Mecheconnects This Legacy of Support to 2.009 Course Responds to Vehicle Team Hits Graduate Students…
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Spring 2010 Vol. 1, No. 1 Published twice a year Massachusetts Institute of Technology In Professor Ain Sonin’s Professor David Wallace’s The MIT Electric MechEConnects This legacy of support to 2.009 course responds to Vehicle Team hits graduate students…. emergencies… the road…. Issue: News from the MIT | > p. 8 | | > p. 11 | | > p. 15 | Department of Mechanical Engineering Mechanical Engineering Professor Gang Chen with vacuum chamber Pushing the boundaries of Professor Gang Chen made headlines last summer when he and his colleagues solved a century-old energy—theoretical, practical, problem in the physics of heat transfer … and personal | > p. 4 | MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering 2 Introducing Dear Friends, I am happy to introduce the first issue ofMechE Connects. We see this publication as a MechE Connects platform linking more than 5,000 undergraduate and 6,000 graduate program alumni to the department. We also see it as a vehicle for sharing snapshots of the advances emerging from the labs, classrooms, and students of Mechanical Engineering @ MIT. With more than 70 faculty members, 450 undergraduates, 450 graduate students, and 60 postdoctoral associates/fellows pushing the frontiers of mechanical engineering, there is a lot of news to share. We have maintained our U.S. News and World Report ranking as the number one mechanical engineering department at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Our research is bringing engineering solutions to a spectrum of global challenges, including clean and renewable energy technologies, next generation technologies for water purification and desalination, and breakthrough instrumentation and controls for medical treatment and biomedical exploration. We are designing systems for underwater exploration and environmental monitoring and materials and technologies for protection of our first responders and soldiers. We also are exploring and decoding optimized designs stemming from the biomimetics of fish swimming, clam burrowing, snail locomotion, and natural armor structures. These projects range from the fundamental engineering science underpinnings to the design and fabrication of new structures, devices, and systems. This inaugural edition of MechE Connects features Professor Gang Chen. Together with colleagues, Gang has just solved a one-hundred-year-old physics challenge. But that is just a small part of his research portfolio. Gang led a multi-department and multi-university team of researchers to win a DOE Engineering Frontier Research Center (EFRC)—the Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC). S3TEC aims to advance fundamental science and engineering in the development of materials and devices to harness heat—from the sun and terrestrial sources—and convert it into electricity via solid- state thermoelectric and thermophotovoltaic technologies. MechE Connects will be disseminated twice a year by mail and on the Web, giving everyone with an internet connection the opportunity to stay current. As you read this print edition, we hope you will be inspired to log on and see the extra content in the online version and to strengthen your connection to Mechanical Engineering @ MIT. Enjoy this first issue ofMechE Connects, and please drop us a line at [email protected] with ideas for news or features. I hope this venture opens dynamic new dialogues with our alumni and friends and connects a community engaged in lifelong learning. Mary C. Boyce, Gail E. Kendall Professor and Department Head Massachusetts Institute of Technology Spring 2010 Vol. 1, No. 1 Published twice a year News from the MIT MechEConnects Department of Mechanical Engineering > http://mecheconnects.mit.edu About MechE Table of Contents Mechanical engineering was one of the 4-7 Gang Chen, pushing the boundaries of energy original courses of study offered when classes began at the Massachusetts Institute of 8 Ain A. Sonin Fellowship: a tribute Technology in 1865. Today, the Department of Mechanical Engineering (MechE) comprises 9 Fuel cells get a boost seven principal research areas: 10 Around campus • Mechanics: modeling, experimentation 11 High-flying alumni and computation 13-14 RoboClam: underwater innovation • Design, manufacturing, and product development 15 MIT Electric Vehicle Team hits the road • Controls, instrumentation, 16-19 Awards and honors and robotics 20 New faculty • Energy science and engineering 21 Professor Franz Hover talks shop • Ocean science and engineering 22-23 MechE research news • Bioengineering • Nano/micro science and technology Contact MechE Newsletter Staff: Each of these disciplines encompasses Department of Mechanical Engineering Jordan Lewis several laboratories and academic programs Massachusetts Institute of Technology Producer/Writer 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 3-173 that foster modeling, analysis, computation, Cambridge, MA 02139 Sucharita Berger Ghosh and experimentation. MechE educational Administrative Officer E-mail: [email protected] programs remain leading-edge by providing B. Harris Crist in-depth instruction in engineering principles http://mecheconnects.mit.edu Webmaster and unparalleled opportunities for students to Robert & Kathleen Thurston-Lighty apply their knowledge. Editorial Contributors Wing Ngan Designer This newsletter was printed on Green Seal certified Mohawk Options which contains 100% postconsumer waste fiber and manufactured with Green-e certified renewable wind energy credits that match 100% of the electricity used in the operations. MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering 4 Gang Chen, pushing the boundaries of energy—theoretical, practical, and personal Mechanical Engineering Professor Gang Chen Gang Chen—one of the seminars from one end of the planet have relied on the fact that the law pioneers on the front lines of energy to the other. And in whatever time describes the maximum thermal science—is an energy phenomenon is left at the end of the day, Gang emission possible from any radiating himself. The Carl Richard Soderberg Chen is helping to redefine the laws object. Up to a point, that is. Professor of Power Engineering of physics. Beyond Planck’s Law is one of the world’s leading Chen made headlines last summer researchers in the nanoengineering As Planck himself suspected, the when he and his colleagues, MIT of energy transfer. He heads the new theory breaks down when the graduate student Sheng Shen and Solid State Solar Thermal Energy distance between objects becomes Columbia University Professor Conversion Center (S3TEC) with a minute. But over the ensuing Arvind Narayaswamy (who was also staff of 50+, serves on the editorial hundred years, no one has found Chen’s student), solved a century- boards of five scientific journals, a way to measure this anomaly old problem in the physics of heat teaches undergraduate and graduate precisely. A big part of the challenge transfer. Since 1900, when German classes, advises 21 graduate students, has been mechanical—keeping physicist Max Planck formulated his 12 postdocs, and two research two objects in very close proximity blackbody radiation law, scientists scientists, and delivers lectures and without allowing them to touch. > http://mecheconnects.mit.edu MechE Connects Spring 2010 5 “We tried for many years using man himself does not betray the “ parallel plates,” says Chen. The best extraordinary dynamism that propels No doubt that he and his colleagues could his accomplishments. The modest, achieve with this approach, however, affable Chen, who is known for his about it. was a separation of about one micron collaborative zeal, will never be the The students (one millionth of a meter). first person in the room to point out at MIT are that his findings on Planck’s Law, The ground shifted when the team published in the August 2009 issue exceptional. I have reconsidered the shape of one of the of the journal Nano Letters, could well a very dynamic objects. They replaced one of the flat have seismic impact. group of students plates with a small silica glass bead. “Because there is just a single point Chen’s discovery can have many and postdocs, and of near-contact between the bead and potential applications. The magnetic I love to challenge the plate, it proved much easier to data recording systems used in them and see them close the gap to the nanometer scale,” computer hard disks, for example, grow. I keep telling explains Chen. Using the bead, typically have spacing in the five to them to get their they’ve reduced the distance between six nanometer range. Because the the objects to 30 nanometers (30 recording heads tend to heat up hands dirty. Always billionths of a meter)—one-thirtieth in these devices, researchers have be on the lookout of the gap they had accomplished been looking for ways to manage or for new areas of with two flat surfaces. even exploit the heat to control the exploration. My spacing. The fundamental insights Once they had transformed the goal: when they revealed by Chen and his colleagues distance parameter, the team then will allow designers to improve the are done here, they introduced a bimetallic cantilever performance of such devices. will be leading from an atomic force microscope. researchers.” This significantly increased the Chen also is becoming increasingly precision of the temperature and heat excited at possibilities for the flow measurements and produced development of a new generation of Professor Gang Chen startling results. It turned out that at thermophotovoltaics (TPVs)—energy the nanoscale, heat transfer between