2014 October ABe-Notes
2014 October Alumni News
Adam (ASM 2005) and Jennifer (Allen) (ASM 2007) Edwards, along with Asher Clay (May 16, 2013) welcomed Jacob Pape Edwards on September 12, 2014 at 8:11 am. The new Porkchop weighed in at 8 lbs, 2 oz, and is 20 3/4" long.
Endowment Celebration for Martin Okos Scholarship
Author: | Micky Creech |
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Event Date: | September 27, 2014 |
Homecoming weekend at Purdue University was also a celebration for Dr. Martin Okos. On Saturday many ABE faculty, several Biological & Food Process Engineering Alumni as well as a few current Biological Engineering students were on hand to congratulate Martin on the establishment of an endowed scholarship in his honor.
This scholarship will help ABE students pursue a degree in Biological and Food Process Engineering, and will be awarded beginning in 2015.
In 39 years of teaching at Purdue, Martin has had over 1500 students in classes and special problems courses. He has taught over 100 courses and nearly every course has included laboratory aspects. As the principal Food Process Engineering faculty member, he has played a key role in curricular developments influencing all students of this program.
Thank you to the many donors who made this endowment possible.
Congratulations Dr. Okos!
2014 October Faculty News
2014 October Maha Fluid Power Laboratory News
Author: | Meike Ernst |
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The Maha 10-Year Anniversary
From October 1st to October 3rd the Maha Fluid Power Research Center celebrated its 10-year anniversary. On October 2nd, guests from industry, guests from Purdue, and former Ph.D. students received a tour of the laboratory. Maha’s graduate students gave poster presentations about their past and ongoing research, and explained the special test rigs they utilize to gather experimental data. Machine demonstration sessions allowed the guests to drive some of the mobile machines that have been equipped at the Maha laboratory with novel fuel-saving hydraulic system architectures and control strategies. The day concluded with a banquet. The celebrations closed on October 3rd, after several research presentations about the most exciting recent discoveries at Maha: the blended hydraulic hybrid power trains, the fluid structure interaction phenomena enabling stable fluid films in pumps and motors, a new approach permitting the design of variable gear pumps.
Maha’s 10th anniversary was a very special opportunity for people from all over the world to see not only how far the lab has come, but how far it is possible to go when engineering students at Purdue decide to put their heads together. Congratulations to Maha on its 10th birthday!
New Faces at Maha:
Anna Garcia Teruel has joined the Maha Fluid Power Research Center as a visiting researcher. She is originally from Barcelona, Spain, but is currently a student at TU München in Germany. At Maha, Anna will partake in research on hydraulic pumps by measuring friction forces using Maha’s “Tribo” test rig.
Maha Awards:
Laboratory secretary Susan Gauger has been selected as one of the finalists for the College of Engineering Staff Award of Excellence for Clerical Customer Service. Maha would not be Maha without Susan, who never misses an opportunity to help out and accomplishes her work with a creativity and a joy that is absolutely contagious. Susan, we love you!
In further news, Maha graduate student Enrique Busquets is a finalist for the Student Paper Award at the 9th JFPS International Symposium on Fluid Power. The winner of the award is to be announced at the symposium in Japan (October 28-31), and Maha’s support is behind Enrique and his paper on “The World’s First Displacement-Controlled Excavator Prototype with Pump Switching – A Study of the Architecture and Control.”
SAE Commercial Vehicle Engineering Congress
On October 7, Maha gave three presentations at the SAE Commercial Vehicle Congress in the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. Dr. Monika Ivantysynova presented “A Steer-by-Wire System that Enables Remote and Autonomous Operation,” Michael Sprengel presented “Recent Developments in a Novel Blended Hydraulic Hybrid Transmission,” and Pulkit Agarwal working under Professor Vacca presented “An Analysis of Lubricating Gap Flow in Radial Piston Machines.” Off-highway vehicles rely almost exclusively on hydraulics for actuating booms, buckets, etc., and Maha recognizes this as an important type of application for its research. The congress is, therefore, a valuable experience for the Maha graduate students, but also for their audience because if the hydraulics in these machines are not properly understood, their performance will never come close to optimal.
Visiting Scholar Yun Xu Completes her ABE Visit
Visiting scholar Dr. Yun Xu, Associate Professor of the College of Information and Electrical Engineering, China Agricultural University (CAU), Beijing, China, has finished her one-year visit in ABE and returned to CAU to continue her teaching and research. Dr. Xu arrived at Purdue in July 2013 and joined the group of Dr. Jiqin Ni. During her stay in ABE, she participated in two projects; one was an investigation of volatile fatty acid production in wastewater sludge and another was a characterization of pollutant gas emissions from two commercial layer hen houses. She also audited two courses in ECE: Electronics system analysis and design; and Digital system design. Dr. Xu feels that, through the one-year visiting, she made great progress not only in teaching but also in scientific research. She enjoyed the academic and friendly working environment in the group, collaborating with graduate students and other visiting scholars. She and her family also enjoyed the natural environment and landscapes in West Lafayette, Indiana, and other parts of the U.S.
Contact Us
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