Ryan Holloman Receives Ph.D.

Congratulations to Ryan Holloman who has received his Ph.D. in Materials Science.  Ryan's thesis "Impulse Loading of 3D Prismatic Cellular Structures" sought to develop a novel aluminum alloy cellular structure and investigate the impulse and pressure transferred to the structure by an idealized buried explosive event. Ryan begins his new position as a Fracture Mechanics and Fitness Service Program Leader at ExxonMobil in Houston, Texas in May 2014.

ES Student Dasha Tyshlek Earns 1st Place at NYC Medical Hackathon

On April 4th-6th, students from dozens of universities converged in NYC for a weekend focusing on creating disruptive medical technologies. The MIT group Hacking Medicine organized the event which was sponsored by WebMD. Congratulations to third year engineering science student Dasha Tyshlek, who not only represented U.Va on the team which took first place, but also pitched the winning idea.

From collegestartup.com: "New York City hacks problems in medicine at WebMD" 
April 24, 2014 by Alex Zorychta

 "When you think of a hackathon, you usually envision a bunch of laptops, snack foods, and late nights, with sleepless programmers diligently and intensely working through an iteration of software. But what if we could apply this same energy and momentum in getting new projects started in fixing the problems in healthcare? On the weekend of April 4^th-6^th, 2014, software engineers, clinicians, biomedical engineers, life sciences entrepreneurs, and designers came together to do just that. Most came from the New York area, but some traveled as far as from the University of Virginia to attend the event." 

Micah Schaible Earns First Place in Huskey Oral

Engineering Physics graduate student Micah Schaible won first place in the 2014 Robert J. Huskey Exhibition sponsored by University of Virginia Graduate School of Arts & Sciences with his talk Squeezing Water from Rocks: Solar modification of the lunar surface. The research exhibition provides members of the University graduate student community a chance to present their research to fellow graduate students and professors. The Huskey Exhibition reaches out across disciplines and brings the broad spectrum of graduate research into one place. Micah’s oral presentation covered the formation of hydroxyl in silicates in space, explaining the circumstances governing the presence of water on the Moon.

VCTIR Utilizes NMCF to Help VDOT Improve Roads

It takes constant research to maintain a safe, efficient, sustainable transportation system in the face of ever-growing demands for mobility. That’s the rationale behind the Virginia Center for Transportation Innovation and Research (VCTIR), a long-term partnership between the Engineering School and the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT).

 February 2014 - E-NEWS ONLINE  by Charlie Feigenoff

Left to right: Stephen Sharp, Professor Usman Ozbulut, Richard White

 “VCTIR is an organization that enables VDOT to understand the health of our transportation infrastructure, determine the right time to take corrective action if necessary and select the most-appropriate new approaches,” says Brian Smith, chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Working together, Engineering School and VCTIR researchers conduct research on a variety of scales, from large structures and systems to individual material properties.

 “Our job at VCTIR is to produce actionable information,” says Stephen Sharp, a VCTIR senior research scientist who focuses primarily on steels. “We turn to Engineering School faculty to help us generate information we can apply to increase the efficiency and reduce the costs of VDOT operations.”

Osman Ozbulut, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, is conducting a number of projects with VCTIR. Working together with Sharp, they are exploring alternatives to the steel currently used for bridge girders. They are looking for an alloy that will not require the periodic and expensive maintenance the current materials require. Ozbulut is contributing to this effort by evaluating alloys that are new to structural engineering, examining such parameters as their susceptibility to fatigue.

But as William Johnson, chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, notes, “Many of the issues VDOT faces are materials problems. And the tools they need to look at these problems need to be more advanced than they were in the past.” To provide this advanced level of analysis, VCTIR has helped fund the department’s installation of two scanning electron microscopes at its Nanoscale Materials Characterization Facility. This new equipment sets the stage for even closer collaboration between VCTIR and the Engineering School.

To gain insight into the microstructure of the steels under analysis—and to determine how the microstructure contributes to their bulk properties — Sharp is working with the facility’s director, Richard White. “We do a cross section and the metallography so we can see what the microstructure looks like,” he says. By combining information from White with Ozbulut’s conclusions, Sharp will be able to determine if it will be worthwhile to test a new steel in the field.

The VCTIR–Engineering School partnership does more than help sustain the commonwealth’s transportation network and expand the Engineering School’s research agenda, important as those two goals are. “Our relationship with VCTIR impacts the educational as well as the research mission of the School,” Johnson observes. Undergraduates regularly serve as VCTIR interns, and graduate students are supported by VCTIR funding. “The great thing about our relationship with VCTIR is that it continues to grow and deepen the more we work together,” Johnson says. ”Over time, it will involve more faculty and more students.”

Rebecca Schaller awarded Australian travel fellowship

Congratulations to Rebecca Schaller (MSE PhD Candidate) on her Australian Endeavor Research Fellowship. Ms. Schaller will be working directly with Ivan Cole and other researchers at Australia's national science agency, CSIRO, within the Materials Science division of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.  The investigation is co-advised with Professor Nick Birbilis of Monash University during a 4 month residency.

The research on atmospheric h2-embrittlement of ultra-high strength steels will provide a parallel investigation to her PhD thesis focus, which is hydrogen production and uptake in high performance alloys.  Her research will be furthered by the atmospheric corrosion and general electrochemistry expertise of Drs. Cole and Birbilis. The internationally competitive award aims to foster better links between research Australian research programs and organizations internationally.