Faculty Awards
Summer 2014
Pew Research Grant
Dr. Georg Pingen, Assistant Professor of Engineering, has recently been awarded a Pew Research Grant for his proposal entitled "Analysis of Moderate Knudsen Number Flows using Finite Element Methods and the Hydrodynamic Boltzmann Equation." The goal of his research is to develop a multi-scale computational fluid dynamics model. His proposed model should be an improvement over current techniques, which typically rely on two different approaches to handle large and small Knudsen numbers, resulting in the lack of a continuous transition for fluid flows that include physical phenomena at both length scales. An anticipated application of this research is increased longevity of lithium-ion batteries.
Spring 2014
Course Redesign Grant
Dr. Jay Bernheisel and Dr. Georg Pingen have been awarded a course redesign grant for the Spring 2014 semester for their proposal to develop an affordable data acquisition system using MATLAB and Arduino boards. Currently, students in many of our engineering labs collect data by hand, a cumbersome approach that limits collection to relatively small, slowly changing data sets. The proposed system will allow several of our engineering labs to offer improved experiments that are more closely aligned to situations students will encounter in the "real world."