Engineering
U-M updates innovation web site
The "Innovate!" web site has been launched as a refreshed version of the innovation economy site that has existed for the last 18 months. The new site also features a series of vignettes on faculty and student innovators and entrepreneurs. Read more
Personal solar panel could make electricity more accessible in the developing world
Electricity isn't always a plug away in much of the developing world. That's why Abdrahamane Traoré, Kettering University graduate, and University of Michigan engineering student Md. Shanhoor Amin teamed up to develop the Emerald, a personal solar panel the size of a paperback. The young engineers are the founders of June Energy, an award-winning start-up spending its second semester in the TechArb student business incubator. The company recently received more than $500,000 in venture capital, and it's about to ship its first 40 domestic orders. Amin and Traoré, along with chief technical officer Allan Taylor, are planning a trip to Kenya and Mali later this semester to test their prototype with the people it was primarily designed for. Read more
Two U-M Engineering faculty members receive 2011 Distinguished Innovator Award
Professors Khalil Najafi and Kensall Wise have been selected as the Distinguished University Innovators for 2011. The pair is being honored for their role developing breakthrough technologies in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and working with colleagues, students and industry partners to move these innovations from university laboratories to new startups to further develop the technology into successful products. [Read more...]
Shrinking snow and ice cover intensify global warming
The decreases in Earth's snow and ice cover over the past 30 years have exacerbated global warming more than models predict they should have, on average, new research from the University of Michigan shows. "Our analysis of snow and sea ice changes over the last 30 years indicates that this cryospheric feedback is almost twice as strong as what models have simulated," says Mark Flanner, assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences. "The implication is that Earth's climate may be more sensitive to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other perturbations than models predict." [Read more...]
Winners in Mobile Apps Challenge announced
It just got easier to find parking space on campus or to harvest power from your mobile phone using applications developed by U-M students and staff. Apps that let people create digital copies of their event tickets, organize task lists, and meet people with shared interests through location-based social networking are among the winners in the 2010 Michigan Mobile Apps Challenge. The competition was sponsored by Apple Inc., Google, Information and Technology Services (ITS), Computer Science and Engineering, and the Office of Technology Transfer. "We were really impressed by the quality of apps and the expertise of applicants this year," said Holly Nielsen, director of enabling technologies and services at ITS. "Creativity and ingenuity is thriving at U-M. This competition serves as an excellent platform for showcasing it." [Read more...]
A shark inspires an artist to build a new hydropower generator
At U-M's marine hydrodynamics lab, artist and inventor Anthony Reale is testing a portable generator, based on the shape of the basking shark's mouth, that provides electrical power from river currents. A description and video of this project has been published in Michigan Today. [Read more...]
Nine university scientists and engineers named AAAS fellows
Nine University of Michigan faculty members are among 503 newly elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), who are honored for their distinguished efforts in advancing science, AAAS announced today. U-M faculty honored are: Kon-Well Wang, chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Stephen P. Timoshenko Collegiate Professor; Joel Blum, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Geological Sciences and a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Lee Hartmann, a professor in the Department of Astronomy; Lori Isom, a professor in the departments of Pharmacology, and Molecular and Integrative Physiology, as well as director of the Program in Biomedical Sciences at the U-M Medical School; Farnam Jahanian, chair of computer science and engineering and the Edward S. Davidson Collegiate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Anna Mapp, a professor in the Department of Chemistry; Adam Matzger, a professor in the Department of Chemistry as well as a professor of macromolecular science and engineering in the College of Engineering; and John Montgomery, a professor in the Department of Chemistry; Melanie Sanford, professor in the Department of Chemistry. [Read more...]
UMTRI collaborates with Toyota on new safety research center
The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute is one of three charter partners of a new advanced safety research center that will help reduce the number of traffic fatalities and injuries on America's roads. The Collaborative Safety Research Center will be based at the Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor and will involve Toyota researchers and engineers from North America and Japan, as well as UMTRI researchers and those from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute. Toyota will commit $50 million over the next five years to fund the center. [Read more...]
Recycling waste heat into energy: Researchers take a step toward more efficient conversion
The right material wrapped around your car's exhaust system could one day scavenge heat that would otherwise be wasted, turning it into energy to warm the cabin or recharge the battery. Engineers and physicists at the University of Michigan have taken a step toward improving the efficiency of a promising candidate for this burgeoning power source. The researchers studied skutterudites, a class of mechanically strong thermoelectric materials that, when combined with certain elements such as the metal barium, has the right mix of properties to effectively make this energy conversion: The material conducts electricity well, and conducts heat poorly. The researchers identified certain configurations of the atoms in the compound that drastically increase the materials' efficiency. [Read more...]