ME Undergraduate Students Win Flint Hills Resources Undergraduate Research Competition
Two Mechanical Engineering undergraduate students have won 2007-2008 Flint Hills Resources Undergraduate Research Competition. Each student received $2500 for the research project.
Robbin Garber-Slaght’s (faculty mentor: Dr. Rorik Peterson) project title is “Alternative Energy from Waste Heat”. In northern regions such as Alaska, heating by wood and oil combustion are used extensively due to the cold climate for much of the year. However, a considerable amount of potentially useful energy is lost with the exhaust gas. Garber-Slaght and Peterson will design and build a prototype thermoelectric generator utilizing the temperature difference between the exhaust and cold ambient air. The energy generated can be either used directly as a power source or stored in battery.
Michael Golub’s (faculty mentor: Dr. Jing Zhang) proposal is entitled “Impact of Electric Car Usage on Air Pollution and Energy Consumption in Arctic Regions”. Electric vehicles (EVs) are cars that run on electricity stored in batteries. Electric cars have drawn increasing interest from federal agencies, the auto industry and academia as a promising solution to reduced reliance on fossil energy and elimination of pollutants. However, electric cars’ performance and their impact on air pollution in cold regions have not been studied yet. In this project, Gulob and Zhang will install electronic meters on the electric cars they have built to monitor the level of vehicle emissions and air pollution. They will also quantify the effect of temperature on electric power consumptions. |
