TOP STORY

Senior Design Students Get Up-Close Look at Project Requirements
By Diane Kukich

ME senior design is aimed at providing students with exposure to real-world engineering problems to augment classroom learning.  But, with the semester barely underway, one student team has already had a real-world experience that they won’t soon forget.  

Mike Brill, Vince Borsello, Dan Gempesaw, and Travis Mease took a 20-minute ride in the Chesapeake Bay on a rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB) that left them with torn clothing, bruised bodies, and a profound respect for the Navy SEALs and SWCCs (Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen) who use these boats for maritime special operations missions. 

The students are working on designing a strong, lightweight structure for a shock-absorbing seat system on this type of boat, so that others can have a smoother ride than they did.  The ride was part of an effort to ensure that they understood the needs of the project before they began their work. 

The team is advised by CCM Assistant Director Steve Andersen (BME90, MME97).  “Existing shock-absorbing seat systems for these craft can weigh up to 250 pounds,” he says.  “The weight has an unacceptable effect on payload.”

SAMPE group
Mike Brill, Travis Mease and Steve Andersen are briefed
prior to their ride on the Navy's rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB)

Andersen is working with Revenge Advanced Composites LLC, a high- performance boat developer and manufacturer in Clearwater, Florida, on a next-generation special operations combatant craft.  The company had expressed an interest in trying to help solve the shock mitigation issues that the SEALs and SWCCs were encountering by helping to develop a lightweight shock-absorbing seating system for the new craft. 

Andersen and Revenge CEO Jonathan Sadowsky decided that the concept was ideal for a senior design project.  To make it suitable for the timeframe and resources of the one-semester class, they decided to limit the problem to just the seat structure and mechanism, eliminating consideration of its integration with the boat and its interface with human passengers.

“The requirements are just too complex if you introduce the issues of ergonomics, the weight of the individuals, the positioning of the controls, and variables like that,” Andersen says.  “On existing systems, most of the weight is in the structure, so we decided to focus on that because it’s where composites—which offer the potential for parts count reduction, moldability, and weight reduction—can have the greatest impact.”

A firm believer in getting user input before he starts a project, Andersen worked with Sadowsky to arrange for the team to travel to the Little Creek Amphibious Naval Base, near Norfolk, Virginia, to “talk to some people and take a little boat ride.” 

Dave Rowland, Naval Architect for Naval Special Warfare Group Four, and Lt. James (Buckey) Clark, a long-time Navy SEAL and Requirements Department Head at NSWG4, agreed to host the student team and provide input on requirements.

In Norfolk, Andersen’s expectations about “talking to some people and taking a little boat ride” were, literally, shot out of the water, but he and his team of senior design students certainly got the user input they were seeking.

When they arrived at the naval base, they were met by three fully equipped boats and 25 SWCCs prepped for action.  After briefings on safety and navigation, the students and their advisor were divided into two groups, three of them to ride an 11-meter RHIB and the other two to board a Mark V (MkV). 

Andersen will never forget overhearing the Senior Chief as he briefed the drivers of the 11M RHIB’s just before the group boarded:  “We need to give these guys the most realistic experience possible without killing them.”

There were times during the next 20 minutes when Andersen was convinced that the experience would kill him and other moments when he wished for that outcome.  With a virtual “sea” created from the wake of another boat, the boats traveled at 45–50 knots, jumping huge waves and becoming airborne for distances of more than 100 feet at a time.  The unwitting passengers were deluged with sheets of water that smashed them into the supports behind their backs and left them soaked.  The boat started, stopped, and turned so abruptly that their brains no longer knew where their bodies were.

“I was literally knocked out of one of my shoes on the first turn and ended the ride with ripped pants and a seriously eroded ego,” Andersen says.  “Words can’t convey the intensity of the experience.”

“Just a few minutes in,” he continues, “I wanted to raise my hand and ask the crew to stop the ride and let me off.  But the SWCCs and the SEALs who use the boats for their work don’t have that option.  They sometimes have to weather conditions like this for hours; I realized that if I couldn’t last 20 minutes, then I didn’t deserve to be working with them.”

ME Senior Design Team members Mike Brill, Travis Mease, Dan Gempesaw, and Vince Borsello

Andersen is also thankful for what the experience gave his students.  “As I told them on the ride home, I am quite certain that no other team, out of the 16 teams in the class, has as thorough an understanding of their requirements and the challenges that lie ahead.” 

The students agree with that and were also impressed with the work that went into preparing for them to have the experience.  “This was a great opportunity to see the environment that these guys work in,” says Borsello.  “It really made us feel motivated to do what we can to make their lives easier.  They make you want to do your best for them.” 

Would the group do it again if they knew ahead of time what it would be like?  The answer was a resounding “yes,” from all five—including Andersen, who admits that he’s “too old and out of shape to handle this type of experience.” 

In fact, the whole team is eagerly anticipating the opportunity to take another “little boat ride” later in the semester and test the seat they’ve designed.

OTHER NEWS

CCM-Affiliated Faculty Win Prestigious Composites Awards

by Diane Kukich

Two researchers affiliated with CCM have won major awards from the American Society for Composites (ASC).  Jack R. Vinson, Professor Emeritus, is the recipient of the 2007 ASC Outstanding Research Award, and Erik T. Thostenson, Research Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, is the winner of the Elsevier Young Composites Researcher Award.  The awards were conferred at ASC’s 22nd Annual Technical Conference, held from September 17–19, 2007, at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The Outstanding Research Award is given annually to “a distinguished member of the composites community who has made a significant impact on the science and technology of composite materials through a sustained research effort over a number of years.”  The Elsevier Award, given for the first time in 2007, recognizes “members of the composites community who early in their career have made a significant impact on the science and technology of composite materials through a sustained research effort.”

Vinson, who joined the University of Delaware faculty in 1964, is credited with teaching one of the first composites courses in the nation in 1969.  In 1974, he became the founding director of CCM.

Tsu-Wei Chou, Pierre S. du Pont Chair of Engineering and long-time colleague of Vinson said, “For half a century, Dr. Vinson has made remarkable contributions to advancements in fiber composites, owing to his unique expertise in the mechanics of structures composed of anisotropic materials.”

Chou also noted Vinson’s contributions in educating generations of engineering students with advanced degrees who are now engaged in cutting-edge R&D in composites.

Vinson spent 10 years in industry before beginning his academic career, doing R&D work at the Aeronautical Research Laboratory of the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the Missile and Space Vehicle Department of General Electric, and other companies. At Delaware, his work has focused on structural mechanics of plates and shells, thin-walled structures, and sandwich structures.

vinson

Jack R. Vinson,
Professor Emeritus

THOSTENSON

Erik T. Thostenson
Research Assistant Professor
of Mechanical Engineering

 

In addition to reporting his research results in more than 220 archival journals and conference papers, Vinson has authored or co-authored seven graduate-level textbooks on structural mechanics and mechanics of composites, which have been extremely well received by students and researchers all over the world. One of his books. The Behavior of Structures Composed of Composite Materials, recently went into a third printing.

An active member of several professional societies, Vinson has also encouraged and facilitated the participation of his students in these organizations.

“Besides his innovative ideas in fundamental research,” Chou said, “I have been most impressed by Jack’s energy, dedication, and tireless effort in promoting the application of composites technology.”

Thostenson, who completed his master’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1999 and his doctorate in materials science and engineering in 2004, both at the University of Delaware, also earned a bachelor’s degree in composite materials engineering from Winona State University in Minnesota.  The program is the only undergraduate program in the country focusing on composites.

According to Chou, Thostenson’s advisor and mentor, the young researcher’s experience in the field of composites is very diverse, encompassing synthesis and processing of materials, advanced characterization techniques, and development of models to predict material behavior.

Thostenson and Chou were recently cited for their discovery of a means to detect and identify damage within advanced composite materials by using a network of tiny carbon nanotubes, which act in much the same manner as human nerves.  That work is an outgrowth of research that the pair have been conducting in carbon nanotubes for the past several years. 

Given his relative youth in the world of scientific research, Thostenson’s publications have been cited widely—nearly 750 times as of July 2007.  His original work in modeling the elastic properties of carbon nanotube-based composites, published in 2003, has been cited by others 56 times. 

“That manuscript marked an important step in understanding the mechanical behavior of nanomaterials,” Chou said.  “Unlike prior modeling efforts in nanotube-based composites, where atomistic simulations on highly idealized systems had been employed, Erik’s approach adopted mechanics-based models for realistic nanocomposite systems and supported the calculations with careful experimental measurements.”

Thostenson has been the recipient of several other prestigious awards, including the 2004 Allan P. Colburn Award for outstanding dissertation in the engineering and mathematical sciences.  In addition, he received the inaugural Hayashi Memorial International Award from the Japanese Society of Composite Materials, recognizing outstanding young international researchers in the field of composites, as well as the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) Outstanding Ph.D. Student Award. 

“These awards are particularly significant since they are based on technical merit as judged by others in the field of advanced materials,” Chou said.

Gillespie on Advisory Committee for International Conference
By Diane Kukich

gillespie

John W. Gillespie, Jr.
CCM Director

CCM Director Jack Gillespie is on the  International Advisory Committee for the First World Conference on 3D Fabrics and Their Applications, to be held next April at the University of Manchester in the U.K.

“The ability to control fiber orientation in three dimensions offers significant opportunities to tailor composite properties and performance,” Gillespie says. “However, many research questions still remain to be answered, ranging from multi-scale modeling and processing to test method development and design of this unique class of materials.  The conference will be an ideal forum for experts from around the world to exchange the latest ideas in this exciting field.”

Gillespie joins distinguished researchers from seven other countries, in addition to the U.S. and the U.K., on the advisory committee:  Australia, Belgium, China, Germany, India, Japan, and Poland. Conference Chair is Professor John W. S. Hearle, who was a visiting faculty member at the Center from 1985 to 1990; Co-Chair is Dr Xiaogang Chen, Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester.

With the increasing use of versatile 3D fabrics as reinforcement in advanced composites as well as in other technical applications, this international conference addresses a subject of wide interest.  Session topics will include manufacture, design, properties, economics, and applications.

Editor’s Note:  The conference will be held from April 3–4, 2008, at the Weston Conference Centre, University of Manchester.  It is organized by TexEng Software Ltd in association with The University of Manchester School of Materials.  Closing date for submissions intended for oral presentation is November 30, 2007.  Poster abstracts can also be considered at a later date.  Oral and poster papers to be presented at the conference will be included in a CD, which will be given to delegates at registration.  Full copies should be submitted by February 29, 2008. For more information and online submission of abstracts, visit the conference web site: http://www.texeng.co.uk/conference.html.

Kaler Accepts Position at Stony Brook, Chajes Named Interim Dean, Gillespie Appointed to Search Committee

By Diane Kukich

Eric W. Kaler, former Dean of the UD College of Engineering, has accepted a position as Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Stony Brook University in New York. 

“Dean Kaler has been a tremendous champion of CCM over the past seven years,” said Center Director Jack Gillespie.  “We have prospered under his leadership and greatly appreciate his strong support.  We wish him well in his new position at Stony Brook.”

Prof. Michael Chajes, Chair of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE) and an affiliated faculty member in CCM, has been named Interim Dean of the College of Engineering, and Associate Professor Harry W. (Tripp) Shenton, also a CCM affiliate, will serve as Acting Chair of CEE.  Both positions are effective as of October 1. 

“Profs. Chajes and Shenton have both had a long history of involvement with CCM in the areas of advanced materials for infrastructure applications,” Gillespie said, “and we look forward to supporting them in their new positions.”

Gillespie has been named a member of the committee that will conduct a national search for a new dean.  Chaired by Tom Apple, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, the committee includes members from throughout the College of Engineering and affiliated research centers.

Click on the links below to read the full stories in UDaily:

Center Contributes to Composite Cab for Army

by Diane Kukich

The unveiling of the Army’s latest all-composite truck cab, a project on which CCM collaborated, was recently featured in Machine Design (September 13, 2007).  Designed for the U.S. Army’s tactical wheeled vehicle fleet, the lightweight, durable cab is the result of a two-year R&D program with U.S. Army TARDEC. 

TPI Composites, Inc. built the tooling and manufactured the prototype for the armor-ready cab, and Oshkosh Truck provided the requirements and assessed integration of the design with their HEMTT A-3 truck. The goal of the project was to maintain all of the functionality of the baseline aluminum cab while reducing the overall weight despite the addition of the armor.

According to CCM Assistant Director Steve Andersen, the CCM team developed models and conducted ballistic testing to ensure that the fasteners attaching the armor to the cab could withstand mobility loads as well as ballistic impact.

Center researchers also carried out mechanical testing and materials characterization to ensure that the composites used on the cab would meet temperature and load requirements.  In addition, CCM is contributing to the testing program ongoing at the Army’s Aberdeen facility.

“The all-composite truck cab is a great example of productive collaboration with our government and industrial partners,” says CCM Director Jack Gillespie.  “We worked effectively with TPI, which has extensive experience in developing and manufacturing large-scale composite structures for military vehicles, and Oshkosh, which manufactures the HEMTT, to deliver a product that meets the needs of the Army to protect the soldier.”

Click here to read the story in Machine Design Magazine

texcomp9

CCM is pleased to announce the 9th International Conference on Textile Composites (TEXCOMP9), to be held at the University of Delaware John M. Clayton Hall from October 13 through 15, 2008. The goal of TEXCOMP is to promote knowledge in the field of textile composites

By bringing together scientists and engineers active in a variety of disciplines, the conference provides a dedicated forum for discussions and reports on recent advances in textiles and their composites.

Please visit the TEXCOMP9 Website for more information.

CONSORTIUM

We wish to thank our many members for continuing to participate in consortium activities.. Click here to learn more about the benefits of becoming a member:
www.ccm.udel.edu/Consortium/benefits.html

consortium

PUBLICATIONS

Conference Proceedings

Gawandi, A. and J. W. Gillespie, Jr., “Experimental Investigation of Interface Failure in a Discontinuous Sandwich Structure,” Proceedings of American Society for Composites, 22nd Annual Technical Conference, September 17-19, Seattle, Washington, 2007.

Gilhooley, D.F., J-R. Xiao, R. C. Batra, J. W. Gillespie, Jr., and M. A. McCarthy, “Stress Analysis of Thick Composite Laminates Using a Higher-Order Shear and Normal Deformable Plate Theory (HOSNDPT) and a Meshless MLPG Method with Radial Basis Functions,” Proceedings of American Society for Composites, 22nd Annual Technical Conference, September 17-19, Seattle, Washington, 2007.

Jadhav, P., D. Molligan, S. Andersen, J. W. Gillespie Jr., and R. Hathaway, “Effect of Surface Preparation on Environmental Durability of Adhesive-Bonded Metallic Surfaces, Proceedings of American Society for Composites, 22nd Annual Technical Conference, Seattle, WA, Sept.17-19, 2007, CD-ROM, Paper No. 49.

Jadhav, P., A. Quabili, D. Molligan, S. Andersen, and J. W. Gillespie Jr., “Mechanical Characterization of Adhesively Bonded Metallic Insert Joints in Vinyl-Ester Balsa Core Sandwich Panels, Proceedings of American Society for Composites, 22nd Annual Technical Conference, Seattle, WA, Sept.17-19, 2007, CD-ROM, Paper No. 58.

Lim, A. S., S. L. Lopatnikov, and J. W. Gillespie, Jr., “Evaluating the High Rate Behavior of a Shear Thickening Fluid (STF),” Proceedings of American Society for Composites, 22nd Annual Technical Conference, September 17-19, Seattle, Washington, 2007.

Rao, M. P., M. Keefe, B. M. Powers, and T. A. Bogetti, “Multi-scale Modeling of Ballistic Impact onto Woven Fabrics,” Proceedings of American Society for Composites, 22nd Annual Technical Conference, Seattle, WA, September 17 - 19, 2007.

Xiao, J-R. and J. W. Gillespie, Jr., “A Three-Dimensional Damage Mechanics Model for Composite Laminates under Transverse Impact Loadings,” Proceedings of American Society for Composites, 22nd Annual Technical Conference, September 17-19, Seattle, Washington, 2007.

 

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