houck2040/tees huggingface dataset:
dr tracy hammond professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was recently named the director of the institute for engineering education and innovation (ieei) the appointment is effective sept 1 and she will devote 40% of her effort to lead the ieei i am thrilled at the opportunity provided to me by the college of engineering hammond said i look forward to bringing our already excellent faculty to even greater heights ieei is a center within the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) its mission is to serve as a focal point and academic resource for engineering education research for faculty and administrators in order to advance the practices of engineering education in the texas a&m university system and worldwide hammond is also director of the sketch recognition lab and chair of the engineering education faculty at texas a&m she is an international leader in engineering education and her background includes degrees from columbia university and the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) including a masters degree in anthropology from columbia and a doctoral degree in computer science from mit she has received several awards for her contributions to the texas a&m engineering program and her professional field including the 2011 charles h barclay jr ‘45 faculty fellow award and the 2020 tees faculty fellow distinction she has also earned multiple educational teaching and best paper awards hammond is an international leader in activity recognition (focusing on eye body and sketch motions) haptics intelligent fabrics smartphone development and computer human interaction research her publications on the subjects are widely cited and her engineering education research has positively impacted learning across k-12 and is part of the engineering curricula at georgia tech texas state university san jose state university letourneau university texas a&m and several high schools her work has also been featured on the discovery channel and other national and international news sources additionally she has received over $13 million in research funding including 28 engineering education research grants with 13 of these from national science foundation engineering education directorates
the institute for engineering education and innovation is a texas a&m university system and texas a&m engineering experiment station wide institute that initiates engineering education research with kindergartners through 12th graders undergraduates graduate students professionals and faculty the institutes research helps inform texas a&m university and the engineering education community with strategies for developing the best engineersand more engineersfor the 21st century
the covid-19 pandemic resulted in a sudden shift in operations focused largely on maintaining established and essential businesses which appeared to leave many innovators and startup companies on their own to find new ways to continue to network secure funding and track market trends even in the midst of a global pandemic it is important for the entrepreneurship ecosystem to carry on operating as normal because maintaining momentum when entering a constantly evolving marketplace is crucial to successfully forming companies and commercializing inventions the texas a&m new ventures competition (tnvc) recognizes the paramount importance of the state of texas innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem and thus swiftly converted its annual competition for innovators to a completely virtual delivery system in only two months ensuring innovators investors and mentors all over the state of texas would be able to network with their peers and engage with potential business contacts as well as have access to over $400 000 in funding and prizes during a time when you cant necessarily go and network at an incubator or business function we put together a virtual event that connected several hundred people around entrepreneurial commercialization said chris scotti chair of tnvc and entrepreneur-in-residence with the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) even if people couldnt meet in person and with the pandemic in mind it was even more crucial to the texas economy that we provide a virtual space where they could engage instead
tnvc assists deep technology startups at a critical stage of commercialization with funding and connections and it also provides an easy way for early stage investors to identify and fund texas best startups taking these science and engineering technologies from lab to market not only benefits society with cutting edge inventions and research it also fuels economic growth and builds stronger communities during these uncertain times this competition was one of the rare moments where the startup community can join together from afar to support one another and see the amazing things we are all doing even though many of us are working from home said allotrope medicals albert huang winner of 2020s tnvc innovation doesnt stop we just all have to adapt huang added the state of texas boasts five million jobs related to commercialized intellectual property (ip) and the jobs at these ip-intensive companies pay 297% higher than their ip-focused peers employees from more than 100 companies that tnvc has touched through their competition over the past six years have gone on to contribute in excess of $70 million in economic impact annually in texas im looking forward to working with the texas a&m engineering experiment station to support texans seeking innovative solutions for the real world issues facing our state said texas workforce commission chairman bryan daniel the work being done will create cutting edge businesses with new exciting job opportunities tnvc hopes to grow their program through related events year round and also looks forward to being involved in regional and industry-focused feeder competitions throughout texas in cooperation with regional entrepreneurial ecosystems given the impressive virtual delivery of this years tnvc event collaboration with others within and beyond the texas a&m university system to help create similar virtual programs are also on the horizon the tees commercialization & entrepreneurship team is fully committed to working with our partners to grow tnvc to support our innovators across the texas a&m university system and also across the state of texas said dr saurabh biswas tees executive director for commercialization and entrepreneurship this year's successful outcome reinforced for us the need and important role this event plays in the texas innovation ecosystem and we look forward to building up on this success in years to come
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's (tees) clean energy incubator has received a $50 000 grant from the wells fargo innovation incubator (in2) as part of its program to help startup companies retain staff and cope with the impacts due to covid-19 wells fargo in2 is awarding $900 000 to help experts in agtech finance and clean technology companies and the program is co-administered by the national renewable energy laboratory according to wells fargo research recent studies have shown that 74% of startups have seen revenues decline since the beginning of the covid-19 crisis the clean energy incubator first received a grant in 2017 from the texas state energy conservation office part of the state comptrollers office to pioneer a program for distressed clean energy startups called ctrl-alt-del with the wells fargo grant the clean energy incubator will expand those services to distressed clean technology startups by providing pandemic response support advisory services and curated information and resources to clients we know that small businesses across america are being hit especially hard right now said trish cozart manager of the program according to john pappas the clean energy incubators principal investigator with the advent of covid-19 our clients needed an urgent change of focus covid-19 changed the entire work environment raised the specter of cash crunches and changed the risk calculation coupling our ctrl-alt-del program with lessons learned from our own response to covid-19 means we could help immediately" pappas continued "innovation can and will persist even during times of contraction and this expedited funding is designed to support that" wells fargo is also starting its in2 channel partner awards program – a $5 million total fund – that hopes to strengthen sustainable technology initiatives and address barriers that startups face on the path to commercialization the new round of award funds will be allocated toward programming or operational assistance designed to address the unprecedented challenges that startups within the partners portfolios are experiencing in the current business environment wells fargos partnership with texas a&m has always been focused on making impacts to those that we serve said shane hinckley vice president of brand development at texas a&m this is a great example of how a campus-wide partnership with texas a&m can have a far reaching effect the grant to tees' clean energy incubator is greatly appreciated and in line with the vision of where we wanted this relationship to be when we became partners besides tees other college winners include new york university the university of texas and the university of nebraska
the clean energy incubator encourages commercialization of clean energy technologies from tees and texas clean energy technology refers to any energy-related technology that improves efficiency reduces waste or has a favorable environmental impact during the last six-month reporting period client companies reported $8 642 630 in capital investment raised $546 864 in revenue earned $1 475 982 spent in texas and 107 jobs supported it is supported by the texas state energy conservation office the us department of energy the wells fargo in2 program and tees
recent discoveries made by researchers at texas a&m university could change the way ovarian cancer is understood and treated dr abhishek jain assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering and the department of medical physiology in the college of medicine collaborated with researchers from the departments of gynecologic oncology and cancer biology at md anderson cancer center to gain a better understanding of the interaction among ovarian cancer tumors blood vessels and platelets they found that tumors break the blood vessel barriers so that they can communicate with the blood cells such as platelets when these tumors come into contact with platelets they can then metastasize or begin to spread to other sites in the body the collaborative research was recently published in the journal blood advances currently researchers understand that platelets are one of the initiators of ovarian cancer metastasis but did not know what led to the introduction of the platelets to the tumor cells instead of struggling to view this relationship in animal models jains team brought a new solution to the table: organ-on-a-chip research organs-on-a-chip are microfluidic medical devices the size of a usb drive the team designed on the ovca-chip to give researchers an easier window to view the biological processes between tumors and platelets
in an interview with the international society on thrombosis and hemostasis jain explained that "it basically is a microenvironment where ovarian tumor cells can be co-cultured along with their blood vessels and then they can interact with blood cells once we learn about these interactions we can then move forward to look into how drugs will impact these kinds of interactions" viewing the interaction between tumors and blood vessels on the ovca-chip led the researchers to an extraordinary result the tumor cells systematically broke down the endothelial cells which are the barrier that lines the interior surface of blood vessels and prevents exterior interaction with blood cells once this barrier was gone blood cells and platelets entered the tumor microenvironment and could be recruited for metastasis harnessing this knowledge could change how clinicians approach ovarian cancer treatment jain said suggesting that anti-vascular drugs could be considered along with anticancer treatments a benefit of the organ-on-a-chip is that it can also test these novel drug treatments and drug combinations another application of the chips could be diagnostics "you have to understand that these are chips that are living they contain living cells the advantage is that these are all actually human samples " jain stated in the interview "so what we think the future for this technology is is perhaps we can advance it in the direction of personalized medicine where we could actually take stem cells from patients and other patient-derived cells and make this entire chip from a single patient"
the texas a&m university systems george hw bush combat development complex will soon feature the nations largest enclosed hypersonic testing facility as well as an outdoor range for trying out autonomous combat vehicles today the texas a&m university system board of regents approved spending a total of $603 million for the two facilities at the george hw bush combat development complex located on the rellis campus the bush combat development complex (bcdc) is being built as part an agreement between the a&m system and the us army futures command based in austin the complex will serve us researchers from universities the military and industry as they develop advanced technologies to modernize the us army of the total expenditures approved $378 million will be spent on the innovation proving ground (ipg) an outdoor testing site for autonomous aerial ground and subterranean vehicles ipg construction is expected to start next summer and be completed a year later also $225 million will be spent on the ballistic aero-optics and materials (bam) test range a hypersonic and laser testing facility bam construction is scheduled to begin in february with substantial completion expected by october 2022 for more information see the a&m systems press release
the texas a&m university systems george h w bush combat development complex (bcdc) located on the 2 000-acre rellis campus is the result of a partnership with the us army futures command the bcdc will bring together academic researchers the military and the private sector for collaboration demonstrations and high-tech testing of various national security initiatives learn more about all of the bcdcs planned facilities and capabilities
natures blueprint for the human limb is a carefully layered structure with stiff bone wrapped in layers of different soft tissue like muscle and skin all bound to each other perfectly achieving this kind of sophistication using synthetic materials to build biologically inspired robotic parts or multicomponent complex machines has been an engineering challenge by tweaking the chemistry of a single polymer researchers at texas a&m university and the us army combat capabilities development command army research laboratory have created a whole family of synthetic materials that range in texture from ultra-soft to extremely rigid the researchers said their materials are 3d printable self-healing recyclable and they naturally adhere to each other in air or underwater their findings are detailed in the may issue of the journal advanced functional materials we have made an exciting group of materials whose properties can be fine-tuned to get either the softness of rubber or the strength of load-bearing plastics said dr svetlana sukhishvili professor in the department of materials science and engineering and a corresponding author on the study their other desirable characteristics like 3d printability and the ability to self-heal within seconds make them suited for not just more realistic prosthetics and soft robotics but also ideal for broad military applications such as agile platforms for air vehicles and futuristic self-healing aircraft wings synthetic polymers are made up of long strings of repeating molecular motifs like beads on a chain in elastomeric polymers or elastomers these long chains are lightly crosslinked giving the materials a rubbery quality however these crosslinks can also be used to make the elastomers more rigid by increasing the number of crosslinks
although previous studies have manipulated the density of crosslinks to make elastomers stiffer the resulting change in mechanical strength was generally permanent crosslinks are like stitches in a piece of cloth: the more stitches you have the stiffer the material gets and vice versa said sukhishvili but instead of having these ‘stitches be permanent we wanted to achieve dynamic and reversible crosslinking so that we can create materials that are recyclableso the researchers focused their attention on the molecules involved in the crosslinking first they chose a parent polymer called prepolymer and then chemically studded these prepolymer chains with two types of small crosslinking molecules furan and maleimide by increasing the number of these molecules in the prepolymer they found that they could create materials stiffer in this way the hardest material they created was 1 000 times stronger than the softest however these crosslinks are also reversible furan and maleimide participate in a type of reversible chemical bonding put simply in this reaction furan and maleimide pairs can click and unclick depending on temperature when the temperature is high enough these molecules come apart from the polymer chains and the materials soften at room temperature the materials harden since the molecules quickly click back together once again forming crosslinks thus if there is any tear in these materials at ambient temperatures the researchers showed that furan and maleimide automatically re-click healing the gap within a few seconds
the researchers noted that the temperatures at which the crosslinkers dissociate or unclick from the prepolymer chains are relatively the same for different stiffness levels this property is useful for 3d printing with these materials regardless of whether they are soft or hard the materials can be melted at the same temperature and then used as printing ink by modifying the hardware and processing parameters in a standard 3d printer we were able to use our materials to print complex 3d objects layer by layer said dr frank gardea research engineer in the united states army research laboratory and a corresponding author on the study the unique advantage of our materials is that the layers that make up the 3d part can be of vastly different stiffnessas the 3d part cools to room temperature he added that the different layers join seamlessly precluding the need for curing or any other chemical processing consequently the 3d-printed parts can easily be melted using high heat and then recycled as printing ink the researchers also noted that their materials are reprogrammable in other words after being set into one shape they can be made to change into a different shape using just heat other contributors include qing zhou primary author of the paper and zhen sang from the department of materials science and engineering; and dr seunghyun lee and dr matt pharr from the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering this research is funded by the united states combat capabilities development command army research laboratory
in the future the researchers plan to increase the functionality of their new materials by amplifying its multifaceted properties outlined in the current studyright now we can easily achieve around 80% self-healing at room temperature but we would like to reach 100% also we want to make our materials responsive to other stimuli other than temperature like light said gardea further down the road wed like to explore introducing some low-level intelligence so that these materials know to autonomously adapt without needing a user to initiate the process
dr gerard coté director of the center for remote health technologies and systems texas a&m regents professor and holder of the james j cain professorship i received the walston chubb award for innovation from sigma xi the scientific research honor society i am honored that i was considered to receive the chubb award from sigma xi and that the committee felt our research merited their high standards for promoting creativity in science and engineering coté said i say ‘our work as much of what has been accomplished has been a team effort with my students staff and colleagues coté was recognized for his leadership in the development of biomedical optical systems for an array of medical applications with clinical impact along with a stipend coté will be recognized and present at this years annual meeting and student research conference which will be held virtually in november since the award is focused on innovation and the audience is broad including distinguished scientists and engineers from multiple disciplines as well as high school undergraduate and graduate students i plan to discuss engineering for impact with a focus on technologies for monitoring health at the point-of-care coté said the endowed award was formed to recognize research into new areas of potential scientific importance novel approaches to a long-standing problem in science or engineering or research that may create a new methodology of importance to science or engineering
the center for remote health technologies and systems is developing breakthrough remote health technologies algorithms and health analytics as well as using advanced systems engineering to solve the global health grand challenges and enable healthy living these powerful advances are not only helping to answer the critical needs of patients and providers they are shifting the health care landscape from disease management to disease prevention
imagine needing a part to fix something in your home but not being able to go out to the store to get it like those unable to go to the store to get something for a home repair project astronauts and inhabitants of future space missions will face a similar dilemma while living in space habitats or will they researchers at texas a&m university along with seven universities and three industry partners are working to make this problem solvable with on-demand metal additive manufacturing through the habitats optimized for missions of exploration (home) institute their work will allow space inhabitants to manufacture parts as needed with or without a human operator texas a&m has been working in the additive manufacturing of metallic parts for close to seven years which fits into nasas space technology research institutes goal of manufacturing metallic parts in microgravity said dr alaa elwany associate professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering imagine a part such as a gear fails on the space habitat rather than transporting an enormous amount of spare parts initially to the habitat the majority of which might not even get used we can simply send a digital model of that part and manufacture it on site through 3d printing elwany said additive manufacturing is challenging on earth and these challenges multiply when there is low gravity the research done by texas a&m will enable printing in microgravity and testing of parts to ensure they are able to perform effectively this research is a part of nasas in space manufacturing initiative and will be used in future missions including habitation on the moon and mars the funding provided by nasa to texas a&m will be used to support doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers the home team includes the university of california davis in partnership with the university of colorado boulder carnegie mellon university the georgia institute of technology howard university texas a&m and the university of southern california collaborators in industry include sierra nevada corporation blue origin and united technology aerospace systems
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's early research efforts in space contributed to texas a&m becoming a space-grant institution in 1989 meaning they "participate in nasas aeronautics and space projects by supporting and enhancing science and engineering education research and public outreach efforts"
researchers in the us army combat capabilities development command's army research laboratory (arl) are working to develop a drone with the ability to morph while in flight to better fit its mission for example shortening and lengthening the wing for efficiency and speed to begin their work they turned to the expertise of researchers at texas a&m university for assistance with the complex analysis and design stage a team led by dr darren hartl assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering tackled part of this first step by developing a novel fluid-structure interaction algorithm this vital tool will provide arl researchers with a streamlined means to analyze the interaction between fluid and air flows and flexible or adaptable solid structures in their pursuit of a transforming drone in aerospace a really common problem that we have to consider is the interaction between fluid flows and the solid structure that your vehicle is comprised of said hartl that analyzing of how the fluid pushes and deforms the structure and how the changing shape of the structure changes fluid flow in a simultaneous way is what is known as fluid structure interaction to elaborate an airplane for example is designed largely based on aerodynamics and should stay stiff and not change shape mid-flight however if the wings were allowed to lengthen on longer international flights the shape change would alter how the air flows around the original design and how it interacts with the actual physical structure of the plane
fluid-structure interaction in morphing vehicles is much more complicated because motion is intentional " hartl added "so that's why we leaned into this problem; we needed a better way to solve fluid-structure interaction traditionally fluid-structure interaction is analyzed by running individual fluid and structural codes one at a time updating the pressure one increment at a time to see how it affects the structure and then updating the structural shape to see how it affects the pressure this impacts the design process because if any aspect of the design is changed the expensive fluid-structure interaction scheme has to be redone this could take days of computation going back and forth to find the sweet spot for design to fix this hartl and his team developed an algorithm that substantially cuts down the computational cost by simultaneously running analyses for various pressures and structure shapes and then using mathematical tools to stitch together two matching solutions i know that up until this point weve basically been unable to do serious design studies on morphing aircrafts because of this computational expense problem said hartl frankly this is one reason why there's not a lot of morphing airplane solutions the only way to have done this in the past was to design build and test and one primary problem with structures that can move is that wrong answers quickly lead to catastrophic failures the research team is comprised of collaborators from the us army combat capabilities development command's arl and texas a&m recently they published their work in uncoupled method for massively parallelizable 3d fluid-structure interaction analysis and design
hartl especially values this collaboration because it illustrates what is possible by having the army futures command and arl integrated with texas a&m this algorithm and idea are only a couple years old and the team was able to harvest it and use it because they were here " hartl said "they were the first ones to hear and see about this new way of solving a problem and immediately began applying it to their work the texas a&m university systems george h w bush combat development complex (bcdc) under construction at the rellis campus is the result of a partnership with the army futures command the bcdc will bring together academic researchers the military and the private sector for collaboration demonstrations and high-tech testing of various national security initiatives
researchers from the texas a&m university college of engineering will play a key role in a consortium sponsored by natura resources llc to build an advanced research reactor in the state of texas the $305 million effort to design and license a research reactor is a collaboration with three other universities: abilene christian university georgia institute of technology and the university of texas at austin the texas a&m team has been awarded $35 million over the next three years for their portion of the project nuclear engineering faculty members drs pavel tsvetkov mark kimber and sean mcdeavitt and their respective research groups are members of the consortium texas a&m plays an important role on the team supporting the design thermal management and fuel characterization efforts toward the reactor said tsvetkov associate professor of nuclear engineering and lead of the texas a&m team we are excited to be part of the consortium this is going to be the first advanced reactor to be built in the 21st century in the us and the first to be built as a university research reactor it will enable the nuclear engineering community as well as serve the strategic role of workforce development supporting advanced reactors dr kimber and dr mcdeavitt have years of unique experience in important areas of the project allowing us to provide high-impact assistance to the team
dr tony hill natura director of product development said we are incredibly pleased and honored to sponsor this remarkable multi-disciplinary collaboration of talented researchers – physicists engineers chemists and their students – to support our vision to develop advanced energy systems that are inherently safe sustainable and environmentally friendly" launched in spring 2019 the consortiums goal is to design license and commission the first university-based molten salt research reactor ive been working with molten salts for nuclear applications off and on for over 25 years said mcdeavitt nuclear engineering professor and director of the nuclear engineering and science center this is an exciting opportunity to contribute to the actual construction of a nuclear energy system that has the potential to impact future generations the thermal management team will focus on validating modeling efforts aimed to predict thermal performance during normal and off-normal scenarios added kimber assistant professor of nuclear engineering being able to place a known confidence in those models is especially important with this advanced reactor design because it sets the stage for future reactor designs to follow suit texas a&m nuclear engineering department head dr michael nastasi stressed the importance of this project over the next several decades the energy environment must undergo a transformation to a minimal carbon future if greenhouse gasses are to be sufficiently limited molten salt reactors fit perfectly into this future because of their innate safety as well as their ability to consume spent nuclear fuel from conventional nuclear reactors he said additionally this project will help educate a new cohort of engineers who are equipped to work with advanced reactors
texas a&ms department of nuclear engineering was established in 1958 and strives to serve the state nation and global community by nurturing nuclear engineering professionals and leaders to meet the complex challenges associated with the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and enhancing global security it is the largest program in the us with a current enrollment of 292 undergraduate and 141 graduate students the program is ranked second nationally among undergraduate and fifth nationally among graduate programs included in public universities by us news and world report
dr roderic pettigrew has written an essay humanity binds us which will be included in the fall edition of the bridge the flagship quarterly publication of the national academy of engineering the issue will be online mid-september and is dedicated to the memory of us congressman john lewis who passed away july 17 the essay is currently available on the association of american medical colleges website pettigrew is ceo of engineering health (enhealth) and executive dean for engineering medicine (enmed) at texas a&m university and houston methodist hospital as well as the robert a welch professor in the department of biomedical engineering
two faculty members from the texas a&m university college of engineering have been recognized by sigma xi the scientific research honor society for their exemplary achievements in science and engineering they will be recognized during the societys national meeting in november which will be held virtually nov 5-8 the two engineering faculty members and the awards they will receive are: gerard l coté texas a&m regents professor and holder of the james j cain professorship i department of biomedical engineering walston chubb award for innovation for leadership in the development of biomedical optical systems for an array of medical applications with clinical impact bonnie j dunbar tees eminent professor department of aerospace engineering john p mcgovern science and society award for leadership and contributions in aerospace engineering; work spanning industry academia and government; a commitment to furthering engineering and science education at texas a&m; and outreach to k-12 students in addition each faculty member will serve as a plenary speaker at the societys virtual research conference and art exhibit hacking the brain: the intersection of art and neuroscience dr marcetta y darensbourg from the department of chemistry was also recognized for significant contributions to bioinorganic chemistry from her work on chemistry of the di-iron hydrogenases congratulations to our remarkable faculty members on their selection for these well-deserved awards said dr mark a barteau vice president for research their individual contributions to bioinorganic chemistry aerospace engineering and biomedical sciences are representative of texas a&ms commitment to expanding the frontiers of science and its applications recognition by sigma xi a champion of the importance of scientific research is a testament to the impact of these scholars
us army secretary ryan d mccarthy visited the rellis campus today to see construction progress at the texas a&m university systems george hw bush combat development complex the george hw bush combat development complex (bcdc) will be used to modernize the us military leading researchers will work with warriors on high-tech solutions to real-world national security challenges its no wonder that secretary mccarthy marveled at the breadth of what were building said col ross guieb bcdc executive director this will be a mini-research pentagon a high-tech hub for army industry and university-based experts to collaborate in one state-of-the-art location together well develop next-generation defense capabilities to deter adversaries and convincingly win on any battlefield the bcdcs first strategic partner is the us army futures command (afc) which has contracted with the texas a&m system to research experiment with and test prototypes for next-generation soldiering mccarthy also toured two other texas a&m research laboratories for hypersonics and directed energy and he met with students from the corps of cadets at texas a&m for more information see the full press release about mccarthys visit
the george hw bush combat development complex (bcdc) located on the 2 000-acre rellis campus is the result of a partnership between the us army futures command (afc) and the texas a&m university system texas a&m engineering experiment station and the state of texas the $200 million complex will bring together researchers from us universities the military and the private sector for collaboration demonstrations and high-tech testing of initiatives to help accelerate military innovation the bcdc is funded with $50 million from the state legislature $65 million from afc and $85 million from the texas a&m system for more information about the bcdc visit the 2020 special edition of the texas a&m engineer magazine
dr chandler benjamin and his lab determine how to design materials so that they behave predictably in certain situations using material characterization and nonlinear models one of the main areas of benjamins research focuses on harnessing these models to help health care providers combat cardiovascular diseases affecting the bodys largest artery the aorta one disease in particular aortic dissection has been a primary focus of benjamins research an aortic dissection typically occurs when an injury to the innermost layer of the aorta allows blood to flow between the layers of the aortic wall forcing the layers apart if an aortic dissection occurs on the arch – the part that attaches right into the heart – i hope you are already in the hospital on the operating table said benjamin an assistant professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university if it occurs in the descending or the abdominal aorta it's very bad and you have some time to get to the hospital but still the fatality of that disorder is high unfortunately the condition is difficult to diagnose and can often be confused with an aneurysm based on current methods of detection including an mri which leaves physicians with no choice but to perform surgery to physically observe the artery to help assist health care providers in determining the likelihood of an aortic dissection benjamin and his lab group are working to create a model that could accurately detect the conditions under which it might occur most of the time you know this right before something bad is about to happen benjamin said we're trying to predict these things well before they occur if you could detect this before it ever becomes a serious problem then you can take steps toward prevention to accomplish such goals benjamin and his team take the materials they study and seek to determine how they behave when put under stress it is at this point where benjamins lab sets itself apart taking these characterizations and using them to test nonlinear models while more traditionally considered engineering materials use linear models biologically grown materials like the aorta require the use of nonlinear models similar to paint and toothpaste and are much more difficult to characterize if youre unable to describe how a material is going to behave under different loads and different conditions and if you have no models to represent this you cant even start benjamin said you cant even think about how youre going to predict something like this so this is always the first step in any mechanical development its the first thing that has to be done
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's health care market segment advances research in the key areas of medicine health care-related technology and life sciences using a multi-disciplinary approach our strengths include bioinformatics computational biology and systems biology for agricultural environmental and life sciences next generation medical devices and systems and education training and outreach programs for pharmaceutical workforce development
dr jens figlus associate professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university at galveston and a team of researchers are creating better designed hybrid coastal structures to safeguard coastal communities exposed to flooding and destruction in light of rising sea levels eroding coastlines and devastating hurricanes these structures combine the benefits of coastal sand dunes with those offered by traditional human-made structures like seawalls sea dikes and rubble mounds to elevate their effectiveness and resilience the teams work inspired by natural sand dunes will bridge the gap between research and application – allowing such structures to be utilized around the globe figlus details these types of hybrid structures in innovative coastal risk reduction through hybrid design: combining sand cover and structural defenses published in the journal of coastal research in the last decade or so the tide has turned to not approach everything with just brute force – so with concrete and steel type structures figlus said the direction coastal engineering has gone is more toward what some folks call engineering-with-nature approaches instead of trying to constantly battle and work against nature or protect against nature we're trying to use natural processes and more natural features to do the job that we intend to do as engineers like reducing the risk of flooding and destruction and increasing the level of protection
working with the coastal engineering lab the center of texas beaches and shores and researchers from other institutions such as the stevens institute of technology and delft university of technology in the netherlands figlus is testing how the combination of sand dunes and hard structures can best weather a storm the idea is that we're trying to make something look like and have vegetation ecosystems like a natural dune but in its core hidden underneath the sand layers would be a hard structure said figlus the combination of sand cover and hard structure is intended to do the job of reducing the risk of flooding inundation and destruction behind it in the event of a big storm surge and massive wave attack – like during hurricane ike but at the same time provide the aesthetic appeal and ecosystem services like a natural dune under normal conditions
research producing data-backed designs and guidelines for the construction of hybrid coastal structures has been lacking to fill this vital gap figlus and his team have conducted physical model tests and simulations utilizing the haynes coastal engineering wave basin in college station the team built a hybrid dune consisting of a rubble mound fortified core with sand on top they tested various storm scenarios– changing the wave and water levels to explore how the structure reacted and deformed when hit by storm waves
one primary objective of such a structure is to reduce the risk of flooding by limiting wave overtopping or the amount of water that goes over the structure this included testing what physical properties – such as slope and height of the dune – produce the best outcome and resilience against storm surge and wave impact the practical application is really the coastal spine intended to reduce the risk of flooding and storm surge damage to the greater houston-galveston region figlus said we're actively working on concepts that could hopefully be used by the army corps of engineers to design that potentially 70-mile-long coastal barrier these hybrid systems are a really good alternative
earthquakes hurricanes and tsunamis can have a catastrophic impact on infrastructuredr petros sideris assistant professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a national science foundation (nsf) grant to advance the fundamental understanding and computational simulation of the damage and failure mechanisms of reinforced concrete structures under extreme natural eventsaccurate predictions of damage and the failure of reinforced concrete structures are essential when designing and assessing risk especially by federal and state agencies and local communities this research will support structure- and community-level resilience effortsspecifically it will help accurately assess the performance of new and existing structures against natural hazards identify key vulnerabilities prioritize and guide retrofitting upgrade actions and develop and refine new designs to protect people and property from disastersthis research will produce computational simulation tools that will become available to the engineering community to support a wide range of efforts on addressing structure- and community-level resilience challenges sideris said i am very excited and humbled by this award which will allow me to pursue research that will advance our capability to predict structural failures under natural hazards in order to support efforts to improve the resilience of structures and communitiessideris research focuses on infrastructure resilience with particular emphasis on mitigating the effects of natural hazards on the built environment through understanding of the behavior of existing structures and the development of new resilient and sustainable designs realized via novel response mechanisms advanced materials and new construction methods his work lies at the nexus of performance-based engineering computational structural mechanics and dynamics and experimental methods for large-scale structures and materials
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's infrastructure market segment addresses obstacles related to all aspects of land and sea organizational structures and facilities our strengths include infrastructure renewal advanced materials and structural systems deep-water platforms slender and large body hydrodynamics non-traditional materials and deep ocean seafloor engineering
in 1967 prominent aerospace engineer tn edelbaum wanted to know how many velocity impulses – and in what direction and at what time – must be used to allow a spacecraft to fly from its starting point to reach a specified destination with a minimum total impulse its an issue that arises in virtually every space flight mission and dr john junkins and his research team have finally uncovered the rigorous process to answer it over 50 years later how do you optimally fly from a to b asked junkins distinguished professor and holder of the royce e wisenbaker chair in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university that's really the kind of problem i'm dealing with in this research and thats a tough problem that requires us to combine judicious control forces with gravitational field effects to fly from one moving object to another recent advances in low-thrust propulsion means that some spacecrafts are literally propelling for decades of powered flight between objects separated by many astronomical units so the trajectory design problems are getting more difficult as a consequence working alongside dr ehsan taheri an aerospace engineering adjunct assistant professor junkins formulations and algorithms have led to a new way to determine continuous thrust minimum fuel orbit transfers by varying the theoretical maximum-thrust allowed by x amount their approach ultimately reveals the solution for any maximum thrust level as the theoretical maximum thrust is allowed to approach infinity longer coasts appear between ever shorter optimal thrust arcs the limiting case is the answer to edelbaums optimal impulse question for any feasible orbit transfer this research is published in a special edition of the journal of the astronautical sciences dedicated to the 50 glorious orbits of junkins career to date and it also helped to earn him the robert h goddard astronautics award from the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics in may 2019 the work taheri and i did extended and unified existing methodology said junkins who was also recently awarded a 2020 texas a&m engineering experiment station research impact award for his contribution to the development of his space navigation and control research he is also director of the hagler institute for advanced study and a member of the national academy of engineering its really amazing that many researchers and flight control engineers worked on this for a half century continued junkins and even though i was born a bit too late to be a key player in the apollo program during edelbaums time i wasn't born too late to bring closure to an important question he raised in the process i established new tools to design space missions optimally and with computational efficiency
the hagler institute for advanced study provides a catalyst to enrich the intellectual climate and educational experiences at texas a&m university it is a mechanism for attracting world-class talent to the texas a&m and is driven by nominations of national academy and nobel prize-caliber researchers that align with existing strengths and ambitions of the university