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Cover Story
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Grant will improve engineering education Faculty in Iowa State’s Colleges of Engineering and Education have received a $100,000 National Science Foundation grant to research and develop new education methods for undergraduate engineers. An integral part of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering’s (IMSE) ongoing initiative in enterprise computing and information engineering, the project will explore the problem-solving paths students take when performing engineering activities. A better understanding of these paths is likely to result in better performance of engineering activities, which companies look for in new graduates. Sigurdur Olafsson will lead a team of five faculty and five students from both colleges. Ultimately, the project will produce a set of interrelated active learning modules based on real-world scenarios. These modules will emphasize the use of information technology in the engineering problem-solving process, while linking content among current courses in industrial engineering. For each scenario, students will define goals, formulate problems, and develop solution strategies while mastering course material. Partners create new engineering lab A new lab facility that will conduct innovative research in developing durable, cost-effective, and lower maintenance concrete pavements has been established at Iowa State University. The Portland Cement Concrete Pavement and Materials Research Laboratory (PCC Lab) is located in Town Engineering building. It will be administered by the Center for Portland Cement Concrete Pavement Technology, which was created two years ago through a public/private/university partnership consisting of the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT), Iowa State, and the concrete pavement industry. As a result of this partnership, the Iowa Concrete Paving Association donated $220,000 to build the laboratory, with the Iowa DOT and Iowa State providing $145,000 to help equip the facility. The Iowa DOT has also funded two quarter-time faculty positions to support the center’s research activities. Iowa State’s College of Engineering and the Department of Civil and Construction Engineering provided the space for the new lab. In addition to conducting advanced research to improve Iowa’s concrete paved roads and highways, the PCC Lab will function as a center for technology transfer and training. It will serve as a resource for on-campus student internships and provide enhanced academic programs for concrete pavement engineers. Van Gerpen is interim ME chair Jon Van Gerpen has been named interim chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering for the 2002–2003 academic year, replacing Warren DeVries, who is on sabbatical from Iowa State to take a position with the National Science Foundation. With enrollments of approximately 1,000 undergraduate and 125 graduate students, the mechanical engineering curriculum is the single largest academic program in the College of Engineering. Van Gerpen’s research focuses on internal combustion engines, alternative fuels, and the formation of pollutants. In addition to his responsibilities as departmental chair, he also directed a series of fall workshops dedicated to developing and promoting diesel fuel made from renewable agricultural resources. Iowa State is poised to become one of the leading institutions in the commercial development of biodiesel fuels. Van Gerpen, a native of Cedar Falls, earned a B.A. in philosophy and a B.S. in mechanical engineering in 1978 and an M.S. in mechanical engineering in 1980 from Iowa State. He earned his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering in 1984 from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, the same year he joined the Iowa State mechanical engineering faculty. CNDE gets $2-million grant from NASA With a $2-million grant from NASA, the Center for Nondestructive Evaluation is launching a groundbreaking program to improve the reliability of future aerospace systems and to assist NASA with solving some more immediate safety and mission-assurance problems. The grant offers the opportunity to draw on ISU’s core strengths in sensors and materials processing. The effort will contribute to the development of a new class of sensors integrated within aerospace structures to continuously monitor the structure’s condition and take corrective actions. “The idea is to develop vehicles that are, in some sense, like an organism—they can sense damage or degradation in their conditions and can take action on what they have sensed. Further down the road, the potential exists for a structure to actually heal itself,” said Bruce Thompson, CNDE director and professor of CCE and MSE. The CNDE program, “Advanced NDE for Future Aerospace Systems,” will focus on 15 technical areas and includes projects that will extend Iowa State’s core strength into new areas. In addition to scientists currently working with CNDE, the program will draw on the expertise of other ISU scientists in the academic departments of materials science and engineering, physics, and electrical and computer engineering as well as in other research centers. Engineering professor elected to materials council Mufit Akinc, professor and chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Iowa State University, has been elected to serve on the executive council of the University Materials Council (UMC). He will participate in UMC activities, such as conducting surveys that benchmark enrollment and degrees awarded, faculty salaries, research funding, and graduate student stipends. UMC is a forum for department heads and directors of materials programs in the U.S. and Canada to share best practices in areas such as student recruitment, academic accreditation, emerging research, patent rights policies, and research funding issues in materials science and engineering. It maintains liaisons with prominent materials societies, like the National Materials Advisory Board (NMAB) and the Federation of Materials Societies (FMS). | |
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