Monthly Archives May 2018

Matt and Lin on their first day at Glenn.

Lab members Matt Northam and Lin Rossmann are spending two weeks at NASA Glenn Research Center to manufacture and characterize samples. They are collaborating with Dr. Bryan Harder of NASA Glenn, investigating a new method of depositing thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) for turbine engines.

Matt spot-welds samples to a mounting plate for coating. Lin grit-blasts the plate clean after a round of coating.

Matt and Lin are learning many skills, including spot welding, grit blasting, and using characterization techniques such as powder x-ray diffraction and profilometry. They have been given tours of other facilities at Glenn and are learning about life as an experimental scientist at a NASA research center.

Dr. Raghavan poses with Matt and Lin in front of a Shuttle/Centaur G-Prime upper stage rocket engine on display at Glenn. Dr. Raghavan joined the students for three days of their trip.

NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field is one of ten major NASA field centers; its primary mission is to develop science and technology for aerospace applications.

Lab member Zachary Stein will spend the fall 2018 semester attending classes at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) in Switzerland. ZHAW was founded in 1874 as a technical school for mechanical engineering, and has since become one of Switzerland’s largest engineering schools.

While in Switzerland, Zac will continue his research projects remotely. He will prepare a presentation on his summer project investigating the effects of sand ingression on thermal barrier coatings, for which he was awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. He will also work with Khanh Vo, developing and 3D-printing stress-sensing composite materials; for this work, Zac and Khanh were awarded a grant from the Office of Undergraduate Research. Zac will present posters on both projects at the Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence in the spring of 2019.

We wish Zac the best during his time abroad and wish him safe travels.

Our lab members Zac Stein and Khanh Vo have been awarded a grant from the Office of Undergraduate Research in support of their project, Investigation on 3D printing stress sensing coatings on carbon composites for photoluminescence piezospectroscopy. The results will be presented at the Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence in the spring of 2019. They are continuing to make us proud; both Zac and Khanh presented research posters at the 2018 Showcase, and Khanh was awarded both Judges’ Choice and Audience Choice.

Khanh is mentored by Mohamed Abdelgader, Remelisa Esteves, and Sanjida Jahan. Zac is mentored by Estefania Bohorquez, Matthew Northam, and Lin Rossmann.