It was a bittersweet (and very busy) spring semester as Khalid and Tyler completed their doctoral program. Congratulations to Dr. Abdelaziz and Dr. Albright for achieving this massive career milestone. Enjoy your next adventure! You will be missed.

Congratulations to Khalid for this major accomplishment. The title of his dissertation is: "Intelligent Control Systems for Wind-induced Vibration Mitigation in Tall Buildings". Photo: Khalid Abdelaziz and Jared Hobeck.

Congratulations to Tyler for this major accomplishment. The title of his dissertation is: "Investigating the influence of particle dispersion on the electromechanical properties of nanoparticle-based conductive polymer composites". The photo below shows Tyler along with his PhD committee at the conclusion of his defense. Photo: (left-to-right) Gurpreet Singh, Suprem Das, Youqi Wang (remote attendance), Tyler Albright, and Jared Hobeck.

Congratulations to Khalid Abdelaziz for the recent publication of his paper titled: "A smart façade system controller for optimized wind-induced vibration mitigation in tall buildings" which was published in the Journal of Wind Engineering & Industrial Aerodynamics. For a limited time you can access the full-text free via Elsevier here: Link

Congratulations to Tyler Albright for his paper titled: "High-fidelity stochastic modeling of carbon black-based conductive polymer composites for strain and fatigue sensing" which was recently published in the Journal of Materials Science. For a limited time you can access the full-text free via Springer SharedIt here: https://rdcu.be/cdphz.

​Image: (a) Raven RQ-11B CAD model, (b) engine schematic, (c) 3D printed titanium crankcase. Modified from: DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2020.112514.

Jared Hobeck, assistant professor in the Alan Levin Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, has been awarded a subcontract as part of a short-term $127,000 Seed Research Initiation grant from NASA.

The project seeks to develop a design framework for 3D-printable hybrid internal combustion engines to power unmanned aerial vehicles on both Mars and Earth missions. Hobeck's Multifunctional Structures Lab is responsible for designing and simulating an electromagnetic linear generator integrated with the engine to provide electrical power while maximizing system efficiency.

This one-year project, led by Wichita State University, is a collaborative effort between three Kansas universities — Wichita State, Kansas State University and the University of Kansas; three industry partners — KalScott Engineering, Brij Systems and Aerojet Rocketdyne; and the NASA Glen Research Center.

The team expects these early efforts to pave the way for long-term sustained collaboration, STEM outreach events and future funding opportunities.

See this article on K-State Today

MSL's computing cluster "CRUNCH" has recently received some hefty upgrades. Six new dual processor compute nodes were added to the original six nodes. The new processors are slightly faster and each new node has twice the RAM (128GB) of the original system nodes. CRUNCH is primarily used for: fluid-structure interaction simulations, stochastic nano-particle network modeling, artificial neural networks, machine learning, image analysis, and aero-structural optimization.

"We're getting too good at moving heavy things". While this may be an unfortunate truth, the group is now happily settled into their new larger space on the ground floor of Rathbone Hall. The photos show (in-order): (1) entrance to the newly renovated room 0028; (2) student work/office space; (3) servohydraulic load frame stations; (4) dedicated room for hydraulic pumps and storage; (5) laser vibrometer cart and impact testing frame; (6) oven and environmental chamber; (7) sample prep and wet lab; and (8) vibration isolation tables.

In September Khalid and Dr. Hobeck attended the ASME Conference on Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems (SMASIS) hosted at the Omni Hotel in Louisville, KY. Khalid presented their peer-reviewed paper titled "Developing a Smart Façade System Controller for Wind-Induced Vibration Mitigation in Tall Buildings". In addition to providing great technical talks, the conference also included a tour and banquet at Churchill Downs - home of the Kentucky Derby!

Welcome MSL's newest member! CRUNCH is our Linux-based high-performance computing cluster. We have projects that will immediately benefit from its computing abilities spanning across topics including: fluid-structure interaction, stochastic nano-particle networks, artificial neural networks, machine learning, image analysis, and aero-structural optimization. Time to put it to work!