Spring 2022 Newsletter
VOL. 6, ISSUE 2
VOL. 6, ISSUE
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Message from the Chair
On March 14, President Adela de la Torre launched the university’s 125th anniversary celebrations (https://newscenter.sdsu.edu/sdsu_newscenter/news_story.aspx?sid=78704). The celebrations will continue for more than a year. This is an exciting time for the university. I encourage you to read about the events and also visit the anniversary website (https://125.sdsu.edu/). Since the publication of the Fall Newsletter, there have been significant accomplishments by Faculty and students, some of which are featured below. These include an NSF CAREER grant, the second in as many years, an ERI grant, and an inaugural Presidential Research Fellowship. On May 4, the College of Engineering will be hosting its Engineering Design Day in person in Montezuma Hall, after a break of 2 years. Further information about the event is given below. I encourage you to visit campus and attend this capstone event and celebrate the accomplishments of our graduating seniors. There are 36 mechanical engineering teams participating in the event with 176 students. 18 of the teams are interdisciplinary with Electrical and Computer Engineering and involve 91 ECE students. One of the teams is participating in the 2022 NASA Robotic Lunar Mining Competition, but all teams have been working on impactful projects. In fact, as I write this, the student teams are busy finalizing their projects in the fabrication facilities. After being impacted by the pandemic, our Student Clubs are once again active preparing for various collegiate competitions in their spaces.
Sincerely,
John Abraham, Ph.D., Professor and Chair
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Engineering Design Day 2022 |
The College of Engineering's Engineering Design Day will be held on May 4, 2022 at Montezuma Hall. Design Day showcases the exciting and innovative design projects that our undergraduate engineering students conceive, design, analyze, build and test during the academic year. There are 36 Mechanical Engineering Projects. Projects are sponsored by industry, government agencies, NGOs, and faculty. Several of the projects are interdisciplinary. An example of one of the interdisciplinary mechanical engineering projects is given below.
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Explore SDSU was held on campus on Saturday, April 9. ME Labs showcased during the event included the Energy FANS (Flames, Aerosols and Nanoscience) Lab (Dr. Joaquin Camacho), the Additive Manufacturing & Advanced Materials Lab (Dr. Yang Yang,) the Experimental Mechanics Lab (Dr. George Youssef), the Mechanical and Thermal Systems Instructional Lab (Hamid Nourollahi), and the Fabrication Facilities. They drew a steady stream of visitors during the day. In addition. Student clubs displayed their prototypes. The event was a resounding success. The mechanical engineering presentation by the Department Chair and senior students drew some 300 attendees. Parents and prospective students who could not attend the event are encouraged to contact the Department Office to arrange a visit or talk to the Chair. |
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Student Success
Graduation Spring 2022
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Approximately 250 students are expected to graduate with a BSME degree in academic year 2021-2022 Featured below are three of our outstanding graduates. |
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Juan Rojas is a 4th year student graduating as part of the class of 2022 as a first generation college student. Raised in South San Diego, he wanted to advance his community into an environmentally conscious future. Starting his freshman year, Juan pursued the advancing electric vehicle market by working on SDSU’s electric racing team which competes as part of the Society of Automotive Engineers Collegiate design series. Read More...
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Senior does Internship at Princeton's Plasma Physics Lab |
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Jhovanna Garcia's project is aligned with the broader efforts of the Department of Energy (DOE) mission to make nuclear fusion viable. One aspect to this realization is to ensure that a critical fusion reactor component, the divertor, can withstand the effects of continuous impurity particle bombardment. The divertor acts as a maintenance structure, which pulls in excessive heat and impurities generated by fusion reactors for chemical treatment and disposal. Its longevity is one of the determinants for sustained nuclear fusion. Read More...
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Outstanding Engineering Project Award 2022 |
San Diego County Engineering Council awarded Nha Uyen the prestigious Outstanding Engineering Project Award for 2022. In her project on "New Frontiers in Material Characterization," Nha Uyen is focusing on uncovering fundamental mechanisms in energy dissipation in impact mitigating polymers and the phase-evolution of magnetic polymers using Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy. She is a Ph.D. student in the Engineering Mechanics Laboratory of Dr. George Youssef. |
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Dr. Joaquin Camacho receives NSF CAREER Award for his proposal entitled, "Progression from soot to nanocrystalline carbon in elevated temperature flames"
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Dr. Joaquin Camacho, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, was awarded the NSF CAREER Award of $508,122 for his proposal entitled, "Progression from soot to nanocrystalline carbon in elevated temperature flames". The CAREER Award is a prestigious research grant for early career faculty who demonstrate promising fundamental discoveries and have the potential to enhance education and outreach in the field. The focus for this project is the formation of carbon nanoparticles in flames. This problem is typically concerned with the soot formation for conventional flame applications but, in Prof. Camacho's lab, early evidence was obtained to show that the carbon particles are much more interesting at temperatures hotter than normal flames. Panel b. in the figure shows Raman spectra to show an evolution in the spectrum shape of the carbon nanoparticles with increasing flame temperature. Graphical representations and Transmission Electron Microscopy results of conventional soot and the more interesting nanocrystalline carbon are also shown. Fundamental processes leading to the graphite-like nanocrystals will be studied as well potential applications of this nanomaterial. The project also includes outreach efforts for energy engineering education for Imperial Valley High School students, research lab internships for community college students and academic career training for first generation engineering students.
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Dr. Elisa Torresani receives NSF ERI Grant for: Additive Manufacturing- Spark Plasma Sintering (AMSPS) Technology for Processing High- Temperature Alloys |
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Dr. Elisa Torresani, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, was awarded an NSF ERI grant of $197,643 for her project on spark plasma sintering, a well-known manufacturing technology, in which pressurizing and rapid heating are simultaneously applied to achieve particle-to-solid consolidation with a low level of defects even for high-temperature metals. However, spark plasma sintering has been historically limited to simple-shaped components (i.e., in cylindrical forms). Read more...
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The National Academy of Engineering Sciences of Serbia Elected Dr. Eugene Olvesky, Distinguished Professor and Dean of the College of Engineering, as a Foreign Member on March 30, 2022.
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Dr. George Youssef, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has been named one of the six Inaugural Presidential Research Faculty Fellows.
At SDSU Dr. Youssef directs the Experimental Mechanics Laboratory. The lab studies, among other things, non-traditional materials, such as plastics, and composites. Read More...
Dr. Youssef is a recipient of the SDSU Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Faculty Contributions to the University for 2021-2022. The award recognizes Dr. Youssef's excellence in both scholarship and
teaching.
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Dr. Yang Yang, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, received the 2022 SME Sandra L. Bouckley Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award |
Since 1980, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award has recognized manufacturing engineers, age 35 or younger, who have made exceptional contributions and accomplishments in the manufacturing industry.
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Cerion Company Awards $100,000 to Power Technology Lab
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Cerion Company awards $100,000 to Power Technology Lab for work on Sintering of Carbide Powders. Dr. Eugene Olvesky, Dean of College of Engineering and Dr. Elisa Torresani, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, are co PI's on the project. Read More...
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Additive Manufacturing & Advanced Materials Lab News
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A publication co-authored by Professor Dr. Yang Yang and graduate student Brandon Bethers was featured as Inside front cover in Advanced Science. The article highlights wearable thermoelectric devices to harvest the waste energy from human body for health monitoring. The project is a collaborative work with The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Wuhan University.
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JDP Student Qingqing He received the NSF Student Travel Award for the 2022 ASME International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC 2022) and the 50th NAMRI/SME North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC 50).
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Mechanical Engineering Advisory Board Members Additions |
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Sr. Director of Global Marketing
Digital Health Products at Baxter
San Diego, Ca
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Associate Director for Quality Engineering
Becton Dickinson
San Diego, Ca
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New Roles in the Mechanical Engineering Department Office |
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Administrative Support Assistant
Selena Jarin
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Administrative Support Coordinator
Allyson Korba
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Allyson Korba has moved from her role as Administrative Support Assistant to Administrative Support Coordinator in the department. Selena Jarin has joined our department as Administrative Support Assistant. |
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With competition only 5 weeks away, we are working hard to finish our new 4 wheel drive car. Despite the challenges we’ve encountered we continue to push forward and are committed to perform the best we can in competition. Thanks for all the faculty support and encouragement. This year we will be going to Tennessee, New York and Arizona. See you in the track! |
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AER recently partnered up with Tesla over these past few months and they have agreed to sponsor AER team with battery technology. In addition to that, they were able to discuss vehicle design with Tesla for professional insight. Furthermore, we are currently working with AEM EV to collaborate and integrate their electric vehicle ecosystem in our vehicle to exceed current performance capabilities.
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Aztec Racing Formula SAE Team is to promote collegiate education through the design, manufacturing and marketing of a small, open wheel race car. The cars are built with a team effort in under one year and are taken to the annual Formula SAE in Lincoln, Nebraska.
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Baja SAE team consists of 35+ members who are challenged every school year to design, test, and build a single seat off road buggy that will compete in 3 nation-wide events where 100 global universities are evaluated in static and dynamic events.
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The Mechatronics Club consists of 40 members who are developing an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) for the 2019 RoboSub Competition.
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Aztec Electric Racing, commonly referred to as AER, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, electric Formula SAE team at SDSU. They design, build, and race a small-scale, high performance race car each year.
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ASME Club sponsors workshops, tours and guest speakers to prepare students for a career in the field of Mechanical Engineering.
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Our mission is to promote the education of our members by supporting academic and professional excellence, and innovative research.
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Quality of Life + brings together America's brightest engineering students at leading universities nationwide to create life-transforming assistive technology for our country's injured and ill heroes. Their mission is to foster and generate innovations that aid and improve the quality of life for those who have served our country.
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From the Baja Car to Senior Capstone Projects to Scholarship support, your generous giving makes a tremendous difference for our students. Please consider making a gift to support the Department of Mechanical Engineering
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Welcome | Mechanical Engineering | College of...
The Department is the vibrant home to about 1400 undergraduate and graduate students, several active and award-winning student clubs and organizations, multiple teaching and research laboratories, internationally-renowned faculty who are...
Read more
mechanical.sdsu.edu
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San Diego State University | Mechanical Engineering |
5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-1323
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