Author: santon

DSSL MS student Ryan Kettle has been selected to participate in the 2016 Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Scholars Program. The program aims to pair graduate and undergraduate students with AFRL researchers and scientists to pusue cutting-edge research and technology. Ryan will be spending 10 weeks this summer conducting research at Eglin Air Force Base near Destin, FL. Ryan will continue the work he pursued last summer at Eglin on the development of a real-time state detection framework for highly dynamic systems. Additionally, he will work on various dynamic testing projects in the shock laboratory. Photo is taken at the Air Force Armament Museum.

Dr. Anton has been awarded a 1-year Academic Research Grant from the Vibration Institute entitled “Enabling Microsecond Condition Monitoring for Real-Time Assessment of Critical Infrastructure.” The grant will provide support to pursue the adaptation of our Real-Time State Monitoring concept to the condition monitoring community by investigating near instantaneous fault identification in rotating machinery.

DSSL researcher and PhD student Mohsen Safaei received the Best Poster Award for graduate research in Mechanical Engineering at the 2016 TTU Research and Creative Activities Day.  Mohsen presented a poster entitled “Energy Harvesting and Load Sensing by Piezoelectric Transducer in Total Knee Arthroplasty” Congratulations Mohsen!

DSSL researchers Ryan Kettle, Mohsen Safaei, and Edward Tefft presented posters at the 2016 TTU Research and Creative Activities Day on April 7, 2016.  The event is an effort to emphasize the significance of research in postsecondary education; and to recognize the diverse areas of research unique to the different disciplines.  Participants from all colleges in the university are welcome to present their research.

DSSL presents three technical papers at the 2016 SPIE Smart Structures & Nondestructive Evaluation conference held March 21-24, 2016 in Las Vegas, NV

• Kettle, R. A. and Anton, S. R., Rapid Evaluation of Mechanical Boundary Conditions using Impedance Based Structural Health Monitoring, Proc. SPIE, 2016, (13 pp.).
• Safaei, M. and Anton, S. R., The Effects of Dimensional Parameters on Sensing and Energy Harvesting of an Embedded PZT in a Total Knee Replacement, Proc. SPIE, 2016, (13 pp.).
• Tefft, E. C., and Anton, S. R., A Multiple Degree of Freedom Modeling Approach of Piezoelectret Foam in a Multilayer Stack Configuration, Proc. SPIE, 2016, (12 pp.).

DSSL friend Mr. Carlos Carvajal, MBA, PE (BSME 2006) has received the inaugural TTU College of Engineering Young Alumnus Achievement Award for 2016. Carlos joined Eastman Chemical Company in 2007 after completing his Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech and is currently a Global Procurement Manager at Eastman. During his tenure with Eastman, Carlos has been the lead inventor on two U.S. patents and a contributor to an additional four patents. He has also continued to advance his education, earning the Professional Engineer license in 2012, the Six Sigma Black Belt in 2014, and the Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2014.

Carlos is an active member of his local ASME chapter and held the position of Education Initiatives Program Chair. He is also active in his community and is currently serving on the Board of Directors for the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce. Furthermore, Carlos is involved in leadership within the College of Engineering at Tennessee Tech. He served on the Mechanical Engineering External Advisory Board from 2013-2015 and is currently a member of the Dean’s College of Engineering External Advisory Board.

Congratulations Carlos and thank you for your service to the profession and to TTU!

Dr. Anton, Ryan Kettle, and Edward Tefft (not pictured) volunteered for the 2015 FIRST Lego League East Tennessee Championship event held at Tennessee Tech.  FIRST Lego League is an exciting STEM robotics program for small teams of students ages 9 to 16.  Teams build unique robots using LEGO MINDSTORMS technology to solve a set of missions in the Robot Game.  The 2015 challenge was called Trash Trek.  There were about 40 teams from all over Tennessee in attendance.  Click for more information on FIRST!

DSSL presents one technical paper at the 2016 SEM IMAC-XXXIV conference held January 25-28, 2016 in Orlando, FL

• Kettle, R. A., Dick, A. J., Dodson, J. C., Foley, J. R., and Anton, S. R., Real-Time State Detection in Highly Dynamic Systems, Proc. SEM IMAC, 2016, (9 pp.).

Dr. Anton is one of 56 researchers in 2016 awarded the Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) for his work entitled “‘Continuous Real-Time State Monitoring in Highly Dynamic Environments.” Further details can be found in the AFOSR press release.

This work, which will be supported for three years, will focus on developing novel sensing systems for structures experiencing rapid changes “by extending conventional electromechanical impedance-based structural health monitoring (SHM) concepts to structural systems experiencing rapid changes in state (e.g. boundary conditions, interfaces, structural damage, etc.) in order to identify those changes on the microsecond to millisecond time frame.”

Dr. Anton is honored to be selected for this prestigious award. Through this award we are excited to continue our research with our collaborator Dr. Jacob Dodson at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida!

Dr. Anton traveled to Kingsport, TN this weekend to host a workshop entitled “FIRST Robotics Design Brainstorming Session” to 6 tri-cities high school FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) teams. The workshop was presented by Dr. Anton and his wife, Tiffany Anton and sponsored by Eastman Chemical Company and Tennessee Tech. Approximately 50 high school students and adult volunteer mentors attended the event, which focused on providing advice for running sustainable and competitive FRC teams. The workshop was organized with the help of DSSL friend and TTU alum Mr. Carlos Carvajal of Eastman.