Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for March
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Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Candidate Series
Wed, Mar 09, 2016 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Janna Nawroth, Postdoctoral Technology Development Fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Talk Title: Multiscale Fluid Sensing and Transport in Biological and Engineered Systems
Abstract: Deformable substrates mediate fluid transport and sensing in many biological systems (e.g., marine animals, inner organs), as well as in some engineered systems (soft microfluidics, soft robots). The latter, however, employ only a fraction of the multitude of mechanisms found in nature. Partly, this reflects the difficulty of isolating straightforward structure-function relationships in multiscale biological tissues that could be translated to engineered materials. The same difficulty has impeded the development of in vitro assays and diagnostics tools for (fluid-) mechanically mediated diseases, such as polycystic kidney syndrome, hearing loss, osteoporosis, and cardiomyopathy. I approach this challenge by studying native and engineered tissues specialized for a particular transport function, which enables me to isolate, quantify, and reverse-engineer selected structure-function relationships. For this, I combine the powers of flow visualization, microfluidic platforms, tissue engineering, and computational studies. Here, I will present major results and goals of my research including (1), quantifying the structure-function relationships of muscle and cilia in health and disease, with applications in biophysical studies, diagnostics, and drug discovery ("organs-on-chips"); (2), designing and building cell-based microfluidic analyzers and processors; and (3), developing biologically-inspired multiscale surfaces for controlling dynamic fluid-structure interactions, such as biofilm formation.
Biography: Janna C. Nawroth is a postdoctoral Technology Development Fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. She attended Heidelberg University, Germany, where she received her B.S. (2004) and M.S. (2007) in Biotechnology. For her master thesis, Nawroth joined Yale University as a research associate in computational biology with Professor Gordon Shepherd. After Yale, Nawroth attended the California Institute of Technology as a Moore Fellow and obtained her Ph.D. (2012) in Biology. Nawroth's Ph.D. research, with Professor John Dabiri, received Caltech's award for the Best Thesis in Nanotechnology and involved the study and design of muscle-powered pumps to manage microfluidic propulsion and particle transport. After her Ph.D., Nawroth spent a year as a Caltech Postdoctoral Fellow in Aeronautics collaborating with Professors John Dabiri, Eva Kanso (USC), Scott Fraser (USC), and Margaret-McFall-Ngai (U Hawaii) to study transport phenomena in ciliated surfaces. At the Wyss, she develops microfluidic devices and signal processing algorithms for exploring the mechanics and flow physics of dynamic tissues for applications in biomedical engineering, disease modeling, and biophysical research.
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 115
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Valerie Childress
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
2016 John Laufer Lecture
Wed, Mar 23, 2016 @ 01:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mory Gharib, Hans W. Liepmann Professor of Aeronautics and Professor of Bioinspired Engineering, Division of Engineering and Applied Science at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA
Talk Title: On the Generation of Toroidal Micro-Plasmas in the Flow Field of Impinging Water-Jets
Abstract: There is a renewed interest in atmospheric pressure plasma (APP), also known as atmospheric pressure corona, for its broad scientific and industrial applications. As a weakly ionized non-equilibrium plasma, APP has no defined shape or volume and, in general, is unstable and non-uniform. Therefore, it is desirable to have a source of stable and uniform APP with defined morphologies for scientific investigations that could take advantage of the highly collisional state of the plasma medium. Here, we report an approach to produce atmospheric pressure micro-plasmas in which the plasma cloud presents a stable, and topologically-connected and self-confined toroidal shape. We show that this unique toroidal APP morphology can be uniquely generated when a high-speed laminar micro-jet of de-ionized water impinges on a di-electric solid surface. This toroidal micro-plasma shows a unique and previously unreported plasma resonance mode characterized by a strong and discrete radio frequency emission.
Biography: Professor Mory Gharib is the Hans W. Liepmann Professor of Aeronautics and Professor of Bioinspired Engineering, and is also Vice Provost for Research at Caltech, where in 2014 he was made Director of the Linde Institute for Economics and Management Sciences. He has been a professor at the Graduate Aeronautical Labs at Caltech since 1993, and before that was Professor of Fluid Mechanics in the Department of Applied Mechanics and Engineering Sciences at the University of California, San Diego.
Professor Gharib is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the National Academy of Engineering. He is a Charter Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and a Fellow of: the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Physical Society (APS), the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and the Institute of Physics (IP). He has more than 200 publications in refereed journals and 83 US patents.
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Location: Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) - Ballroom A
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Valerie Childress
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar Series
Wed, Mar 30, 2016 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ran Gabai, Dynamics and Mechatronics Laboratory, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technion IIT, Haifa, Israel
Talk Title: Acoustic Levitation and Propulsion Based on Traveling Waves Control
Series: Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Seminar Series
Abstract: Acoustic levitation is generated by inducing ultrasonic vibrations to a surface above which a levitated object is held by elevated pressure. A thin film of gas separating the vibrating surface and the levitated body exhibits both rapid fluctuations and a rise in the average pressure. An application being researched currently involves the handling of silicon wafers in clean rooms with no mechanical contact thus eliminating a significant contamination sources. The elevated pressure is capable of levitating objects weighting several kg by a vibrating surface 100mm in diameter. By creating a traveling pressure wave, it is possible to add propelling forces to the levitating component thus creating a contactless transportation system. By sensing the position of the levitated object one can control, in a closed loop feedback scheme, the levitation height and the planar position and orientation.
The dynamics of the mechanical structure has to be carefully tailored to enhance the electromechanical efficiency leading to sufficient amplitudes of the ultrasonic vibrations to provide appropriate levels of acoustic levitation and traveling waves. Ultrasonic structural traveling waves are generated by exciting two modes of vibrations that are tuned, in real time, to generate the required traveling wave direction and amplitude. Small structural uncertainties spoil the symmetry of the structure and detune the conditions for traveling waves. Therefore, an optimization process is introduced to experimentally map the exact traveling wave excitation conditions.
This work presents the analytical background, numerical simulations, and several experimental set-ups validating the applicability of acoustic levitation and propulsion.
Biography: Ran Gabai is a post-doctoral researcher at the Dynamics and Mechatronics Laboratory at the Technion working with Prof. Izhak Bucher. He earned his PhD (2008) at the Faculty of Mechanical engineering at the Technion as well as his M.S. (2003) and B.S. (2000). His research focuses on dynamic and vibrations, mechatronics, signal processing, control, and embedding digital brains in dynamical systems. Dr. Gabai is the co-founder and CTO of a start-up company developing a Coriolis-based mass flow meter.
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Valerie Childress
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.
