IMPACTP u r d u e e n g i n e e r i n g | f a l l / w i n t e r 2 0 1 1

THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR POWER?

___ __PLANNING FOR FAILURE: INNOVATIONS IN SAFETY

___ __100TH ANNIVERSARY OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

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Dean’s Message

The 2011-12 academic year is in full swing at Purdue, and the College of Engineering is busier than it ever has been. The stories in this edition of Impact remind us that so much of what keeps us busy makes a profound impact outside Purdue, around the world, and even beyond our own planet.

In March, when a massive earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, Purdue engineers provided analysis and understanding amid catastrophe and chaos. As you’ll read in the cover story, their expertise and ongoing work also will inform future natural-disaster safety strategies.

Safety is a constant concern for Purdue civil engineers whose work creating sound, long-lasting buildings and roads is relied on around the world. This edition of Impact gives you a glimpse into the large-scale research they are doing in Purdue’s state-of- the-art Bowen Lab.

Now that we have bid good-bye to NASA’s space shuttle program, you can read about how Purdue engineers are helping to guide the move away from NASA’s Constellation program by shaping future deep-space research.

I hope that you enjoy reading this edition of Impact. I am always delighted to have the opportunity to share with you a small sample of the exciting, vital work we are doing, and give you a periodic reminder of just a few of the ways that your Purdue College of Engineering continues to make a great impact throughout our world.

engineering For saFetyWhat research is being done at Purdue to address safety?

100th anniVersary oF CHeMiCaL engineering @ PUrDUe

tHe FUtUre oF sPaCeFLigHt aFter tHe sHUttLePurdue professors’ research is paving the way for deep-space exploration.

_____Leah h. Jamieson

The John a. edwardson Dean of engineering

Ransburg Distinguished Professor of electrical and

Computer engineering

06WHAT’S THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR POWER?In light of the Japan nuclear disaster, what is the future for existing nuclear plants and building new facilities? What lessons can be learned?

Writer: William Meiners

_____always@Purdue Engineering. Create and sustain the human, intellectual, and information infrastructures that connect people and Purdue for life.

_____ourPeopleourCulture. Engage our people to trans-form our culture, because empowered people radiate passion that energizes them to change the world.

_____innovate@PurdueEngineering. Build an innovation ecosystem and nurture a culture of creativity that takes us far beyond where we are today.

_____ChangetheWorld@Purdue Engineering. Reshape our research universe and bring solutions to the globe.

The Four Stories depicted within Purdue Engineering’s strategic plan, Extraordinary People, Global Impact, are the framework for what is happening within the College and serve as the guiding vision for Engineering Impact magazine. Icons will be used in this and future editions to make the connection to our Four Stories.

FeatUresFroM tHe Dean

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_____The story about student David Reese and his passion for propulsion is really cool stuff. Great to hear Purdue is leading the field. It makes me want to go back to Purdue and do another Ph.D.

SAM FINEBERG

_____Bravo (on the Purdue/Colombia partnership)! As a Purdue alumna and as a Colombian, I could not be more excited about the possibilities.

GLORIA VELEZ

_____What a joy (to hear of the Purdue/Colombia partnership)! I hope to see more collaborations of this kind between Purdue and other Latin American countries.

MARGARITA VLADIMIROVNA

_____The story about the Purdue/Colombia partnership is fantastic! This is what Purdue’s global mission is all about — developing students and relationships with international partners that benefit mankind and enhance the university’s pedigree and its educational outreach.

Bravissimo!

AL GRAThWOL

aDMinistrationLeah Jamieson, DeanKlod Kokini, Associate Dean, Academic Affairsaudeen Fentiman, Associate Dean, Graduate Education and Interdisciplinary ProgramsMelba Crawford, Associate Dean, ResearchVincent Bralts, Associate Dean, Resource Planning and ManagementMichael Harris, Associate Dean, Undergraduate Educationteri reed-rhoads, Associate Dean, Undergraduate EducationWilliam sondgerath, Administrative Directoramy noah, Interim Associate Vice President for AdvancementChristopher Martin, Director, Financial AffairsWilliam anderson, Director, Global Engineering ProgramCarolyn Percifield, Director, Strategic Planning and AssessmentDavid Carmichael, Director, Information Technologysuzanne shaw, Assistant Vice President Strategic Marketing and Research

ProDUCtion & MeDiaJulie rosa, Director of Strategic CommunicationsDella Pacheco, EditorMike esposito, Graphic DesignerCopy editor, Dan HowellContributing Writers Mackenzie Greenwell, William Meiners, Linda Thomas Terhune, Jennifer WhitsonPhotographers Andrew Hancock, Mark Simons

sCHooLs, DePartMents anD DiVisionstom shih, Aeronautics and AstronauticsBernard engel, Agricultural and Biological Engineeringgeorge Wodicka, Biomedical Engineeringarvind Varma, Chemical EngineeringM. Katherine Banks, Civil EngineeringMakarand Hastak, Construction Engineering and ManagementVenkataramanan Balakrishnan, Electrical and Computer EngineeringDavid radcliffe, Engineering EducationDale Harris, Engineering Professional EducationJohn sutherland, Environmental and Ecological Engineeringabhijit Deshmukh, Industrial Engineeringelliot slamovich (interim), Materials Engineeringanil Bajaj, Mechanical Engineeringahmed Hassanein, Nuclear Engineering

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___ __Purdue engineers weigh in on lessons learned and what’s next for the industry following the power plant failures in Japan.

by William meiners

Nuclear Fallout

No news is almost always good news in the world of nuclear power. When word quickly spread in March of the radioactive leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi plant following the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the reports both shook the industry and were often in need of expert clarification. Several Purdue engineers continue to help bring about that clarity on one of the world’s most misunderstood industries.

With more than 10,000 reported dead in Japan (most from drowning) and entire villages wiped out, the nuclear power plants stood up exceptionally well, says Ahmed hassanein, the Paul L. Wattelet Professor and head of Nuclear Engineering (see Q&A on page 11). he says there are lessons to be learned from the failed safety systems at the plants in Japan but insists there are no realistic alternatives to replacing nuclear power in the United States, which currently provides 20 percent of the nation’s electricity.

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Nuclear eNergy iN the u.S.

Nuclear eNergy produces

72% OF All emissioN-free electricity

And 19.6% of overall electricity iN the u.s.

ThE U.S. generates more nuclear energy thaN aNy other NatioN

104 Nuclear power plaNts pROvidE 20% OF ALL U.S. ElEcTRiciTy

Though the Japanese power plants survived a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, the tsunami is what really went wrong for Fukushima reactors. The general chaos of such a disaster led to infrastructure problems and the plants suffered what is known as loss of off-site power, or LOOP, and then a station blackout, or SBO.

“In a severe accident scenario, you have to have the power to move and cool water,” Jenkins says.

Backup diesel generators came into play after the LOOP, but the tsunami tidal wave was 13 feet taller than the protective tsunami walls in place to protect them, Jenkins says. “When you throw cold water on a diesel block, then that diesel block is done.”

Many confounding things converged in Japan’s nuclear crisis, Jenkins says. had it been just the loss of power, backup gen-erators could have been brought in. had the generators been encased in shelters or tucked behind taller tsunami walls, the plants would have performed to safety code. “But you have to hand it to the plant operators because they did an amazing job,” he says of the emergency response.

Still, officials will be spending more time examining what went wrong in Japan.

what went wrongJere Jenkins, director of Purdue’s radiation lab, found himself in the media spotlight talking about the “Fukushima 50” — actu-ally a group of 200 people working in shifts of 50 — trying to maintain water levels in the damaged reactor cores. Jenkins told Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s “hardball” that the workers were not in as much danger as had been previously reported.

As workers in what is perhaps the most regulated industry in the world, even the Fukushima 50 would have been closely monitored for their daily allotment of radiation doses, Jenkins says. “Radiation has this mystique that any amount of exposure will harm or kill you, but if you spread the doses out and keep them as low as reasonably achievable there’s no concentrated danger.”

Safety remains the utmost priority of an energy business whose history began with the atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and hiroshima, Jenkins says. “Every time there’s an accident it’s good for us to take a step back and see if we’re doing every-thing to be as safe as possible.”

“RAdiATiOn HAS THiS mySTiqUE THAT Any AmOUnT OF ExpOSURE Will HARm OR kill yOU ..."Jere Jenkins

Audeen Fentiman, professor of nuclear en-gineering and associate dean of graduate education and interdisciplinary programs, believes the nuclear power plants in the United States might have held up better. Even so, she says, very few places in the world are likely to have the same earth-quake and tsunami events that occurred in Japan. “After the events of 9/11, compre-hensive studies were done for all nuclear power plants in the U.S., and additional protective measures were put in place to deal with extremely severe scenarios,” she says. “All of our plants looked at scenarios with loss of off-site power.”

at what Price ProgressIt has long been said that Mother Nature always has the biggest hammer. Mete Sozen references the phrase: We live at the pleasure of geology. And Sozen, the Kettelhut Distinguished Professor of Structural Engineering, has seen the devastating effects of geology throughout his career. he is one of the foremost earth-quake specialists in world, having been named one of the top seismic engineers of the 20th century.

But how do you plan for the catastrophic? And at what point should worry supersede progress? “Planning is not my strong suit, but I see no reason to stop progress for that reason,” Sozen says. “The wise thing to do is consider multiple options in de-fense. For example, as in Fukushima, it is too much of a risk to rely on a single source of power, however well it is defended.”

Sozen says he witnessed the absolute worst damage from a 1999 quake in his homeland of Turkey, but a 1972 disaster in

Managua, Nicaragua, left a more chilling impression on him. With perhaps the worst of the worst in mind, Sozen proposed building an alternative city for Istanbul, whose domed architecture resides along the North Anatolian fault line. The satellite city, some 20 kilometers outside Istanbul, would transfer the city’s core components — economic, social and educational — to a safe haven.

Makarand hastak, head of the Division of Construction Engineering and Management (CEM), attended a United Nations’ conference on disaster reduc-tion over the summer. A number of

representatives from national government organizations and mayors from all over the world convened in Geneva to share ideas about how to make cities more resilient. hastak’s own research focuses on the impact of disasters — both manmade and natural — on infrastructure. The more he and his research teams can measure the effects of disaster, the better city plan-ners can prepare for what once seemed like the unpredictable.

While much of hastak’s work centers on the damage brought on by floods, he is turning his attention to disaster scenarios involving nuclear power plants. “With talk

Jere Jenkins, director of Purdue’s radia-tion laboratory, records radiation levels from a downtown Lafayette building.

Photo by Andrew hancock

Professor Mete Sozen examines destruction from an earthquake in his native Turkey.

source for data: nuclear energy institute

of a resurgence of nuclear power in the United States, we’re evaluating the educa-tion and training needs for engineering students in constructing safe and efficient nuclear plants that will look into various aspects of construction engineering and management including plant location, safety, vulnerabilities, and more,” he says.

Purdue Post-fukushimahassanein says political pressure has long driven the nuclear power industry. he thinks the experience in Japan might be a blip on the screen, but doesn’t foresee any countries outside of Japan

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Q&A WITh

AHmEd HASSAnEinin what ways do you think the nuclear crisis in Japan will affect the future of nuclear power in this country?

I want to stress that what happened in Japan was not a nuclear accident; it was a natural disaster. Unfortunately, several media agencies tried to broadcast it as a nuclear accident, which scares people and politicians. But we really can’t kid ourselves. There is no serious alternative to nuclear power in the United States. Illinois, our neighboring state, has more than half of its electricity coming from nuclear power.

so what will the nuclear industry do in response to what happened in Japan?

Within days of the earthquake in Japan and subsequent loss of off-site power to run the cooling pumps at the Fukushima nuclear power plants, the nuclear industry in the United States conducted an analysis of each U.S. nuclear plant to be sure it was prepared to deal with loss of off-site power due to any extreme event. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is also conducting an extensive safety review of U.S. reactors. Modifications made to U.S. nuclear power plants and operating practices after 9/11 were designed to ensure that the plants can handle extreme events. We are going to learn from the Japan accident and that will help us make reactors even safer. The reactors in the United States have proven to be safe for more than 50 years.

What are some of those lessons to be learned?

Lessons can be learned in regard to the use long-term storage of used nuclear fuel and backup power systems. All this can be used to improve the performance of reactors in case of a disaster.

are you concerned about the coverage of the accident affecting your school’s ability to bring in new students?

Maybe in the short term. And some people will try to put a halt to the progress we’re making. Because of their general open-mindedness, the younger generation realizes the challeng-es of an energy crisis and eliminating carbon emissions, so they come to understand that nuclear power is a must. I’ve had some younger students ask me about continuing. Even before building any new reactors in this country, we still have 104 nuclear power plants. We need people to continue research and make them even safer.

several people from the school of nuclear engineering were called upon by national media outlets to give some insight into what exactly was happening. What does that say about your department?

Purdue is highly regarded in this area. I received calls from as far away as England. Some of the media understood what was going on, but maybe the rest don’t like good news. There’s this unseen ghost of radiation and that fear was simply fueled by careless reports.

■ William meiners

THE PAUL L. WATTELET PROFESSOR AND HEAD OF

NUCLEAR ENGINEERING

Makarand hastak

Audeen Fentiman

Photos by Andrew hancock

Q&AQ&a // aHMeD Hassanein

A cHinESE nUclEAR SAFETy OFFiciAl WAS qUOTEd SAying, “WE’RE nOT gOing TO STOp EATing FOR FEAR OF cHOking.”

reLatiVe Doses FroM raDiation soUrCes

(Millirem Doses)

is working with faculty in the School of Nuclear Engineering to offer CEM students a minor in nuclear engineering. Nuclear engineering students, in turn, could earn a minor in CEM. he reports that his construction industry contacts are already asking when they can hire these students with the dual expertise.

Fentiman knows the power of the nuclear engineering degree. “Nuclear engineering is an unusual discipline,” she says. “In most disciplines, you study the discipline and then go off and apply it to different things. In nuclear engineering, you study a particular technology and you bring to bear mechanical, chemical, materials, and other engineering disciplines. You’re look-ing at a system that involves many types of engineering. So a nuclear engineering student typically doesn’t have a hard time finding a job even if there isn’t one in a nuclear business. At one time, we had a lot of nuclear engineering students going into work that required computer skills because they could do computer systems.”

As for the future of nuclear power, hassanein believes the ever-vigilant industry will continue to enhance safety procedures, plan as best they can for disasters and deliver energy without the carbon emissions.

and Germany slowing down on their plans for building new nuclear plants. Germany has announced its intent to close all of its nuclear power plants by 2022, but China, in particular, is rebuilding the industry. Indeed, in the wake of the Japanese disas-ter, Tian Jiashu, a Chinese nuclear safety official, was quoted saying, “We’re not going to stop eating for fear of choking.”

One of the challenges, in addition to weathering the current storm, is attract-ing and training the next generation of workers for the nuclear industry. hastak

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Fentiman says of the background radiation that the average American is exposed to in any given year, a large percentage comes from self-elected medical proce-dures — the very X-rays, CAT scans and mammograms for which we pay insurance premiums to improve our health. Frequent fliers are exposed to more radiation than people who don’t take to the skies. You’ll get a bigger dosage living in mile-high Denver. You chomp down on it with the potassium in bananas. And all of us are taking in bits of it from outer space in the form of cosmic radiation.

Of the radiation intake (see pie chart), less than one-tenth of one percent comes from all the nuclear operations in the world. “That’s an inconsequential amount,” Fentiman says.

The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement says the average annual radiation dose per person in the United States is 620 millirem (6.2 millisieverts). Fentiman says workers at a nuclear power plant are allowed up to 5,000 millirem per year. A lethal dose, however, is more like 500,000 millrem in a very short time period.

Can radiation exposure over time cause cancer? “Yes,” Fentiman says, “as do so many other carcinogens in the environment.”

As a spokesperson for the technology, Fentiman says the successes of nuclear power far outweigh the accidents. “It’s a heavily regulated business and people in this industry do self-regulation over and above what the government does. The Institute for Nuclear Power Operations circulates information and shares best practices. It’s important for their livelihood. So safety is the number one priority.”

Ultimately, the challenge for the nuclear power industry may reside in educa-tion — both training the next generation of nuclear engineers and educating the public about the various facts and fictions of nuclear energy. Jere Jenkins, director

GETTING A GRIP

On RAdiATiOn___ __Like it or not, most nuclear engineers find themselves becoming spokespersons for the industry. audeen Fentiman, professor of nuclear engineering and associate dean of graduate education and interdisciplinary programs, prefers to speak up on behalf of the technology. and she wants to set the record straight on radiation.

“Probably the biggest misconception about nuclear power is radiation,” Fentiman says. “People do not realize that we are bombarded by radiation all day, every day.”

of Purdue’s radiation laboratory, the lone reactor in the state of Indiana, sees 1,600 to 1,800 visitors each year touring his lab.

“We are teaching people that radiation is something you have to respect,” Jenkins says. “It’s something that can help or hurt us, but you have to make sure that you know how to handle it.”

For more than half a century, history has shown that radiation has been handled pretty well. The accident at Three Mile Island in 1979, which didn’t take any lives, led to better operational procedures, Jenkins says. “It changed the way we do business.”

The Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986, both deadly and significant, was more indica-tive of a difference in the way business was done in the Soviet Union than any crack in world-wide industry standards. “We don’t have any plants in the U.S. like the one in Chernobyl because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission won’t license that design,” Jenkins says.

The political fallout from the March catastrophe in Japan may take some time to get sorted out, but Jenkins and his colleagues agree that the nuclear plants

weathered the various storms rather well, given the disaster levels of the earthquake and tsunami.

Fentiman believes there are no nuclear plants in the United States positioned for the type of natural disaster that occurred in Japan. Because of the measures taken after 9/11, all have prepared for extremely severe scenarios. “I just wish everyone who had questions about nuclear energy could tour these power plants and see how they operate,” Fentiman says. “Just imagine if everything else in our life was run as efficiently and at that level of excellence.”

Admittedly biased by a technology she finds so compelling, Fentiman marvels at the potential of nuclear energy. “There are no emissions from nuclear plants,” she says. “The volume of the used fuel from a nuclear power plant is small and about 95 percent of it can be recycled.”

And with so many challenges surround-ing a worldwide clamor for more energy, Fentiman is happy to continue spreading the word about the plus side of nuclear technology.

■ William meiners

nuclear ........................72.3%

Wind ..............................4.7%

Hydro ............................21.7%

solar .............................0.1%

geotHermal ...............1.3%

source: energy information administration

electricity sources that do not emit greenhouse gases during oPeration

interVieW // aUDeen FentiMan

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Drive to work, to school or on daily errands and you likely take for granted some bridges and roads built in the 1950s. But if any break down, that disturbs our routines, our safety and our economy.Purdue engineering faculty have a long history of researching infrastructure in the U.s. and around the world. Their work on assessing structural safety and developing innovative solutions makes them sought-after experts by local, state and federal government agencies as well as industry.

metal fatigue and fracture researchRobert J. Connor, associate professor of civil engineering, has studied metal fatigue and metal fracture specifically as they relate to bridges, highway sign structures and high-mast lighting towers.

Connor conducts much of his research at Purdue’s Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research. At 66,000 square feet, it is one of only five university laboratories in the country to conduct large-scale investigations. Experts there are shaking, breaking, and even burning full-sized models to gain a greater understanding of how structures behave in crisis moments.

Much of Connor’s current research is looking at the effects of wind on high-mast lighting towers — the structures lining interstate highways and high-speed road-ways throughout the country. This summer Connor and two graduate students concluded a two-year study of selected towers in multiple states. Strain gauges and anemometers were installed earlier to measure wind speed and direction in order to find daily stresses on the towers. Also

ENGINEERING

FOR SAFETyby della PacHeco | PHotos by andreW Hancock

at each site was a cellular modem that worked on Verizon’s 3G network sending back real-time data to a server at Purdue.

Ryan Sherman, a research engineer at Bowen Lab, and graduate student Allen De Schepper drove the mobile lab over 3,000 miles retrieving the equipment. This vehicle is an extension of the laboratory and is outfitted with computers connected to Purdue servers and equipment neces-sary to conduct assessments in the field.

In addition to fieldwork, tests were done in the lab on a mast tower to simulate wind conditions over a period of years. By operating the test 24/7, results on fatigue and fracture can be gained more quickly and various methods of retrofitting can be studied.

“We tested a high-mast tower in the lab that was retrofitted with bolts at the bottom,” Connor says. “When you have hundreds of these by interstate highways and they begin to crack, what can you do? You can’t just take them down.”

The results of the studies will be sent to a panel at AAhSTO (American Association of State highway Transportation Officials), a nonprofit, nonpartisan association representing highway and transportation departments in the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

“We write the results in specification language that is proposed to AAShTO and they will decide if they want to accept the changes and add it into the code for future design of these towers,” Sherman says. “You really get to see where the rubber meets the road. You have a problem, find a solution and implement it into future design.”

Robert J. Connor, associate professor of civil engineering, discusses high-mast tower retrofitting procedures with Ryan Sherman, a research engineer at Bowen Lab, and graduate student Lindsey Diggelmann.

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testing effects of fire on steel structuresFor many years Amit Varma, associate professor of civil engineering, has studied the field of fire-resis-tance research. Bowen Lab allows researchers like him to study the effects of fire on steel structures using a one-of-a-kind heating system and other innovative systems.

Typically such testing is conducted inside large furnaces, but Varma says that provides chal-lenges. “It is very difficult to heat a specimen while simultaneously applying loads onto the structure to simulate the forces exerted during a building’s everyday use,” he says.

To overcome this limitation, Purdue researchers designed a system made up of heating panels to simulate fire. The panels have electrical coils, like giant toaster ovens, and are placed close to the surface of the specimens. As the system is used to simulate fire, test structures are subjected to forces with hydraulic equipment.

Varma’s research team is conducting a multiyear study looking at the effect of fire on steel girders used in highway bridges. The focus is on using

heat to straighten, repair and rehabilitate girders damaged by collision with trucks. In the large-scale setting of Bowen Lab, the team can simulate dam-age and apply heat to straighten and make repairs. The results from the analytical investigations will provide design guidelines for heat straightening repairs, estimating the final residual stresses and evaluating the performance of damaged-repaired steel bridges.

Varma and Connor were called in to evaluate just such a situation after a tanker truck struck a bridge on I-465 in Indianapolis and burst into flames. Increasing truck traffic on highways could mean more such incidents.

But not all failures in bridges are related to intense heat. Growing vehicular traffic and increased weight are causing stress on aging bridges. Through field instrumentation, Connor and his students install sensors on bridges to study stresses and recom-mend retrofits that can keep a small problem from becoming a catastrophic one.

To study this in the lab, a full-scale bridge deck was constructed and on it was a two-axle vehicle loaded

down with the weight that a tractor-trailer would carry. Day after day the vehicle was moved back and forth, simulating the load on the bridge.

Inside and underneath, about 200 sensors were installed, strain gauges that show how the concrete stretches and compresses beneath the truck’s weight. A laser tracked the truck’s position. By shifting the truck’s path from one side to the other, the test provided a full look at how the bridge twists and bends under pressure.

“It allowed us to see how the bridge reacts in real life,” Connor says. “We took that data and compared it to computer models. That data allows us to im-prove the safety, reliability and durability of bridges so that we can have better infrastructure that will last us decades.”

But what they do in the laboratory is only part of the picture. Sensors also are installed on differ-ent types of bridges and monitored to “let those structures tell us how are responding over time,” Connor says.

history lessons for engineersThe old adage says, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In the case of infrastructure, many of the people responsible for repairing and maintaining roads and bridges weren’t even born when the structures were built. That’s why it’s important, Connor says, to teach students about older materials while at the same time study-ing new high-performance ones.

“A lot of bridges we work on were built in the 1940s and 50s,” Connor says. “If you don’t know the issues from the past, then you will have a difficult time figuring out what the problems are and making sure that you don’t repeat them in the future. There is a need for students to know what was done in the past, why we aren’t using certain materials or designs anymore, or why we continue to use them.”

Sherman agrees. he cites the Tacoma Narrows bridge in Washington as a good example. Built in 1940 and nicknamed “Galloping Gertie,” it collapsed four months after it opened due to vertical move-ment of the bridge deck. Sherman says, “Knowing the past and doing the research for the future is where it all comes together to improve safety.”

FeatUre // engineering For saFety

Amit Varma, associate professor of civil engineering, is a leading expert in the field of fire resistance research.

Varma and his research team study the effects of fire on steel structures using a one-of-a-kind heating system and other innovative systems.

The team uses coils to simulate fire and then uses heat to straighten, repair and rehabilitate bridge girders.

Scan this QR code to view a video clip of the Discovery Channel’s “Daily Planet” series spotlighting the large-scale research being done at the Bowen Laboratory.

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NEW COURSE

EmpHASizES HUmAn ASpEcT OF SAFETy___ __Three Purdue alums who collectively have worked for nearly a century in the chemical engineering field have teamed up with chemical engineering faculty and staff to create a new undergraduate course focused on process safety manage-ment. Che49700, Process safety, was introduced this past spring and already is receiving praise from students and employers alike.

The course is open to juniors and seniors, many of whom work in internships and co-ops for companies.

Mike harris, associate dean of engineer-ing for undergraduate education, says the focus is on safety. “Doing things in a systematic way to mitigate hazards and prevent incidents is exactly what process safety management is all about.”

Deb Grubbe (BSChE ’77), one of the alumni who helped to develop the course, says the goal is to make sure that the students “understand what they have to know so that they don’t hurt themselves or someone else in the future.” Grubbe has worked in the chemical engineering field for more than 30 years and owns her own process safety consultancy.

Joining Grubbe were Steve Swanson, who earned bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering at Purdue, and Ron Cutshall (BSChE ’71), both process safety experts in the oil and gas industry. The three worked with Linda Davis, industrial education director, and harris to develop the course.

Davis, herself a chemical engineer with 24 years of industry experience, worked on benchmarking the course. She says that while other university chemical engineer-ing schools have curriculum touching on process safety management, Purdue wanted to delve more deeply into the topic and develop a course from the industrial perspective based on OShA’s process safety management regulations.

“Students who complete this course differentiate themselves when they graduate and go into industry,” Davis says. “Students who go into chemical engineering without this training are underequipped and face a steep learning curve.”

harris says students receive real-world knowledge from experts who present top-ics related to process safety management. “One may discuss mechanical integrity and maintenance or how to safely shut down a process,” he says. “Since many incidents occur during startup, the topics of operator training, operating procedures and checklists are also covered. When students learn and later apply this information, they will not overlook steps or take shortcuts that could compromise the safety of people, company assets and the community.”

From a minority position as one of only 10 women in a class of 110 chemical engineering gradu-ates in 1977, Deb Grubbe has gained majority standing in the chemical engineering industry.

having progressed to corporate director roles in engineering, operations and safety at DuPont and vice president of Group Safety for British Petroleum, Grubbe now is president and owner of Operations & Safety Solutions, LLC, a consultancy that offers competitive strategies and methodologies to solve operational issues in the process industries.

With an aptitude for math and science, Grubbe, a Chicago native, considered being a math teacher, but her high school teacher steered her toward engineering. The road to the future became clear when Grubbe saw a female neighbor experience a sharp drop in income following a divorce. “This made a big impression on me, and I wanted to choose a career where I could support myself,” Grubbe says.

Entering Purdue in the fall of 1973, Grubbe spent three semesters studying biomedical engineering. It became apparent to her that to do anything in that field would have required a Ph.D. “I knew I didn’t want that so I transferred to chemical engineering with a biomedical option,” she says.

Grubbe obtained a certificate in post-grad-uate studies in chemical engineering as a Winston Churchill Fellow at the University of Cambridge, England. The international experience, she says, taught her much

more about life and other cultures. It also proved favorable when she interviewed with BP.

“In BP’s eyes, they thought that the fel-lowship was significant because they saw me as part of their educational system.” Grubbe says.

She credits Purdue with giving her the key content components to be competitive.

“I continue to be delighted by the positive recognition that the university has in the engineering community,” Grubbe says. “Purdue’s engineering program is known as a top-tier school. This gives additional cred-ibility for women who have gone through the program.”

As a business owner and consultant, Grubbe works primarily with chemical, oil and gas industries and large consulting firms. She is often called upon to share her expertise in process safety engineering and operations areas.

Grubbe, who lives in Chadds Ford, Pa., spends two to three weeks a month in Alberta, Canada, consulting on oil sand projects. She finds great satisfaction in helping people find solutions to their challenges.

“What I find rewarding is when I can either help someone think differently about a situation they are in or use my experience to make it easier,” Grubbe says. “I have always been oriented toward service. One of the reasons I started my business was to give me time and space to enjoy life a little more and to work on projects of significance that I couldn’t do working for a corporation.”

■ della PacHeco

aLUMni ProFiLe // DeBoraH grUBBe (BsChe '77)

TURNING ObSTACLES

inTO OppORTUniTiES

FeatUre // engineering For saFety

Peter Meckl, professor of mechanical engineering and co-chair of Purdue’s Engineer of 2020 Committee, says more than technical knowledge is needed to ensure safety. The focus of a September workshop for faculty, co-sponsored by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and health, was on safety and how the importance of safety can be integrated into the curriculum. Meckl says that past workshops have focused on multi-disciplinary topics, continuous learning, ethics, global issues, environmental and societal impact of engineering practice, entrepreneurship, risk management, leadership and innovation but safety is at the heart of engineering.

“how does our technology impact people?” he asks. “We need to think about the person who is going to use the product. Engineering science can only take us so far. The rest has to come through other social or human elements that are central to engineering.”

harris says the industrial consultants who helped to develop the class have said that if you don’t have the proper process safety culture, procedures are meaningless. “If you look at a lot of incidents that have oc-curred, there was a human error involved,” he says. “The person may think that something is a minor change but actually it ends up resulting in a major incident.”

The group hopes to share the information learned from the course with other schools. “We encourage other disciplines to share their stories and challenges so that we can incorporate them into the next class in the spring of 2012,” Grubbe says.

■ della PacHeco

“STUdEnTS WHO gO inTO cHEmicAl EnginEERing WiTHOUT THiS TRAining ARE UndEREqUippEd And FAcE A STEEp lEARning cURvE.”linda davis

“pURdUE’S EnginEERing pROgRAm iS knOWn AS A TOp-TiER ScHOOl. THiS givES AddiTiOnAl cREdibiliTy FOR WOmEn WHO HAvE gOnE THROUgH THE pROgRAm.”

The November-December 1975 issue of Perspective discussed the goal of attracting 1,000 women to engineering by 1978.

2120

a S t h e S h u t t l e p r o g r a m e N d S , p u r d u e r e S e a r c h i S p a v i N g

t h e w a y F o r d e e p - S p a c e e x p l o r a t i o N

by linda tHomas terHune and Jennifer WHitson

T h E f U T U R E O f

s p a c e f l i g h t

22 23

With the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis in July, another chapter in United States space exploration, and one that introduced the world’s first reusable spacecraft, came to a close. What lies ahead — or above — is a question as vast as the Cosmos and one that leaves many, including Purdue researchers long associ-ated as collaborators with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), guessing.

In 2010, President Barack Obama can-celled NASA’s Constellation program, which had focused on human spaceflight, and outlined a new direction concentrating on the design of new, heavy-lift-launch vehicles to send humans to an asteroid by 2025. Among the planned programs are construction of the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, based on the design for the Orion capsule and able to take four astronauts on 21-day missions; a launch of the Juno spacecraft to investigate Jupiter; and continuing work on the International Space Station (ISS). The Obama administration also funded new ventures, including the creation of the Office of the Chief Technologist to provide an agency-wide vision for technology policy and programs.

Steven Collicott, a professor of aeronau-tics and astronautics at Purdue since 1991, has direct interest in the space station. he is co-investigator for ongoing research aboard the Space Station that examines capillary flows and the flows of fluids. The results could improve current computer models used by designers of low grav-ity fluid systems and may improve fluid transfer systems on future spacecraft. The research, however, could be expanded with a small equipment upgrade, and he needs a way to get it to the space station. This is a challenge.

One downside to retiring the shuttle pro-gram, Collicott says, is that the shuttles were the “nation’s only ride to space,” and routinely carried research projects to the space station. Moving forward, NASA will need to find other rides for equipment, but the options currently available are much smaller physically and cannot carry the same weight as the shuttles. On the up-side, the end of the shuttle program frees up money for new exploration, he says.

i m P a c t o f c h a n g i n g r e s e a r c h d i r e c t i o n sThough some of the designs and research undertaken during the shuttle and Constellation programs will be used, a fair amount of work has been halted. This has led to frustration on the part of research-ers like Steven Schneider, a professor of aeronautical and astronautical engineer-ing who conducts research on hypersonic thermodynamics and directs the Boeing/AFOSR Mach 6 Quiet Tunnel at Purdue, the only quiet hypersonic wind tunnel in operation.

“My own work has adapted to other appli-cation areas for now,” he says. “But those doing research on human spaceflight — the rockets needed, the crew vehicles, the life support technologies — are really concerned because NASA has not decided on a vision and their technology investment ideas have found resistance in Congress.”

s t a r t - u P s o f f e r n e w o P P o r t u n i t yPresident Obama’s plan for the future includes a focus on commercial com-panies launching and staffing routine human spaceflight. In the early years of the human spaceflight program, NASA designed, built, launched and staffed all human spaceflight. In the 1980s, that shifted to NASA coordinating all flights but sharing design-and-build duties with private sector companies. NASA will now focus on cutting-edge design and research and leave more routine spaceflight to the private sector.

That means NASA may be hiring fewer people, an impact some have already seen.

“I’ve seen with my graduate students that NASA jobs are really hard to get,” Schneider says. And, given the uncer-tainty in funding, many of the large NASA contractors aren’t hiring either, he adds. But the students see options.

“Even though the shuttle program has ended, I think there are good things ahead,” says Sarah St. Clair, a junior studying aeronautical engineering. “We will be able to work on the change.”

Purdue graduates are heading to smaller start-ups that are competing to be the next wave of transport spacecraft for NASA. Among these is SpaceX, of hawthorne, Calif., which won a $75 million NASA contract in April to develop a launch escape system that will enable its space-craft to carry astronauts. Late last year, SpaceX launched the first demonstration flight under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.

What these start-ups mean for many students, who once dreamed of becom-ing astronauts and imagined NASA as the main route to that goal, is that their options are widening. Many are heading to private-sector employers, and that trend likely will increase.

“I think there will be more diversity in employers for future astronauts,” says Janice Voss (BS ’75, Engineering Science), a NASA mission specialist and astronaut who has completed five space missions.

“ e v e N t h o u g h t h e S h u t t l e p r o g r a m h a S e N d e d , i t h i N k t h e r e a r e g o o d t h i N g S a h e a d . . . w e w i l l b e a b l e t o w o r k o N t h e c h a N g e . ”saraH st. clair

Schneider studies high-speed laminar-turbulent airflows for hypersonic recon-naissance vehicles, thermal protection for re-entry vehicles, drag reduction on supersonic transports, and flow noise and heat transfer above IR windows on interceptor missiles. he says the impact of the federal government’s decision to scrap the Constellation program can make researchers feel like a person designing a house, getting it halfway built, changing his mind, and having to start from scratch again and again.

“This is yet another time a big and sensible program was canceled and redirected. It wastes an enormous amount of money,” Schneider says.

For those who were working on portions of the Constellation program, most NASA-funded research stopped. Daniel DeLaurentis, associate professor of aero-nautics and astronautics, was focusing on the infrastructure necessary to help NASA communicate on the moon and between Earth and the moon.

“The Constellation program was driving quite a bit of research, much inside NASA, but also for universities,” DeLaurentis says. he was able to leverage his work into new funding with the Missile Defense Agency, but not all researchers will be that lucky.

The main hurdle will be how much and how consistently Americans are willing to fund human spaceflight. For students and staff who care about human space exploration, that’s the real sticking point, especially for a generation that grew up only knowing the shuttle program. Collin Weir, a senior in aeronautical and astronautical engineer-ing, speaks for that generation.

“I think there’s now less of a sense of space as being something new and revo-lutionary, and more of something we’ve already done,” Weir says. “I’m not sure we really see the point of sending people into space, and I think that’s a shame. humans have always wanted to explore, learn more and explain the world around them. Putting people in space is an important part of that goal.”

“ i t h i N k t h e r e w i l l b e m o r e d i v e r S i t y i N e m p l o y e r S F o r F u t u r e a S t r o N a u t S . ”Janice voss

a l o o k b a c kInspired as a boy by the comic-strip fiction of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom (ME

’50) forged a high-flying reality as a man — becoming one of America’s first astronauts and the first man to go into space twice in a capsule vessel.

Jason Doty, a videographer from Purdue ITaP, wrote, directed and produced a video about Grissom.

24 25

Q&A WITh

JAnicE vOSShow will the transition from the human spaceflight program, especially the cancel-lation of the Constellation program, impact Purdue University?

I don’t think it makes a big change in Purdue’s position. There have been many transitions. There was a gap between the Apollo and shuttle programs when various programs were canceled, but that hasn’t changed anything for Purdue.

The main reason that we’re having these challenges in NASA program funding and policy is because of the tight federal budget. The budget debate is huge in Congress and funding overall is getting cut. That could impact Purdue, but that’s not specifically the Constellation program.

Given the gap between retiring the shuttle program and developing new technologies, do you think today’s students still have as good a chance to reach the goal of becom-ing an astronaut?

Yes, absolutely. The commercial sector is really going to take off. SpaceX launched Falcon 9, a completely privately developed vehicle, into orbit. That’s huge for the commercial industry to have made that first step. The small commercial industry (not Lockheed Martin or Boeing) has never been there before. While it’s built on technology that the government devel-oped, we have a commercially developed spacecraft for the first time. There are three other U.S. commercial companies right on SpaceX’s heels and there are opportunities with those companies to be astronauts.

NASA continues with its own program and we will have people on the International Space Station. They’ll be launching on Russian vehicles, but we’ve done that before and it didn’t decrease the vibrancy of our space program.

Do you think future careers will look vastly different from, for example, the trajectory your career has taken?

There will be more diversity in employers. Everyone has his or her own career path, but the basic principles shouldn’t be any different: Pursue a field you can be an expert in, be a good public speaker, a team player, stay fit, and I’m certain there will be plenty of opportunities to fly in space. NASA is already discussing the next astro-naut class right now. While it’s a smaller one, it’s not zero.

students’ initial reaction to the cancellation of the Constellation program was that it is bad news. as the dust settles and new goals are set, they seem optimistic that the changes may actually broaden opportuni-ties for discoveries. Your thoughts?

They’re young and haven’t been through this kind of transition before. It looks cata-strophic. It just feels like it’s the end of the world when it’s the first time it’s happened, but we’ve still got a lot of vibrancy in the human spaceflight program. We have a new space station that we just finished and is ready to use. Watching the advances in the commercial industry is also very exciting. They’ll get a chance to be part of the transi-tion from government programs to the birth of the commercial industry.

■ Jennifer WHitson

JANICE VOSS (B.S. ’75, ENGINEER-ING SCIENCE), IS AN ASTRONAUT AND NASA MISSION SPECIALIST. SHE BECAME AN ASTRONAUT IN

JULY 1991 AND HAS SPENT MORE THAN 49 DAYS IN SPACE ON FIVE

SPACE MISSIONS.

Z e r o - g r a v i t y P h y s i c sSteven Collicott’s research on low-gravity fluid dynamics and capillary

fluid physics in zero gravity influences the operations of commercial satellites and could influence design of refueling sta-tions that would allow vehicles to venture deeper into space and stay there for longer periods of time.

m i s s i o n s u P P o r tWith System of Systems modeling and simulations of the interplanetary infrastructure, Daniel

DeLaurentis’s research could allow astronauts to commute and work in space by creating systems that would support missions deep into space.

c r i t i c a l w i n d r e s i s t a n c e high-speed laminar-tur-bulent transition is critical for thermal protection of re-

entry vehicles to avoid the type of overheat-ing that caused the space shuttle Columbia tragedy. Steven Schneider explores such areas in research at the Boeing/AFOSR Mach 6 Quiet Tunnel at Purdue, the only quiet hypersonic wind tunnel in operation.

n o v e l r o c k e t P r o P e l l a n t A rocket propellant made of a frozen mixture of water and “nanoscale

aluminum” powder is more environmen-tally friendly than conventional propel-lants and could be manufactured on the moon, Mars and other water-bearing bodies. The aluminum-ice (ALICE) propel-lant developed by Steven Son, an associ-ate professor of mechanical engineering and associate professor of aeronautics astronautics, could be used to launch rockets into orbit and for long-distance space missions and to generate hydrogen for fuel cells.

g e l l e d f u e l t o i m P r o v e r o c k e t P e r f o r m a n c eA gelled fuel the consis-tency of orange marma-lade could improve the

safety, performance and range of rockets for space and military applications. Gels are inherently safer than liquids because they don’t leak, and they also would allow the military to better control rockets than is possible with solid fuels now used. Motors running on gelled fuels could be throttled up and down and controlled more precisely than conventional rockets that use solid propellants. Gelled fuels also could be used in thrusters to position satellites and on NASA space missions. Stephen heister, a professor of aeronau-tics and astronautics, co-directed an interdisciplinary research team with Paul Sojka, a professor of mechanical engi-neering. Timothee Pourpoint, a research assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics, oversaw a propulsion lab to test the fuels.

s t u d e n t s o n t h e f r o n t i e r s o f s P a c ePurdue students are also on the forefront of aero-space research. Graduate

students Thomas Feldman and Andrew Rettenmaier are developing a rocket engine that might be used in a vehicle to land on the moon as part of the NASA-funded Project Morpheus, which includes research to create a vehicle to carry cargo to the moon, Mars or asteroids. The rocket, which will use a propellant of liquid oxygen and liquid methane, will be designed, built and tested using specialized facilities at Purdue’s Maurice J. Zucrow Laboratories, including a new facility to liquefy the methane propellant. Both students acknowledge that this is a rare opportunity to get hands-on experience on the road to careers in the aerospace industry.

Q&AQ&a // nasa sPeCiaList JaniCe Voss on tHe FUtUre oF sPaCeFLigHt

a S t h e u . S . S p a c e p r o g r a m m o v e S t o w a r d b l a S t - o F F i N t o d e e p S p a c e , S t u d e N t S a N d F a c u l t y i N t h e S c h o o l o F a e r o N a u t i c S a N d a S t r o N a u -t i c S c o N t i N u e t o p r o v i d e i N F o r m a t i o N a N d i N N o v a t i o N v i t a l t o t h e F u t u r e S u c c e S S o F t h e p r o g r a m .

launch abort system

crew module

service module

Image courtesy of NASA

2726

groWing hope Odio started TicoFrut in

San Jose, Costa Rica, with a business partner in 1987. his partner has since died, but the company remains family-owned. Three of his four sons are also engineers and all have earned MBAs.

“What we do touches thousands of people in an area of the country that is very poor,” Odio says. “We’ve literally changed the way hundreds of families are living, for the better.”

Costa Rica has long been known for its coffee pro-duction, but Odio wanted to build economic stability for lowland farmers. “I saw citrus as lowland cof-fee,” Odio says. “Growing coffee has contributed so much to my country’s economic, social and political stability, but because coffee can be produced only in high altitudes, this left little or no opportunities for people in the lowlands.”

Within the past few years, TicoFrut has established 11 computer centers in areas surrounding its groves. These neighboring towns, which had no electricity only two years ago, are now able to access the Internet. “With these centers, we are hoping to significantly improve the education of the children in these remote villages, thus helping reduce the gap that continues to develop around the world between those who have and those who don’t,” Odio says.

aLUMni ProFiLe // CarLos oDio (Bsie ’65, BsCe ’65)

Purdue engineer builds Central american citrus industry from the ground up.

___ __They say when given lemons, make lemonade.

Purdue alumnus Carlos odio (Bsie ’65, BsCe ’65)

instead took oranges and parlayed them into a

multinational citrus processing company.

Ticos (Costa Ricans’ nickname in Central America and the namesake of TicoFrut) are not the only ones who have benefited from Odio’s contribution. In collaboration with Nicaragua’s first democrati-cally elected government, TicoFrut worked with Nicaraguan citrus farmers to establish orange plantations in their country.

“When we started plowing the fields, hundreds of land mines started popping out of the ground,” Odio says. “The land had been mined in the late 1970s to stop supply flow from the U.S. through Costa Rica. Luckily, the mines were dead, none exploded, and now the area is home to a beautiful 17,500-acre orange grove.”

TicoFrut owns all or a portion of 47,000 acres of orange groves and produces 16 different orange products, more than anyone else in the world. Odio says future plans include processing passion fruit, an ideal product for small growers.

“It produces in nine months and generates a large income per acre,” he says. “It is an ideal addi-tion, considering where we are in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.”

With common sense and a few lessons from Purdue — including stoichiometry, hydraulics and machine design to name a few — Odio, who was named Purdue’s Outstanding Industrial Engineer in 2010, continues to revolutionize the citrus industry in Costa Rica.

■ mackenzie greenWellTicoFrut processing plant in San Jose, Costa Rica.

28 29

STEMing ThE ENGINEERING

bRAin dRAinin the early 1990s. This year’s freshman engineering class may be as much as 25 percent women. But the calls to increase student totals in the STEM (science, tech-nology, engineering and math) disciplines are louder than ever. In June, President Barack Obama announced plans to train 10,000 American engineers every year.

To ensure that more of those 10,000 are young women, holloway believes the en-gineering community needs to change the way it touts itself. “When we look at the data, the women who apply to engineering are absolutely academic superstars,” she says. “The men who apply have a wider range of academic performance. Research indicates that more men are encouraged to go into engineering. If they tinker, for example, someone might say, ‘You should be an engineer.’ And while their academic performance is strong, it is not as tightly clustered at the top.”

The lack of encouragement from parents, guidance counselors and even the young women themselves could be keeping them away from engineering studies. WIEP outreach activities through summer camps and after-school programs are designed to spark minds for engineering as young as kindergarten.

Part of stirring the imagination for the pos-sibilities of engineering means eliminating the misconceptions. “A lot of girls think engineering is dull, boring and nerdy,” says Jennifer Groh, associate director of WIEP. “They think it’s not creative and you end up working alone.”

For Beth holloway the economic logic is just one draw to the field of engineering. Success stories are another. As director of the Women in Engineering Program (WIEP) for a decade now, holloway (BSME ’92, MSME ’97) has been helping share those stories and hands-on activities with K-12 audiences, along with the existing student body (both male and female) of Purdue engineering students.

Purdue has played a historic role in the recruitment of women to engineering. Founded through the former Freshman Engineering Department in 1969, WIEP was the nation’s first such organization. Purdue also has the longest continuously chartered student section of the Society of Women Engineers, which organized nationally in 1954. In 1969, when women made up less than 1 percent of Purdue’s engineering student population, the goal was simply to spread the word in hopes of increasing the numbers. holloway says that her predecessors set a goal to have 1,000 women enrolled in the various engineering disciplines after five years. They fell six short.

With Purdue’s WIEP as a model and through national networks, a number of universities began their own programs to ease the path of women engineers. Though this may have taken some female engi-neers away from Purdue, it benefited the profession as a whole, holloway says.

holloway says the number of Purdue’s female engineers has fluctuated over the years, the biggest boom occurring

purdue’s reNowNed program coNtiNues to iNspire, recruit aNd retaiN through creative approaches.

What the world may need — now more than ever — is more women engineers. in the United states alone, where women wield more than half the buying power, it makes good business sense. Why not have more women involved in design-ing the technology and services they’re buying?

FoCUs // steMing tHe engineering Brain Drain

What they end up learning, Groh says, is that engineers really make things better. “They don’t necessarily see what the engineers are doing because it’s behind the scenes. But we really showcase how engineering makes a difference.”

Exposure to engineering stories, whether it’s a fifth-grader relating to the studies of a current Purdue student or an undergrad being inspired by a successful alumna, also help separate facts from fiction. holloway remembers listening to Donna VanKlompenburg (BSME ’82) and Sue Abreu (BSIDE ’78) speaking to her ENGR 194 class, the Women in Engineering Seminar, which still brings in alumni to talk about their diverse careers.

“The alums are a big part of making our program as successful as it is,” says holloway, who worked as a research and development engineer at Cummins for nine years before returning to her alma mater. “I don’t think we would have the outstand-ing participation from students that we do without that alumni involvement.”

Lindsey Diggelmann, a master’s student in civil engineering, will join those Purdue alumni in May 2012, no doubt with her own stories. “If you like engineering, you should definitely pursue it,” says Diggelmann, who majored in oboe performance at Michigan State but ultimately got “hooked” on structural engineering. “Don’t listen to anyone who says it’s just a boys’ club. It changes every year and there are more girls.”

■ William meiners

The young women participating in Exciting Discoveries for Girls in Engineering (EDGE) design and build engineering-based group projects and participate in experiments during laboratory tours. Current Purdue engineering students serve as camp facilitators and mentors. Throughout EDGE and four other programs for girls from K-12, engineering is highlighted as a profession where creativity and imagination are used to solve prob-lems for the betterment of society.

Photos by Mark Simons

3130

ThE fOUNdING Of ChE ANd ThE PEffER yEARS By the 1880s, intense competition in the manfacture of chemicals had made the need for engineers with training in chemistry obvious to many observers. George E. Davis in Manchester, England, crystallized the need for chemical engineers with a series of lectures in 1887. The next year, the first curriculum in chemical engineering was estab-lished in the chemistry department at MIT.

1902

Percy Evans at Purdue offered a course on Industrial Inorganic Chemistry Lectures that led to the 1907 establishment of a chemical engineering curriculum within Chemistry.

1911

Continual growth in the student body led to the 1911 founding of the school under the direction of Prof. harry Peffer. Peffer died in 1934.

1925

In Purdue hall, ChE had its first lab. Peffer (right) shown with students.

1930

ChE outgrew Purdue hall and moved into larger quarters in heavilon hall, home of the School from 1930 to 1940.

1902 TO 1934tiMeLine // Che CentenniaL

A C e n t u r y o f

Progress�

Ray Harroun pilots his Marmon-Nordyke Wasp across the finish line capturing the win at the first Indianapolis 500. Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team are the first to reach the South Pole. Researcher Marie Curie wins the Nobel Prize in chemistry — the first woman to earn such an honor.

There were a lot of firsts that year in 1911, but closer to home Purdue celebrated the founding of the School of Chemical

Engineering. While many changes have occurred over the century, the same drive for discovery and excellence in education has continued.

As we celebrate this important centenni-al, take a look back at significant events that have shaped the school as compiled by Phillip Wankat, the Clifton L. Lovell Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, and Cristina D. Farmus, administrative director in the school.

32 33

ThE bRAy ANd ShREvE yEARSThe world was mired in the Depression and war clouds were gathering. Perhaps because students thought a degree in chemical engineering offered them a better chance for gainful employment, more students entered chemical engineering during the Depression.

MIdLIfE CRISIS By 1951, the soldiers were home, and many of them were finishing college.Normalcy had, to some extent, returned. World War II had spotlighted some of the shortcomings of engineers who had been trained under the old engineering art/shop system. Important groups called for major changes in the way engineers were educated — the engineering science revolution. In coping with these changes, the school went through a somewhat painful midlife crisis.

1951 TO 19661935 TO 1950

1935John Bray became head of the school.

Elizabeth henius (BS ’35) was the first alumna of the school.

1940The CMET building is completed in August 1940. Total cost was $580,000.

1941Unit Operations Lab. There were few female students in ChE until the mid-70s.

1944The school was heavily involved in the war effort during World War II. Synthetic Rubber Synthesis in 1944 is shown.

1947After Bray stepped down due to failing health, R. Norris Shreve became the head. he organized the school into Chemical, Metallurgical, and Engineering Geology divisions that were officially recognized in 1953.

1951Edward Comings took over as head and tried to increase the research orienta-tion of the school. Unfortunately, this effort foundered due to faculty turmoil caused by resistance to the engineering science revolution. During Comings’ tenure, large numbers of GI Bill students graduated.

1955An ASEE report repeated by a 1957 Purdue report by Dean hawkins (shown with Golding and Shreve) called for an engineer-ing science revamping of the curriculum that led to a schism in the ChE faculty.

1958Dr. henry Sampson (BSChE ’56, Ph.D. ’67 Illinois), the first ChE African-American alumnus, overcame challenges and racism to become a noted inventor.

1959Comings left and was replaced as head by Brage Golding, a student of Shreve. The school legally split into Chemical Engineering and Metallurgical Engineering during the awkward period when there was no head in Chemical Engineering. During the next seven years, the undergradu-ate curriculum was modernized, but the graduate program and research stagnated and subsequently declined.

1950Sarah Margaret Claypool Willoughby (Ph.D. ’50) was Purdue's first female Ph.D. in Engineering.

1963Duncan Mellichamp (Ph.D. ’64) with analog computer. Graduate students were aware of faculty tensions, and many left with an MS.

tiMeLine // Che CentenniaLtiMeLine // Che CentenniaL

34 35

1967Robert Greenkorn was hired as head and charged with bringing about the rebirth of the school as a modern program by increasing both the graduate program and the research portfolio of the school. This task was successfully continued by Lowell Koppel, who became head in 1973. Many professors hired by Greenkorn and Koppel are still at Purdue.

REbIRTh AS A MOdERN PROGRAM

In the late 1960s, the United States was mired in the Vietnam War, but Purdue was one of the least disrupted colleges in the country. Most Chemical Engineering programs at research universities had become much more research-oriented than Purdue’s. The school’s research and graduate program had recovered and diversified into new areas such as biochemical engineering.

1967 TO 1987 1997 TO 2011

1977During Koppel’s tenure, the percent of women students increased dramatically due partly to the Women in Engineering Program. Linda (Russell) Brown (BS ’77) is shown.

1979-1980George Tsao and his colleagues built the Laboratory for Renewable Resources Engineering (LORRE) into a major force in biochemical engineer-ing research.

1980

Linda Wang, left, (1980-present) met the challenge of being the pioneering female professor in ChE.

1981Ron Andres became head and improved faculty morale, but expansion of the research program, particularly experi-mental research, was severely hampered by space constraints. he stepped down in 1987.

bUILdING fOR ThE fUTURE

By the late 1980s, Purdue, like many other land-grant institutions, had moved away from the state-funded land-grant model. The story of the years from 1987 to the school’s 100th anniversary in 2011 can be distilled into two words: space and money. Near the end of this period, the nation sunk into the Great Recession and economic worries became paramount.

1987Gintaras “Rex” Reklaitis became head in 1987, the year before Materials Engineering moved to the new MSEE Building. After building renovations, the space problem was alleviated, but became limiting again by the end of the 1990s.

2002Robert (BSChE ’47, Ph.D. ’50) and Marilyn (BSChE ’47) Forney stepped forward to make the major gift necessary to start a capital fund drive for a new addition to the Chemical Engineering Building.

2004Distinguished Prof. Arvind Varma was hired as ChE head. he has been challenged by economic woes and renovation of CMET.

Forney hall of Chemical Engineering was dedi-cated in 2004 shortly after Arvind Varma became head. The new facility helps to attract stellar faculty to Chemical Engineering.

2008Julie Liu (ChE 2008- present) center, and her grad students work on tissue and cartilage engineering. She is active in AIChE Women’s Initiatives Committee.

2010

As director of the Indiana Advanced Electric Vehicle Training and Education Consortium, Jim Caruthers leads Purdue’s electric vehicle initiative. Its goal is to educate a new generation of highly skilled workers to design, build and service electric vehicles.

1986By the end of Andres’ tenure, relief of the space crunch was in sight. Materials Engineering was scheduled to move into the MSEE building in 1988.

2011Graduate student Sara Yohe (right) describes biofuels projects lab to President France Córdova during Córdova’s visit to ChE.

tiMeLine // Che CentenniaLtiMeLine // Che CentenniaL

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NEWS

SpOTligHTS01AgRAwAl wins nATiOn’s TOp TEcHnOlOgy HOnORRakesh Agrawal, the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor in the School of Chemical Engineering, will receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Barack Obama.

The award is the highest honor for technological achievement bestowed by the president of the United States.

Agrawal holds 116 U.S. patents, nearly 500 non-U.S. patents and has authored 93 technical papers.

A citation for the award recognizes him for “an extraor-dinary record of innovations. These innovations have had significant positive impacts on electronic device manufacturing, liquefied gas production and the supply of industrial gases for diverse industries.”

He is one of five recipients. Seven National Medal of Science recipients also were named in a White House press statement issued Sept. 27.

“Dr. Agrawal is well-deserving of this stupendous honor,” says Leah H. Jamieson, the John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering. “He is not only leading research in his field but also helping to educate a new generation of chemi-cal engineers.”

Agrawal received the award on Oct. 21 with other National Medal ofTechnology laureates during a White House ceremony.

03pURdUE ABE UndERgRAd pROgRAm RATEd BEsT in nATiOn

U.S. News & World Report’s selection of Purdue’s agricultural and biological engineering program as the best such undergraduate

specialty in the country follows the graduate program’s top ranking earlier this year.

The magazine ranked the specialty engineer-ing undergraduate programs in September as part of its annual listing of the nation’s top universities. It based its specialty rankings on a spring 2011 survey of deans and department heads at peer institutions.

The magazine also rated the Purdue ABE program as the top graduate program in the country in specialty rankings released in March.

Bernard Engel, department head, attributed the rankings to the accomplishments of ABE alumni; faculty and staff committed to excel-lence in discovery, learning and engagement; the breadth of undergraduate and graduate programs offered; and the quality of students pursuing degrees within the program.

In the overall rankings, Purdue was 23rd among public universities and 62nd among all universities.

04sTUdEnTs BUilding ROckET FOR mOOn vEHiclE

Purdue students are designing and building a rocket engine that might be used in a vehicle to land on the moon.

Graduate students Thomas Feldman and Andrew Rettenmaier are part of a team developing a thrust chamber for NASA’s Project Morpheus, which includes research to develop new technologies for future trips to the moon, Mars or asteroids.

Other students working on the project include graduate students Michael Bedard, Isaac Statnekov and Emma McKinney and undergraduates David Hailey and Ryan Tatro. William Anderson, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics, is adviser to the students.

The rocket, which will use liquid oxygen and liquid methane propellants, is being designed, built and tested using specialized facilities at Purdue’s Maurice J. Zucrow Laboratories, including a new facility to liquefy the methane propellant.

A development test chamber has been designed and is ready for testing. This heavily instrumented chamber is far bulkier than the eventual flight chamber, and data from upcoming tests will be used to refine the flight engine’s design.

Purdue graduate students Michael Bedard, Emerald McKinney, Thomas Feldman and Andrew Rettenmaier are working on a rocket engine as part of the NASA-funded Project Morpheus, which includes research to develop new technologies for future trips to the moon, Mars or asteroids. (Purdue University photo/Mark Simons)

sPotLigHts // neWs

02gATEwOOd wing dEdicATEd

The Roger B. Gatewood Wing of the Mechanical Engineering Building was dedicated Oct. 21 as part of Homecoming Weekend.

The $34.5 million state-of-the-art addition is the first Purdue building constructed to LEED certification standards. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard is set by the U.S. Green Building Council to verify that a building is designed and built to increase energy savings, improve water efficiency, reduce CO2 emissions, improve indoor environmental quality and be thought-ful of the stewardship of resources and the impact of their use.

The addition adds 41,000 assignable square feet to the Mechanical Engineering Building including flexible classroom space, student commons, computer labs, student learning labs, research labs, and many other spaces that will make Purdue’s Mechanical Engineering program a leading institute in its field.

Roger Gatewood, Don and Catherine Feddersen, Dr. Milton B. and Betty Ruth Hollander, and corporate partner Caterpillar Inc. have all made leadership gifts to the project.

Roger Gatewood is a 1968 graduate of the School of Mechanical Engineering. With a long history of supporting Purdue University and ME, he made a leadership gift for the new wing in 2003. Gatewood provided additional support for the LEED certification standards in 2007.

President Barack Obama congratulates Purdue’s Rakesh Agrawal (left) during the presentation of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in Washington, D.C. The award is the highest honor for technological achievement bestowed by the president of the United States. (Photo by Ryan K. Morris Photography)

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09pURdUE, nswc cRAnE dEvElOping nEw dEgREE pROgRAm

Purdue is developing a program in energy storage technology in cooperation with the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), Crane Division, located at Crane, Ind.

Purdue and NSWC Crane expect the program eventually to lead to a master’s degree in chemical engineering.

The development of electrical- and chemical-based energy storage devices is a critical component of such modern technologies as electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, solar cells, wind turbines, and diesel and biodiesel generators.

The program began in July with two intensive segments for 16 students at the Crane West Gate Research Park. The summer program was noncredit but offered a certificate. This fall, the students are taking their first credit course toward a master’s degree.

The courses will be taught through a combina-tion of on-campus and online delivery. They will come from chemical, materials and industrial engineering.

The master’s in chemical engineering program is expected to take three years to complete. The initial program will be developed for NSWC Crane’s specifications. Other individu-als or businesses will be able to participate in future offerings.

10cOlOmBiA’s pREsidEnT wElcOmEs pURdUE dElEgATiOn

Twice within a month, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos expressed public enthusiasm for Purdue’s collaborations with

Colombia’s research, education, industry and government leaders.

In August, Leah Jamieson, the John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering, was an honored guest at the 150th anniversary celebration of Universidad Nacional’s College of Engineering.

Santos underscored his strong support for Purdue less than three weeks later during the International Conference on Technology Policy and Innovation (ICTPI), held in Bogota. The ICTPI kicked off Colombia’s strategic plan for science, technology and innovation.

THE PURDUE DELEGATION INCLUDED:

■ Arden Bement, the David A. Ross Distinguished Professor of Nuclear Engineering and director of the Global Policy Research Institute.

■ Richard Cosier, the Leeds Professor of Management and the Avrum and Joyce Gray Director of the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship.

■ Gerhard Klimeck, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of Purdue’s Network for Computational Nanotechnology.

■ Jean Paul Allain, associate professor of nuclear engineering.

■ Arvind Raman, professor of mechanical engineering.

■ Carolyn Percifield, director of strategic planning and assessment for the College of Engineering.

The delegation presented Santos with the gift of a Boilermaker flag, which he held up and draped around his shoulders.

05Tiny OxygEn gEnERATORs BOOsT EFFEcTivEnEss OF AnTicAncER TREATmEnT

Researchers have created and tested miniature devices that are implanted in tumors to generate oxygen, boosting the killing power of radiation and chemotherapy.

The technology is designed to treat solid tumors that are hypoxic at the center, meaning the core contains low oxygen levels.

The new “implantable micro oxygen gen-erator” is an electronic device that receives ultrasound signals and uses the energy to generate a small voltage to separate oxygen and hydrogen from water — a chemical operation called water electrolysis.

“We are putting these devices inside tumors and then exposing the tumors to ultrasound,” says Babak Ziaie, professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering. “The ultrasound energy powers the device, generating oxygen.”

The devices were created at the Birck Nanotechnology Center in the University’s Discovery Park. Purdue researchers are working with Song-Chu (Arthur) Ko, an assistant professor of clinical radiation oncology at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Findings were detailed in a research paper in the August online edition of Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

06cOncUssiOn REsEARcH ExpAnds As HigH scHOOl FOOTBAll sEAsOncOnTinUEs

As football teams take to fields across the nation, Purdue researchers continue work to uncover how repeated head impacts affect high school athletes.

Findings could aid efforts to develop safety guidelines based on the number of hits a football player receives and also may help determine techniques that coaches and play-ers might use to reduce the severity of blows to the head, says Eric Nauman, associate professor of mechanical engineering and an expert in the central nervous system and musculoskeletal trauma.

Helmet-sensor impact data from each player were compared with brain-imaging scans and cognitive tests performed before, during and after each season. The researchers also shot video of each play to record and study how the athletes sustained impacts.

Thomas Talavage, an expert in functional neuroimaging and co-director of the Purdue MRI Facility, says the scans are revealing changes in mental processes among many players who do not show clinical signs of concussion. Talavage is associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

The researchers are expanding to an ad-ditional high school football team and both boys and girls soccer teams.

A new technique could speed construction of skyscrapers while also providing enough stiffness and strength to withstand earthquakes and forces from high winds.

The project aims to develop a new kind of “core wall,” a vertical spine that runs through the center of skyscrapers, says Mark Bowman, director of Purdue’s Robert L. and Terry L. Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research.

A skyscraper’s core wall supports a portion of the building’s weight and enables the structure to withstand lateral forces from strong winds and earthquakes.

“The intent of our project is to be able to construct the core wall system much faster than the traditional system,” says Bowman, professor of civil engineering. “If you were doing a 40- to 50-story building, you might save three to four months of construction time. Even one month would be gigantic in terms of dollar savings.”

Bowman and Michael Kreger, professor of civil engineering, are leading the research, working with doctoral student Selvarajah Ramesh, undergraduate David Koppes and engineers from Magnusson Klemencic Associates Inc., an international structural and civil engineering firm based in Seattle.

The research has been funded by the Charles Pankow Foundation.

Mark Bowman, at right, direc-tor of Purdue’s Robert L. and Terry L. Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research, and Michael Kreger, a professor of civil engineering, are working with other engineers to perfect a new kind of “core wall” for skyscrapers. The new type of core wall could speed construction of skyscrapers while also providing enough stiff-ness and strength to withstand earthquakes and forces from high winds. (Purdue University photo/Andrew hancock)

Researchers have created and tested a miniature device, seen here, that can be implanted in tumors to generate oxygen, boosting the killing power of radiation and chemotherapy. (Purdue University photo/Mark Simons)

08nEw ‘cORE wAll' mAy spEEd skyscRApER cOnsTRUcTiOn

sPotLigHts // neWs

07nEw TRAnslATOR App mAkEs sEnsE OF FOREign-lAngUAgE FOOd mEnUs

Researchers have created an application that enables cell phones and other portable devices to translate foreign-language food menus

for English speakers and could be used for people who must follow restricted diets for medical reasons.

“You type in the menu listing and the ap-plication translates it automatically without talking to a server,” says Mireille “Mimi” Boutin, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Before entering a foreign country, the user would download a region- and language-specific configuration and database. From then on, the system can operate without a network connection.

Boutin worked with Albert Parra Pozo, a gradu-ate student who is fluent in Spanish, to develop and implement this system on the iPod Touch for English speakers traveling in Spain.

The application could be further developed as a tool for people who have special diets by adding a database of nutritional information.

Findings were detailed in a paper presented in July at the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo in Barcelona, Spain.

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