Dear UConn Mechanical Engineering Alumni, Friends, and Colleagues,
I am thrilled to announce that, effective today, November 1, 2023, our department of mechanical engineering has become the School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Manufacturing Engineering that is part of UConn’s new College of Engineering.
This marks a significant milestone in our department’s academic evolution and represents the logical progression in our journey, showcasing the depth and breadth of our academic successes. For example, during the last 6 years, our research activity has more than tripled; we have made decisive strides towards our educational mission, we have significantly increased the diversity of our faculty and students as well as the size of our student population, and we have established the first large multimillion dollar research center focused on modeling and simulation in collaboration with the US Army.
The transition to the School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Manufacturing Engineering opens up many other opportunities in our development, including the promotion of interdisciplinary collaborations, the introduction of innovative degree programs tailored to industry needs at the state and national levels, as well as the expansion of our research portfolio and of our global influence.
This accomplishment would not have happened without the unwavering support of our community, particularly our dedicated alumni and friends, for which we are deeply grateful. Your contributions have played a pivotal role in shaping our legacy of academic excellence and innovation, so please remain actively involved as we explore this exciting new frontier.
In the meantime, I remain eager to hear your thoughts and perspectives that could further enhance our strength and growth.
Sincerely,
Horea Ilies
Director, School of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Manufacturing Engineering
University of Connecticut
By Olivia Drake, Written Communications Specialist
Photos courtesy of Doug Willoughby/SAE and the UConn FSAE team
During the FSAE intercollegiate competition, held May 17-20, 2023, at Michigan International Speedway, the student-run motorsport club placed in the top 10% of 121 teams from the U.S. and Europe. This was UConn’s 13th year competing.
UConn’s Formula SAE team recently competed at the Michigan International Speedway and placed 11th overall.
“As a whole, this year’s competition was one of the most successful in the team’s history,” said UConn FSAE President Abhimanyu “Abhi” Sukumaran ’24 (MENG). “The car and team both performed immaculately, and everyone knows that we brought one of—if not the fastest—cars to competition.”
Luka Liguori ’24 (MENG), seated, participates in a “tilt test” to see if any fluids leak when the car is lifted to a 60 degree angle.
The annual competition, organized by SAE International (previously known as the Society of Automotive Engineers) challenges college students to conceive, design, fabricate, develop, and compete with formula-style vehicles. “Formula” vehicles are small, single-seater racecars characterized by a low-to-the-ground aerodynamic design, an open cockpit, and exposed wheels. These high-performance vehicles can reach speeds over 110 mph on certain tracks.
During the three-day event, teams are awarded points for participation in three static events (cost presentation, design presentation, and business presentation) and five dynamic events (acceleration; skidpad; autocross; fuel economy; and endurance).
UConn’s vehicle—the CT-14 (Connecticut, version 14)—scored an impressive 28/30 for its cost analysis presentation and 88/100 points for the design presentation.
“This year we had very tough judges who grilled us quite a bit and really tested our knowledge,” Sukumaran said. “Luckily we had done a lot of prep work and we managed to get some of the highest scores of the day!”
But the true test of the CT-14 was measured during the dynamic events. UConn’s team scored 12th in the “figure-eight” skid pad event; seventh in the 45-second timed autocross event; and first place in the 75-meter acceleration event—with a time of 4.17 seconds.
“We had been prepping for months trying to get the car setup right and squeeze the most performance out of it,” Sukumaran said. “We were almost a 10th of a second ahead of second place, so we were thrilled with that result. This was the first time in the team’s history that we have ever won an event and we did it convincingly.”
More than 70 students worked on the CT-14 during the 2022-23 academic year; 50 of whom went to the competition in Michigan. Team members learn to design, fabricate, assemble, manage budgets, acquire sponsors, and market themselves and their vehicle.
Formula SAE organizing committee member Steve Balanecki congratulates UConn’s driver Tyler Dickey ’24 (MENG), who placed first in the acceleration event.
More experienced members, such as recent alumnus Simon Getter ’23 (MENG) frequently take on leadership roles. Getter joined the FSAE team as a freshman—seeking an extracurricular activity where he could learn practical engineering skills alongside like-minded students. As a sophomore, Getter served as the team’s control systems lead, and during his senior year, he served as the controls and ergonomics lead.
As the controls system lead, Getter’s group made the vehicle’s steering, brakes, seat, and pedals.
“In that position I got a ton of very important experience leading and communicating with other systems of the team,” he said. “Engineering wise, I was able to create parts and validate designs with [Computer Aided Design] software and [finite element analysis]—things we touched on in classes but were greatly expanded on during my time on the team.”
While member participation varies, Getter clocked more than 20 hours a week working on the project—but the dedication paid off. Not only did the team place 11th in the competition, he and 11 other graduating seniors, who were members of the 2022-23 Formula SAE team, had job offers or plans to continue their education well before graduation in May.
“Formula” vehicles are small, single-seater racecars characterized by a low-to-the-ground aerodynamic design, an open cockpit, and exposed wheels.
“The experience we gain through FSAE complements the more theoretically-based classes at UConn. This keeps our team members balanced and helps us to become the best engineers the school has to offer,” Getter said.
Thomas Mealy, adjunct professor of mechanical engineering and FSAE senior design advisor credits the team’s success to an overwhelming passion for creating the best car possible.
“UConn’s Formula SAE team embodies a spirit of excellence, determination, sacrifice, and collaboration,” Mealy said. “They have not only demonstrated remarkable technical prowess in designing and building a cutting-edge race car, but they have also cultivated a culture of innovation and teamwork that sets them apart. This team stands on the shoulders of hundreds of students that preceded them, many of whom come back and offer their advice and experience. As the advisor of this exceptional team, I am immensely proud of their accomplishments, and they are setting the bar high for future teams.”
The UConn Formula SAE Team gathers around their car during the Formula SAE Michigan competition. (Photo Courtesy of UConn Formula SAE)
Our own UConn Formula SAE team placed 10th overall and in the top ten of multiple different categories in the international Formula SAE competition held at the Michigan International Speedway in May 2022.
NSF Early Career Development (CAREER) Program awards are highly prestigious, offered to early-career faculty members who demonstrate the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education.
Three ME faculty members have received this prestigious award in 2022. Congratulations to all three recipients!
Hongyi Xu
Anna Tarakanova
George Matheou
Prof. Xu’s award will support his group’s research on design of mixed stochasticity structural systems. The award received by Prof. Tarakanova will support fundamental research to understand complex changes to elastin that occur in aging and disease. Prof. Matheou’s grant will focus on large scale computational models of low could transitions in the atmosphere to support a better understanding of their impact on climate change.
With these three awards, the total number of NSF CAREER or DoD Young Investigator Awards won by ME faculty since 1996 increases to 25 with seven of these awards having been received in the last three years!
Prof. Anna Tarakanova, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and two of her graduate students, Genny Kunkel and Mohammad Madani, develop computational models describing which parts of the spike protein flex, how mutations affect that flexibility, and how it all affects antibodies’ grip.
Prof. Ying Li is in a selected small group of researchers that have received the prestigious Young Investigator Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).
His award will support de novo design of thermosetting polymers with deep reinforcement learning, and will provide new capabilities needed to avoid the traditionally used trial and error approaches and perform rational design to discover novel, yet predictable combinations of properties for cutting-edge thermosetting polymers.
Formula SAE Club ready for another exciting year of designing, building, and competing.
“Design. Build. Compete” is the motto that drives the determined and creative minds that make up the Formula SAE club here at UConn. Their club, consisting of many Mechanical Engineering students, is responsible for designing and building, all on their own, a formula style race car that is supposed to compete in two competitions by the time May rolls around.
Every season, the club, headed by president, Cara Connors, breaks up into subteams that are each responsible for one aspect of the car. An average meeting, which happens every Tuesday and Saturday, consists of the head of each subteam reporting out any updates, set backs, or solutions they have and saying what their next steps are. At this point in the year, the main thing each club member is working on is the design portion where they work on calculations and talk with the other subteams to make sure it will all work together. As the year continues, they will then focus more of the building and fabrication work before going into the testing of the car to ensure that it works. Everything is done by students, though; the driving, testing, and manufacturing, even though the do have some help from local and extended sponsors in order to help with the manufacturing costs and equipment.
Consistently, throughout the season, the club looks at the past models they have created and evaluate what went right and what can be developed further. Connors was able to mention a few of the changes and development they were making to the design this year, “Last year was the first year that we had an aerodynamic package, so an undertray on the car. We’re looking to develop that further, validating the design we had last year, and making it better for this upcoming year. We’re looking at better ways to mount that undertray. There’s a lot of weight optimization going on.”
What all of this ultimately leads up to for the club are two competitions, the Formula Michigan, which occurs in May, and the Formula North Competition, which happens in Ontario, Canada at the beginning of June. UConn’s club has done consistently well at each competition, but they usually base the success of their car on the Michigan competition, as it is the largest one. It, generally, has about 120 international teams that come out. This past year, UConn’s Formula SAE placed 11th out of the 120 teams. Connors said that they are hoping to crack the top 10 this year.
At the competition, there is more than just racing that occurs in order to decide the winning cars. There are multiple dynamic events that they compete in to test the car’s physical performance in acceleration, skidpad, autocross, and endurance. There are also static events that are evaluated to look at the cars design presentation, business marketing presentation, cost report, and fuel economy.
Formula SAE is open to any major, not just Mechanical Engineers. They meet every Tuesday at 6:30 pm and Saturday at 12 pm at their shop on Depot Campus. For any interested, new members, you can go to the Visitor’s Center and be picked up by club members thirty minutes before the meeting begins. If you have any other questions, you can email the president, Cara Connors, at cara.connors@uconn.edu.
Two ME professors received the 2018 National Science Foundation’s CAREER award, which is the Foundation’s most prestigious award in support of early-career faculty.
Prof. Xu Chen’s award will support his research on thermal modeling, sensing, and controls to enable new generations of powder bed fusion (PBF) additive manufacturing. In contrast to conventional machining, where parts are made by cutting away unwanted material, additive manufacturing — also called 3D printing — builds three-dimensional objects of unprecedented complexity by progressively adding small amounts of material. PBF is a popular form of AM for fabricating complex metallic or high-performance polymer parts. This CAREER project will create new knowledge critical for substantially higher accuracy and greater reproducibility in PBF and AM. Building on innovations to model and control the thermal mechanical process, the research will illuminate ways to mitigate quality variations on the fly, and provide new feedback-centric control paradigms to engineer the layered deposition of thermal energy, which is imperative for quality and reproducibility. PBF parts are increasingly preferred in applications ranging from advanced jet-engine components to custom-designed medical implants. The outcomes of this project will facilitate fabrication of products to benefit the US economy and improve quality of life. More broadly, methods and tools developed from this research has the potential to drastically impact the manufacturing of a wide range of components for the energy, aerospace, automotive, healthcare, and biomedical industries that can benefit from short-run high-quality production.
Prof. Norato’s award will support fundamental research to formulate a design framework to systematically incorporate geometric design rules and manufacturing cost considerations into the computational design of structures. In particular, the techniques advanced in this project belong to a group of techniques called topology optimization, in which a computer program finds the optimal shape of a structural component or an architected material. This research will enable the conceptual design and optimization of lightweight, high-performance, and economically-viable structures with applications across a wide range of engineering industries. The new design capabilities will have the potential to significantly reduce manufacturing and R&D costs and thereby increase the economic competitiveness of American manufacturers. Prof. Norato is also a recipient of the 2017 ONR Young Investigator Award.
Both awards are for five years and approximately $500,000 (minimum), and have an outreach component towards K-12 students and people from underrepresented communities.
The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) has honored Professor Xinyu Zhao as one of just 43 scientists and engineers awarded YIP grants for her research project titled “Pockets in Highly Turbulent Premixed Flames: Physics and Implications on Modeling.” The grant is worth a total of $450,000 over three years and is intended to foster the research of young investigators in science and engineering.
Dr. Zhao’s research aims to understand the underlying physical processes of highly turbulent premixed flames, which impact the efficiency and stability of modern aeronautical engines.
Direct numerical simulations of premixed methane flames.
The investigation targets two specific “pockets”: the fresh-mixture pockets on the product side of the flame (“FiP”) and the product pockets on the fresh mixture side of the flame (“PiF”). The existence of these pockets is a distinctive feature of flames within the broken reaction zones, and is hypothesized to contribute to the deviation of the flame statistics from those within the flamelet regimes.
Mispositioned pockets in highly turbulent flames: red pockets: FiP; blue pockets: PiF.
Aiding the current understanding of combustion in aeronautical engines could have far reaching impacts on a number of fields and industries and would be of great benefit to the Air Force. A better understanding of the factors that affect combustion can eventually allow engineers to improve the efficiency of these engines. You can read more about Professor Zhao’s research on her laboratory’s website.
