded visual capabilities, allowing people to see at night and machines to sense motion. Just as visible light can be picked up by the sensor pixels of a common digital camera made from silicon, infrared radiation can be detected by the sensor pixels of an IR camera using a special material. The wavelength information can then be processed to produce a visual representation of an object. Infrared vision has numerous [Read more...]

NSF Funds Unique Motion Capture Robotics Lab

September 27, 2012

Motion capture technology has revolutionized filmmaking and video games, animating fantastic characters with realistic movements. In 2010, the Microsoft Kinect, a peripheral for the Xbox 360, began capturing the movements of players, allowing them to control video game characters with their bodies. The 2009 movie Avatar used large-volume motion capture and advanced methods of capturing facial expressions to allow director James Cameron to create one of the most simultaneously imaginative and immersive fantasy worlds ever filmed. These motion capture systems sample the movements of a person many times per second, and then send the data to a computer for processing [Read more...]

Dr. Chang-Hwan Choi Wins Instrumentation Grant from the Office of Naval Research

September 24, 2012

Low-friction, anti-corrosive research at Stevens promises durability and improved hydrodynamics for naval vessels Dr. Chang-Hwan Choi Natural surfaces of plants such as lotus leaves, the skin of marine animals, and the wings of insects have fascinated people throughout history because of their ability to repel water and stay clean in wet, muddy environments. Sometimes referred to as the Lotus Effect, this phenomenon means that water droplets on these surfaces tend not to compress or deform, instead remaining upright in the shape of a bead. Due to a complicated surface structure that minimizes adhesion, the droplets can easily roll off when [Read more...]

Groundbreaking Stevens Research on Water-Repellent Surfaces Published in Physical Review Letters

September 20, 2012

Dr. Chang-Hwan Choi and Dr. Wei Xu Revise Scientific Understanding of Superhydrophobicity Dr. Chang-Hwan Choi Many natural surfaces repel water, allowing them to stay relatively dry and clean in wet, muddy environments. The most famous example is the lotus leaf, which has a complex surface architecture that prevents water and dirt from adhering, thus allowing it to remain clean in ponds, lakes and marshes. Materials scientists are reproducing this property in the surfaces they fabricate in order to bring self-cleaning, anti-icing, anti-fouling and anti-corrosive properties to the surfaces and structures of modern technology. Dr. Chang-Hwan Choi of the Department of [Read more...]