Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for March
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AME - Department Seminar
Wed, Mar 06, 2013 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jie Yao, Postdoctoral Researcher in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Stanford University
Talk Title: Manipulating Light with Novel Optical Materials and Structures
Abstract: Manipulation of light is of great importance for both research and industrial applications. It is realized through the interaction between light and matter. Therefore investigation of the interaction mechanism and design of novel optical materials and structures have become a vital part of scientific and engineering research. Here I will demonstrate my discoveries of the first visible light negative refraction, 3-dimensional deep-subwavelength optical cavity and extraordinary optical transmission based on different categories of novel optical materials, including metamaterials, naturally formed 2D structures. On the other hand, conventional materials with innovative structural designs can also provide new opportunities. I will discuss my work on silicon nanostructures that greatly improved the light trapping capability for energy harvesting purposes. Novel designs of optical materials and structures are enhancing our understanding of lightâ⬓matter interaction mechanism and leading to new applications of light manipulation.
Biography: Jie Yao is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Stanford University. He holds a PhD in Applied Science and Technology from UC Berkeley. His research interests include metamaterials design and applications, light management for energy conversion, optomechanics and optical nano-cavities. He has demonstrated for the first time the negative refraction of visible light in bulk metamaterials, which promotes the research of metamaterials and potential applications such as invisible cloaks. He also designed and demonstrated the world's smallest three-dimensional indefinite optical cavities. His work was among the top 10 scientific discoveries of the year 2008 selected by TIME magazine.
Host: Professor Spedding
More Info: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/3-6-13-Yao.shtml
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - Room 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
Event Link: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/3-6-13-Yao.shtml
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AME - Department Seminar
Mon, Mar 11, 2013 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Yongjie Hu, Battelle/MIT Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Talk Title: NanoEngineering for High Performance Devices and High Efficient Energy Systems
Abstract: In our everyday devices, about 60% of the primary energy is lost when converted from one form to another during operation. Nanotechnology holds the promise of dramatically improving device performance and energy efficiency. In this talk, I will discuss our efforts in engineering fundamental energy carriers at the nanoscale, in particular, for solid-state energy conversion, high-performance electronics and coherent quantum computation. First, I will present our recently developed hybrid nanostructures engineered to characterize nanoscale thermal transport. I will discuss how we can independently control the heat flow in a rationally designed path and selectively detect the local temperature. Coupling the system with ultrafast optical spectroscopy and modeling, we determined the mean free path dependent thermal conductivity in different materials. Our approach can serve as generic metrology for high throughput screening of energy materials and as a guidance tool for next-generation energy device design through phonon engineering. Second, I will present a novel material system achieved through bottom-up chemical synthesis and band structure engineering design. I will discuss our work in building high-performance electronics and integrated circuits, where the developed transistors outperformed the state-of-the-art MOSFETs and can also be applied for nano-bio interfaces. I will then talk about our development of a highly sensitive charge sensor integrated with coupled quantum dots, and show that we demonstrated full control and detection over charge dynamics, inter-coupling and lifetimes with GHz pulse manipulations. Finally, I will show that we developed the first long coherent Quantum Bit in Group-IV materials, which encodes information in the smallest energy quanta â⬓ spin, for next generation of efficient computation. We believe our efforts in developing new functional nanomaterials and structures will lead to advanced energy-conversion and device-operation paradigm in the future.
Biography: Yongjie Hu is currently the Battelle/MIT Postdoc Fellow in the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Professors Gang Chen and Mildred Dresselhaus, focusing on material optimization and device design for thermal transport and solar energy conversion. He obtained his M.A. (2006) and Ph.D. (2010) from Harvard University with a research focus in the areas of nanotechnology, including nanomaterials synthesis, structure characterization, high-performance devices and transport physics under the supervision of Professor Charles M. Lieber. Dr. Hu is a recipient of Micro & Nano: Heat Transfer Division Award from ASME (2012), Battelle/MIT Fellowship from MIT (2012), Chinaââ¬â¢s National Award for Outstanding Students Studying Abroad (2011) and Fieser Fellowship from Harvard University (2004, 2005).
Host: Professor Spedding
Location: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) - Room 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kristi Villegas
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AME - Department Seminar
Wed, Mar 13, 2013 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Néstor O. Pérez-Arancibia, Post-doctoral Fellow at Harvard University
Talk Title: Design, Fabrication, and Control of Flapping-Wing Flying Artificial Insects
Abstract: In this talk, I will discuss the theoretical and experimental challenges that arise in the design, fabrication, and control of biologically inspired at-scale flapping-wing flying robotic insects. In the course of the research presented in this talk, analytical and experimental tools were developed for extracting the relevant dynamics of flapping-wing mechanisms from a systems-and-control perspective. Then, the estimated dynamics were used for developing new robotic designs and fabrication methods in order to obtain better flying prototypes, and for devising flight control strategies in one degree of freedom(altitude). Finally, the proposed approach was extended to other degrees of freedom and to the multiple-inputâ⬓multiple-output case with the purpose of creating the flying prototypes and control strategies that allowed us to achieve the first unconstrained controlled flight of a flapping-wing artificial insect of this size (< 100 mg).
Biography: Néstor O. Pérez-Arancibia is a postdoctoral fellow with the Microrobotics Laboratory and with the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. His current research focuses on the design and development of control systems for biologically inspired at-scale flying robotic insects. Since April of 2010, he has been part of the team working on the design, fabrication, and control of flapping-wing microrobots, toward the goal of creating a completely autonomous sub-gram flapping-wing flying robot by 2014, as part of the NSF Expeditions in Computing RoboBees project. Dr. Pérez-Arancibia received his Ph.D. from the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2007. From October 2007 to March 2010 he was a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Laser Beam Control Laboratory and also with the Mechatronics and Controls Laboratory at UCLA.
Host: Professor Spedding
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - Room 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kristi Villegas
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AME - Department Seminar
Mon, Mar 25, 2013 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Wenting Sun, Princeton University
Talk Title: Non-Equilibrium Plasma-Assisted Combustion for Advanced Energy Conversion and Propulsion
Abstract: About 85% of the energy in the world is produced by the combustion of fossil fuels. However, the growing concerns about emissions, and the development of advanced energy conversion and propulsion systems have pushed traditional combustion technology to challenging limits. To continue to develop these technologies, it is critical to develop new approaches to improve the performance of combustion. This presentation will discuss controlling combustion kinetics using non-equilibrium plasmas - plasma-assisted combustion. Plasma introduces new chemical pathways into the combustion process. This plasma chemistry occurs on very different time scales compared to conventional combustion chemistry and also introduces a large number of new species and reactions which have not been previously considered in combustion research.
The kinetic enhancement mechanisms of non-equilibrium plasmas on combustion are investigated through plasma-flame interactions in counterflow systems. It is found that the radical production from the plasma can dramatically modify the reaction pathways of combustion to create a new flame region at low temperatures. Advanced laser diagnostic techniques are used to quantify radical (atomic O and OH) productions from plasmas. Both experimental and simulation results show that atomic O is critical in controlling fuel oxidation at low temperature conditions.
Biography: Wenting Sun is currently a postdoctoral researcher of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. He received his B.E/M.E degrees from Tsinghua University, department of Engineering Physics in 2005 and 2007, respectively, and Ph.D degree from Princeton University, department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in 2013. His current research focuses on plasma-assisted combustion, laser diagnostics, and combustion kinetics for advanced energy conversion and propulsion systems. He also works on numerical modeling of reacting flows, chemical kinetic mechanism reduction, and high pressure plasma technology. He has been awarded the Bernard Lewis Fellowship from the Combustion Institute, the Britt and Eli Harari Fellowship and the Guggenheim Fellowship from Princeton University, and Distinguished Paper Award at the 33rd International Symposium on Combustion.
Host: Professor Spedding
More Info: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/3-25-13-sun.shtml
Location: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) - Room 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kristi Villegas
Event Link: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/3-25-13-sun.shtml
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AME - Department Seminar
Wed, Mar 27, 2013 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Part I: Jeannette Yen; Part II: Marc Weissburg, Jeannette Yen: Director in the Center for Biologically Inspired Design at the Georgia Institute of Technology; Marc Weissburg: Professor of Biology and Co-Director of CBID in Center for Biologically Inspired Design at the Georgia Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Part I: Aquatic Propulsion and Wake Signatures at Re = [1,1000]; Part II: What Do Crabs Know, and What Can They Teach Us?
Abstract: Part I: Plankton are aquatic organisms that form the base of the aquatic food web and therefore, aquatic ecosystem balance depends on their survival. Plankton operate at intermediate Reynolds numbers, generating watery signals that can be attenuated by viscosity and confused with small-scale turbulence. Yet messages are created, transmitted, perceived and recognized. These messages guide essential survival tasks of aquatic organisms. At the small-scale where biologically-generated behavior differs from physically-derived flow, we find plankton self-propel themselves, are aware of each other, and evolve in response to the fluid environment in surprising ways.
Part II: We currently lack strategies by which we can implement autonomous chemically-guided navigation in remotely operated or fully independent vehicles. Although this ability would be useful for a variety of purposes, a primary stumbling block is we don't have robust, computationally efficient and adaptive algorithms for encoding information in turbulent chemical plumes. Animals, of course, do this extremely well. I will describe how we have used 3D laser fluorescence measurements around freely navigating animals to analyze the information content of turbulent chemical plumes and understand strategies to encode this information. I will discuss current efforts to develop adaptive and robust algorithms using biological principles and present some tests of our ideas on both hardware and simulations.
Biography: Jeannette Yen is the Director of the Georgia Institute of Technology's Center for Biologically Inspired Design (CBID). The goals of CBID are to bring together a group of interdisciplinary faculty who seek to facilitate interdisciplinary research and education for innovative products and techniques based on biologically-inspired design solutions. The participants of Georgia Tech's CBID believe that science and technology are increasingly hitting the limits of approaches based on traditional disciplines, and Biology may serve as an untapped resource for design methodology, with concept-testing having occurred over millions of years of evolution. Experiencing the benefits of Nature as a source of innovative and inspiring principles encourages us to preserve and protect the natural world rather than simply to harvest its products. Jeannette team-teaches the interdisciplinary course in biologically inspired design.
Marc Weissburg is Professor of Biology and Co-Director of the Center for Biologically Inspired Design. He is an ecologist/sensory biologist who examines the mechanisms and consequences of information transfer via aquatic chemical signals. He uses multidisciplinary approaches and field ecological investigations to study the structure of aquatic plumes and the dynamics of fluids in the marine environment and to behaviorally analyse the sensory strategies of aquatic organisms and their capability to rely on turbulent chemical plumes for guidance and navigation. He has used biological principles to devise artificial sensory processing strategies for autonomous navigation in chemical plumes. He has applied principles of ecological organization to human infrastructure in his search for more sustainable practices. He has co-taught Biologically Inspired Design for seven years to a variety of audiences ranging from undergraduates to professional engineers and scientists.
Host: Professor Spedding
More Info: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/3-27-13-yen-weissburg.shtml
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - Room 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kristi Villegas
Event Link: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/3-27-13-yen-weissburg.shtml