Zachary Stein assisting a student with their tensegrity structure.

Lab members Perla Latorre and Armando Carrasquillo led the outreach event, STEM Day at the University of Central Florida, with the help of other lab members. STEM day is an event where elementary through high school students visit UCF to learn about the various STEM fields through the participation in STEM-related activities. The activity shared with 25 high school students was titled “The Balancing Act of Tensegrity.” Tensegrity is a structural principle based on the use of isolated components in compression inside a net of continuous tension. The participating students had the opportunity to create their own tensegrity structure. From this activity, students were able to learn about Tensegrity and its various aerospace applications.

We are pleased to announce that our paper titled “Investigation of TGO stress in thermally cycled plasma-spray physical vapor deposition and electron-beam physical vapor deposition thermal barrier coatings via photoluminescence spectroscopy” by lab alumni Lin Rossmann, and lab members Matthew Northam and Brooke Sarley has been published in the journal Surface Coatings and Technology. The paper elaborates on the residual stresses found in the TGO of PS-PVD and EB-PVD coated TBCs during their lifetimes.

Residual TGO stress of EB-PVD and PS-PVD coatings over their given lifetimes.

Dr. Raghavan and Quentin Fouliard participated at the MS&T19 conference held in Portland, OR. They attended great presentations on the current progress of cutting-edge research on Thermal Barrier Coatings. Dr. Raghavan gave a presentation on High Resolution Non-invasive Characterization of Calcium-magnesium alumino-silicate Infiltration in Thermal Barrier Coatings, a work in collaboration with the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Quentin presented his work on Luminescence characterization of temperature sensitive phosphor doped Thermal Barrier Coatings, a UTSR project funded by the NETL, Department of Energy.

Quentin Fouliard and Dr. Raghavan at the Materials Science and Technology Conference in Oregon.

Lab members Quentin Fouliard, Johnathan Hernandez, and Alexander Olvera attended the Aerospace PhD Launch Party. The UCF Aerospace PhD began this semester with a welcome party where new students could familiarize themselves with the aerospace professors, as well as, each other. This launch party included some guest speakers including Dr. Jeffrey Kauffman, an aerospace professor at UCF and Dr. Gregory Freihofer, our laboratory alumnus with a PhD in mechanical engineering working at Northrop Grumman. The panel were asked questions such as their decisions as to why they wanted to obtain a PhD, what’s it like in the industry for doctoral graduates, and advice for students.

The new Aerospace PhD students at the Launch Party.

Dr. Patrick Flowers from Made in Space visited UCF on September 13 and presented some of his work and about the company Made in Space. Made is Space is located in Jacksonville, and it is a company that focuses on 3D printing in space. They have partnerships with NASA and SpaceX. In his presentation, he discussed a project that Made in Space is currently working on, a 3D printer that can build multiple structural components for a satellite in space.

Dr. Patrick Flowers presenting his 3D printing work.