Profs. Tianfeng Lu and Ugur Pasaogullari have been named UTC Associate Professor of Engineering Innovation and Castleman Associate Professor respectively.
Faculty News
Technologies passed down three generations
John Krenicki, Jr. (B.S. Mechanical Engineering, ’84; Hon.D.Sc. ‘07) was appointed to the board of directors of CHC Group Ltd. (HELI) and will serve as chairman. Initially, he will also serve on the company’s newly created Chairman Search Committee. Krenicki joined CD&R in 2013 after a 29-year career at General Electric. He currently serves as chairman of Wilsonart International, chairman of The ServiceMaster Company and lead director of Brand Energy & Infrastructure Services, Inc. He holds an M.S. in Management from Purdue University. Moore Engineering, founded by Wade Moore, a recent graduate of UConn, was recently named “Murphy’s Monday Manufacturer” by U.S. Senator Chris Murphy. Moore, 23, who graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering, founded the company in 2010 after being inspired by his great-grandfather, Richard Moore, who established the well-known Moore Special Tool Company. Today, Moore Engineering is based in Milford and operates out of an 800-square-foot facility and is run by Wade with the part-time help of his three brothers. The company uses measuring and machining technologies that have been passed down three generations from Richard Moore. 
Manuel A. Santos (B.S. Mechanical Engineering, ‘99) was elected mayor of the City of Meriden, Connecticut in December 2013. When elected, Santos was a senior mechanical design engineer at Ultra Electronics, Measurement Systems Inc. in Wallingford, CT. Prior to that position, he was a design engineer with Ripley Tools, formerly a division of Capewell Components Co. LLC, designing innovative hand tools for the fiber optic industry.
Lee Langston In Sweden
Professo
r Emeritus Lee Langston Serving As Short-Term Professor In Sweden
Lee Langston, Professor Emeritus, Mechanical Engineering, is currently serving as a short-term professor at KTH, Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. The appointment takes place from Sept. 10 to Oct. 2, 2014. He will give seminars on gas turbine technology and participate as a member of the grading committee for the disputation of a Ph.D candidate.
Meet the New Faculty For UConn Mechanical Engineering
Meet the New Faculty For UConn Mechanical Engineering
Xu Chen joins the Mechanical Engineering department. Dr. Chen’s research interests are theory and applications of 
dynamic systems and controls to advance the technology development in advanced manufacturing, mechatronics, robotics, precision engineering, system and optimization, and human-machine interactions. He has worked closely with the precision control and information storage industries, and helped Western Digital Corporation develop multiple new servo designs for industrial mass production. Dr. Chen is a recipient of the Young Investigator Award in 2014 ISCIE / ASME International Symposium on Flexible Automation and the 2012 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students. He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 2010 and 2013, respectively.
Julian Norato 
joins the Mechanical Engineering department. His current research interests lie in incorporating localized failure mode criteria (such as stress and fatigue), as well as manufacturing, cost and geometric constraints in topology and shape optimization for the design exploration of structures and materials, with the aim of exploring efficient structures tailored to a specific manufacturing process. Prior to joining our department, he was responsible for the Product Optimization group at Caterpillar, where he and his team researched numerical methods and developed computational tools for structural and multidisciplinary optimization. He earned his Ph.D from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2005.
Savas Tasoglu joins the Mechanical Engineering department. His current research interests are complex fluid dynamics, 
micro-assembly approaches, magnetics, microfluidics, cell and tissue mechanics, regenerative medicine, cryopreservation, and cell-based diagnostics for point-of-care. Dr. Tasoglu’s achievements in research and teaching have been recognized by fellowships and awards including Chang-Lin Tien Fellowship in Mechanical Engineering, Allen D. Wilson Memorial Scholarship, and UC Berkeley Institute Fellowship for Preparing Future Faculty. His work has been featured as the cover of Advanced Materials, Small, Trends in Biotechnology, and Physics of Fluids and highlighted in Nature Medicine, Boston Globe, Reuters Health, and Boston Magazine. He received his Ph.D. in 2011 from UC Berkeley. 
Xinyu Zhao joins the Mechanical Engineering department. Her research interests are in the area of computational fluid dynamics with a focus on high-fidelity simulations of complex reacting flows as well as heat and mass transfer in turbulent, particle laden flows. She received her Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University in 2014.
Dr. Robert Gao Receives I&M Society’s 2013 Technical Award
Pratt & Whitney Endowed Chair Professor in Mechanical Engineering Dr. Robert X. Gao has been selected to receive the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society (I&M) 2013 Technical Award, one of just four awards presented yearly by the society. The society is dedicated to the advancement of measurement science by developing methods and electrical/electronic instruments to measure, monitor and/or record physical phenomena.
Dr. Gao was selected “For significantly advancing the state-of-the-art in electrical capacitance tomography instrument design.” Upon news of the honor, he said, “I am honored and at the same time, humbled by this award, which recognizes not only of my own work, but also that of my former and present students whose diligence and dedication helped turn ideas into reality. To them, especially to Dr. Zhaoyan Fan who has been instrumental in this research, I dedicate this award.”
Dr. Reza Zoughi, the Schlumberger Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology (S&T) and President of the I&M Society, has known Dr. Gao for many years, initially through their collaborations as the Editor-in-Chief (Dr. Zoughi) and an Associate Editor (Dr. Gao) on the society’s Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement. “Our society has the greatest bandwidth of all societies, since I&M covers the spectrum of all technologies for which measurements and instrumentation are factors.”
“One of the things that stands out about Robert is that he is a mechanical rather than electrical engineer, yet he has a strong presence in our society. He is a Fellow of both the ASME and IEEE, which distinguishes him as a researcher of enormous scientific breadth, quality and impact,” says Dr. Zoughi. “The I&M Technical Award honors individuals or groups who have demonstrated ‘outstanding contribution or leadership in advancing instrumentation design or measurement technique,’ but in Robert’s case, it is ‘outstanding contribution and leadership.’ Robert has shown enormous leadership and contributed significantly to the advancement of measurement science and instrumentation. He embodies the essence of quality that I discuss in my President’s message.”
Dr. Gao’s research spans the areas of physics-based sensing methodology, design, modeling, and characterization of low power/self-powered instrument systems, multi-resolution analysis for time series and image processing, and energy-efficient sensor networks for in-situ monitoring of dynamical phenomena, from human physical activities to cyber physical systems and manufacturing.
He will officially receive the award during the society’s International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC) 2014 meeting in May. The selection criteria for the nominee are based on substantive documentation and tangible evidence of achievement submitted by the nominators. The award entails a certificate and $2,000 honorarium, in addition to travel expenses to attend the award ceremony.
Dr. Lee Langston article
Professor Emeritus Dr. Lee Langston (Mechanical 
Engineering) authored an article appearing in the December 2013 issue of Mechanical Engineering magazine, entitled “Powering Out of Trouble,” which discussed Pratt & Whitney’s challenges in developing the J58 turbojet engine that powered Lockheed’s SR-71 Blackbird supersonic reconnaissance aircraft. Read the article here.
In Memoriam
In Memoriam
The School of Engineering community mourns the loss of professor emeritus Eli Dabora, who passed away November 8, 2013. Dr. Dabora joined UConn in 1968 as a professor of Aerospace Engineering and, later
, Mechanical Engineering. With expertise in high speed combustion for propulsion, Dr. Dabora brought considerable knowhow in the combustion characteristics of fuels. He was particularly interested in understanding the science of detonation, how to initiate or suppress it, and its possible application to propulsion. During his years at UConn, he was admired and loved by his colleagues. Dr. Dabora earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees at MIT, and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, where he taught for five years before coming to UConn. Please read more about Eli’s career here and view his obituary here. Those who wish to share memories of Eli on his guest book may visit www.potterfuneralhome.com. A memorial service will be held in late December; the family requests that donations be made in lieu of flowers, to Windham Community Memorial Hospital, Willimantic, CT 06226.
Faculty Notes
Faculty Notes
Dr. Robert Gao, the Pratt & Whitney Chair Professor in 
Mechanical Engineering, was interviewed by a journal that also highlighted research excerpts of his work, in International Innovation, owned by a UK-based media company that compiles and disseminates science, research and technological innovations globally. The research excerpts focused on the development of sensing methods to quantify multiple parameters for quality control, and the importance of collaboration in polymer processing. They appeared on pp. 27- 29 of the September 2013 North America issue, entitled Era of Discovery.
Public-Private Partnership Advances Gas Turbine Materials Technology
Public-Private Partnership Advances Gas Turbine Materials Technology
By Victoria Chilinski (CLAS ’16) and Maurice Gell, Ph.D.
Drs. Maurice Gell and Eric Jordan have developed a new process for making ceramic thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) that are used extensively in gas turbine engines. This Solution Precursor Plasma Spray (SPPS) process allows the deposition of higher temperature, lower thermal conductivity TBCs that will provide significant fuel savings for aircraft and land-based gas turbines.
This technology captured the interest of HiFunda LLC, a Salt Lake City small business, in 2011. As a result, HiFunda LLC and UConn have teamed on two U.S. Department of Energy Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR) projects. The latest is a newly-begun Phase II award totaling $1 million, of which UConn receives $387,000 as the sub-contractor. The program, entitled “Ultra-High Temperature Thermal Barrier Coatings,” utilizes the SPPS process to deposit highly durable TBCs made from yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG), a high-temperature, low thermal conductivity ceramic that cannot be deposited with adequate durability using commercial TBC processes. The SPPS process uniquely provides YAG TBCs with a strain-tolerant microstructure that provides excellent durability in thermal cycle tests.
DOE is committed to increasing the energy efficiency of turbines through the use of thermal barrier coatings, which are highly advanced material systems that are applied to insulate the metallic components of machines operating at high temperatures. For these turbines to become more efficient, however, they must operate at a temperate above current thermal barrier coatings’ limit of 1200°C. Higher temperature thermal barrier coatings would permit engines to operate more efficiently at higher temperatures, thus saving fuel and reducing greenhouse emissions. Alternatively, the thermal barrier coatings can be used at the same turbine temperatures and provide improved turbine component durability.
HiFunda has established a Thermal Spray Facility within the technology incubator at UConn’s Depot campus, moved a senior researcher to UConn, and is providing funds for capital equipment and supplies. The company’s intention is to license this UConn-patented technology and to establish a new company at UConn to further develop and market the SPPS technology.
Initial results from the earlier Phase I HiFunda LLC/UConn DOE collaboration on this same technology were very promising. As a result, five U.S companies, including Pratt & Whitney, Praxair, Progressive Surface, Siemens Energy and Solar Turbines have become industrial partners to the Phase II program and will provide more than $250,000 of cost share funds. These companies will evaluate the SPPS YAG TBCs in specimen, rig, and engine tests and will evaluate the economics of the process in production facilities.
STTR is a highly competitive federal program coordinated by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), which grants research and development funds to non-profit research institutions that partner with small businesses. The program combines the strengths of both non-profit research and small business’s innovation by introducing entrepreneurial skills to high-tech research efforts.