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University Mourns Death of Longtime Professor, Researcher
NJIT Global Positioning System Aiding Recovery Efforts
Civil Engineer Examines Damaged Area
NJIT To Honor Alumni, Faculty, Staff
Proposals Sought For Research Experience For Undergraduates
Seminars
Maglev Technology
Maglev technology will be the topic of a seminar sponsored by student
chapters of the Institute of Transportation Engineers and the Society of
Intelligent Transportation Systems, Friday, Sept. 28, 2:30 p.m., in
Electrical and Computer Engineering Center 202.
Rongfang (Rachel) Liu, of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, will present “Maglev Technology and Its Potential Operating Locations.” Maglev is an advanced transport technology in which magnetic forces lift, propel and guide a vehicle over a specially designed guide way.
Utilizing state-of-the-art electric power and control systems, this technology eliminates the need for wheels and many other mechanical parts, thereby minimizing resistance and permitting excellent acceleration, with cruising speeds of up to 300 mph or more. This high performance would enable Maglev to provide airline-competitive trip times among different metropolitan or remote areas.
This presentation will provide a brief review of the technology
development and its wide appeals and potential applications around the
world. Liu will highlight the technology, the foreseeable environmental
impact of the Maglev systems and its anticipated social-economical
effect on the applicable locations. The featured operation plans will
demonstrate how the advanced technology can be applied to daily living
and benefit society via transportation efficiency and other quality of
life improvements.
INFO: Brenda Walker, ext. 3513,
brenda.e.walker@njit.edu;
Steven Chien, i.jy.chien@njit.edu;
or Andrew U. Meyer, meyer@njit.edu.
Novel Designs
“Emergence and the Evolution of Novel Designs” will be the topic of a
seminar sponsored by Exxon Research and Engineering Company, Merck
Research Laboratories, and Schering-Plough Research Institute, Monday,
Oct. 22, 2:45 p.m., in Hazell Center Ballroom A.
Edwin N. Lightfoot, of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, will explain how invention and design are heuristic processes, which must be approached in a hierarchical manner, from basic conceptual postulates through order of magnitude estimates and asymptotic approximations to increasingly detailed calculations and experiments. According to Lighfoot, this is the only way to reduce the parameter space that must be examined to manageable levels. At the same time, it must be recognized that decisions made at each level of the hierarchy can only be justified at later, more detailed levels. True optimization is therefore seldom feasible, and one must accept from the outset that some promising possibilities will be ignored.
The basic problem is that the fundamental disciplines upon which our designs must be based exhibit strong emergence characteristics. Just a few simple basic equations, for example, the basic laws of thermodynamics and the equations of motion of transport phenomena, along with their boundary conditions and equations of state, can lead to an enormous number of different designs. When one adds all of the specialized branches of chemistry and physics and the increasing importance of behavior at the molecular level, it is surprising that invention and design processes can ever be successful. In fact, we may have reached a situation where simple reductionism approaches are becoming ineffective.
At the same time, it is being found that accumulated experience can
often be transferred to new situations to a useful degree in suggesting
powerful heuristics for speeding the invention and design processes.
Examples of past successes will be given, and suggestions will be made
for the future.
INFO: Robert Pfeffer, ext. 7496,
pfeffer@adm.njit.edu.
Flow-Induced Coalescene
Recent studies of coalescence phenomena between drops due to
flow-induced collisions in viscous fluids will be the topic of a seminar
Wednesday, Oct. 24, 4 p.m., in Guttenberg Information Technologies
Center 1400.
Gary Leal, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, will present “Studies of Flow-Induced Coalescence,” a process that is a key component to understanding blending and/or emulsification processes, but it is not particularly well understood. To a large extent, this is because of the difficulty of either theoretical predictions or of well-controlled experiments.
The present work is based largely on experimental observations of collisions between two equal-sized drops in flows produced by a four-roll mill. The focus of present work is on establishing conditions when coalescence occurs, and on recent measurements that incorporate surfactant-like co-polymers on the drop surface. These additives mimic the role of compatibilizers that play a key role in industrial polymer-blending processes.
INFO: Pushpendra Singh, ext. 3326,
pushpendra.singh@njit.edu
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