New Boilermaker Alert! Philip James Hayes made his debut at 7 lbs, 9 oz, 20 1/2". The proud mama is Anna Alsman Hayes (BS 2007, MS 2008)

In addition to being promoted to "mother," Anna has been promoted to Senior R&D Engineer with General Mills. Congratulations, Anna!

Indiana AgrAbility/Breaking New Ground staff and volunteers staffed displays at the 2014 Fort Wayne Farm Show and the 2014 Indiana Horticulture Congress.  Though weather affected both shows, staff and volunteers were able to talk with attendees and other vendors about AgrAbility and how we assist farmers with disabilities.  Both displays were tabletops and included an AgrAbility popup, brochures and publications, the National AgrAbility Project video, The Tool Box CD and hard copy, and the tool pillar, which attracted a lot of interest.

The symposium will include research roundtable presentations, industry panels, a plenary speaker and lunch, a poster session, and evening banquet and keynote speaker.  Research roundtables will consist of four ten minute student presentations in four independent sessions focusing on the following ABE core research areas: 1) Environmental and Natural Resources, 2) Biological / Food Process Engineering, 3) Machine Systems / Fluid Power, and 4) Bio-Energy.       

To submit an abstract for the presentation or poster session, please complete the form by February 21.  Available here: http://tinyurl.com/kaehpxm

Registration is not required to attend the symposium.

Thursday, March 6

7:30 AM – 8:00 AM    Breakfast, Burton D. Morgan Center (MRGN)

8:00 AM – 9:00 AM    Research Roundtables (sessions in parallel), MRGN

9:15 AM – 10:15 AM   Research Roundtables (sessions in parallel), MRGN

10:30 AM – 11:30 AM  Industry Panels, MRGN

12:00 PM – 1:30 PM    Plenary Speaker & Lunch, MRGN

Sonny Ramaswamy, Director, NIFA

2:00 PM – 3:00 PM      Break, Transition to ADM Agricultural Innovation Center (ADM)

3:00 PM – 5:00 PM      Poster Session, ADM

5:30 PM – 7:00 PM      Keynote Speaker & Dinner, ADM

                                    Lalit Verma, President, ASABE

For additional information, contact Garett Pignotti (gpignotti@purdue.edu).

Maha Abroad

Dr. Ivantysynova travelled to Philadelphia, PA this month to ExxonMobil as a guest speaker. Her presentation was entitled “Optimized Fluid Films Essential for Displacement Control and Hydraulic Hybrid Systems”.

Maha Coming & Going

Maha was pleased to welcome three new researchers: First, Dr. Xuewen Du from Zhejiang University of Technology in China joined Dr. Ivantysynova's team. Dr. Du is an Associate Professor and Head of the Technical Teacher Education Department in the College of Educational Science and Technology. Second, and also with Dr. Ivantysynova, Dr. Zhongsheng Sun, an Associate Professor from the School of Mechanical Engineering at Nanjing University of Science and Technology in China. Third, Associate Professor Tang Qunguo joined Dr. Vacca's team from the School of Mechanical Science and Technology (HUST) in China. The team wishes the three visiting scholars a successful year of research!

Awards & Degree Milestones

Congratulations to Sujan Dahr for his successful PhD Defense on January 24th  Since joining Maha in 2010, Dr. Dhar was able to tackle challenging research such as CFD simulation of lubricating gap flow in external gear machines as well as the effect of this flow on performance and efficiency. Sujan’s defense was entitled, “A Study of Fluid Structure and Thermal Interactions in the Lubricating Interface between Gears and Lateral Bushes in External Gear Machines”. Congratulations to Sujan; Maha wishes you well in this new stage of life!

Maha in the News

Dr. Ivantysynova and Naseem Daher (PhD Student) continue to receive interest in their efficient steering technology with two new articles. The first, with the January 2014 Tribology & Lubrication Technology Magazine article entitled “New Approach to Steering Off-Road Vehicles” and the second, a feature in ASABE Resource Magazine in the January/February 2014 Issue Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 17-19 entitled “New Hydraulic Technology for Efficient Machine Steering” (http://bt.e-ditionsbyfry.com/publication/?i=190183). Congratulations to both Dr. Ivantysynova and Naseem for generating such excitement for their accomplishments!

Publications

The 2013 Maha Annual Report is now available at the following link which details the exciting and successful past year of research: https://engineering.purdue.edu/Maha/docs/annualreport_2013.pdf