Research Impact 2024 Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Department at a Glance

New ROCKET Program in flight for incoming Ph.D. students

The Ohio State's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering launched the MAE ROCKET Program, an eight-week summer research internship program to prepare incoming graduate students for the transition into their Ph.D. programs. The program consists of completing the 'ROCKET' objectives: Research, Opportunities, Community, Knowledge, Equity and Training.

This course kicked off in June 2024, with an introduction to the MAE ROCKET program and an overview of the Ph.D. programs in MAE. Over the course of eight weeks, students participated in summer research with their faculty advisors. Concurrently, they attended weekly workshops designed to develop skills and knowledge necessary to meet their academic and research goals.

The workshop topics encompassed the mentor-mentee relationship and best practices in communication, expectations and code of conduct research, principles of technical writing and critical reading in Ph.D.-level research, resources for time management and work-life balance and professional development opportunities at Ohio State.

As part of the program, students collaborated with their faculty advisor to create an Individual Development Plan (IDP). The IDP outlines their first-year activities in the Ph.D. program, including course selection, planning research activities with timelines and milestones and identifying professional development opportunities to integrate into their academic journey.

"Our Graduate Programs Office has made significant efforts to create the best conditions for incoming students to thrive in our Ph.D. programs. The MAE Rocket Program is designed to support this goal, offering an early start in research, holistic training, and community building," Prof. Marcello Canova, associate chair for graduate programs, emphasizes. "We are confident that this initiative will greatly benefit our students, leading to improved recruiting, retention, and an overall positive experience as they embark on their academic journey."

Written by Kierra Hampton

Ohio State professor selected for DOD high-risk basic research fellowship

Joseph Heremans is used to making discoveries that “look a little like magic,” detecting unexpected properties in materials and figuring out how to generate electricity with heat in ways that were once considered only theoretically possible.

With a new federal fellowship that funds tenured faculty members’ “blue sky” research pursuits, Heremans, Ohio Eminent Scholar in Nanotechnology, will set out once again to prove something revolutionary about heat, spin and electricity.

Heremans is one of 11 university scientists named to the 2024 class of the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, the Department of Defense’s flagship single-investigator award for basic research. He is the first Ohio State faculty member to be selected for the fellowship.

“I’m thrilled Professor Heremans is leading this ambitious work at Ohio State,” said Ohio State President Walter “Ted” Carter Jr. “Buckeyes are on the front lines of research and innovation that create meaningful impact in the world, and this Department of Defense fellowship presents an exciting opportunity to contribute to the United States’ global leadership in security technology.”

With about $3 million in funding over five years, Heremans will focus almost exclusively on the topic of polarization caloritronics, substituting ferroelectric materials for ferro-magnets in potential spintronic-like applications.

“It’s like starting anew,” said Heremans, “It’s fantastic to have an established career in research, and then suddenly be given the opportunity to start a completely new direction. It is rejuvenating.”

“Bindu Nair, director of the Basic Research Office for the U.S. Department of Defense, explicitly told me to take big risks in the research funded by this program.”

The DOD Basic Research Office that sponsors the fellowship received 170 white papers for this year’s competition. Expert panels invited 27 proposals as finalists, from which the 11 fellows were recommended.

“The idea has to be extremely ambitious, and yet the proposal has to provide enough preliminary data to prove that it’s possible,” Heremans said. “It doesn’t have to build on what you’ve done before – it’s based on the fact you’ve delivered in the past, but you’re now not bound by your past. You can come up with new ideas and try them.”

In early 2023, Heremans and a recent Ph.D. graduate in his lab, Brandi Wooten, led the work behind a paper in which they predicted and confirmed theoretical properties of solid materials known as ferroelectrics – which hinted at the possibilities Heremans will pursue during the fellowship.

Spintronics makes use of the spin of electrons in materials known as ferromagnets. In these materials, the atoms behave like tiny magnets that all align with each other to form a big magnet with an overall magnetic “moment” that generates a magnetic field around it. Magnons, or spin waves, are how these tiny magnets move in relation to each other, much like a crowd doing “the wave” at a football game.

The Heremans team worked for over a decade on the propagation of spin waves under the influence of temperature differences. Heremans is now turning to another class of materials known as ferroelectrics – materials that contain positively and negatively charged atoms (ions).

At the atomic level, strong local electric fields develop between these ions. Similar to how the tiny magnets align in ferromagnets, these local electric fields align with each other to form a ferroelectric material, with a net polarization moment.

The team hypothesized that the quasi-particles moving in wave-like patterns in ferroelectrics are the vibrations of the atoms themselves, called phonons. Preliminary data show that these phonons carry enough heat to change the heat conduction of the materials when an electrical field is applied externally, leading the team to propose that, since spin waves carry a spin current, the new quasi-particle in ferroelectric materials should carry a polarization current – an entirely new concept

In this new work, Heremans will explore the theory that the flow of electric polarization – no magnetic field required – can be demonstrated experimentally and can be used for engineering functions similar to spin currents: controlling the flow of heat, generating electricity from heat, and transporting information about a thousand times faster than magnetic spins can.

Multiple classes of applications could follow.

“In principle, you can make polarization currents work as a heat engine. Second, you can modulate the heat conduction through a solid with an electric field, allowing you to make the thermal equivalent of a transistor,” Heremans said. “Third, and the most ambitious, would be devices that have logical memory, not based on magnetic spin waves but on polarization currents. They would consume less power, heat up less and wouldn’t require big power plants to run data centers.”

“One advantage for the military would be the ability to minimize electromagnetic interference – specifically, enemy attempts to jam communication signals,” he added.

Heremans has received U.S. Defense funding since 2010, but this opportunity feels special and, he said, places him among the “who’s who in experts doing work relevant to the DOD.”

“It’s really a chance to let the imagination run free.”

Written by Emily Caldwell, Ohio State News

New hypersonic research area launcehd at Aerospace Research Center

The Ohio State University Aerospace Research Center announced the formal establishment of a new hypersonics research pillar, effective September 2024.

Experts from eight laboratories aim to improve high-speed flight systems, specifically those categorized at Mach 5 (approximately 3800 mph at sea level) and above. With robust individual portfolios providing impactful solutions across the research field, together the team will leverage decades of combined experience over a broad range of hypersonics topics, from basic to applied.

Hypersonics is an interdisciplinary field and one of 14 critical technology areas identified by the United States Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, also known as OUSD(R&E), with additional applications in the commercial sector.

“Advancing national security is a strong component of our mission,” said Jesse Little, who joined as director of the Aerospace Research Center in August 2023. “Our team has an established record of executing solutions-focused projects with government agencies, industry and academia. These efforts have moved the needle in hypersonics, which ultimately influences the safety of the United States.”

Ohio State experts from multiple disciplines already develop deliverables for some of the most urgent hypersonics challenges, through projects large and small. A wide range of commercial development opportunities is also available. Specialization areas include aerothermodynamics, guidance navigation control, hypersonic environments, materials, structures and propulsion.

The new hypersonics pillar builds on the center’s existing research areas: aerodynamic flow control, gas turbine engines and uncrewed aircraft systems (drones). A hub for aerospace research, the center advances knowledge and technology to address current and future air transportation challenges. The depth and breadth of its labs allows the center to offer an entire suite of experimental, computational and theoretical hypersonics research. In addition, interdisciplinary connections on campus further enhance available capabilities.

Novel facilities include the Large Area Reflected Shock (LARS) Tunnel, by far the largest university-operated hypersonic wind tunnel in the nation. It complements several smaller-scale wind tunnels and other specialized equipment. Secure, high-performance computing is accessible through a partnership with Ohio Supercomputer Center.

“Ohio State has operated LARS for nearly 30 years as a dedicated gas turbine test facility,” said Little. “Its reestablishment as a hypersonic test bed anchors our group and firmly establishes Ohio State as a leader in this critical field. Our research capabilities, along with an abundance of talented students – complemented by our strategic location in bustling central Ohio, near some major U.S. hypersonics activities – uniquely positions Ohio State to address problems of national importance.”

“ARC faculty have been very successful in both basic and applied research,” he said. “By building larger, more interdisciplinary efforts, leveraging our combined expertise and engaging a variety of partners, we will enhance our impact globally.”

As a Tier 1 research university, students are central to Ohio State’s hypersonics research. Faculty and experienced research personnel foster a talent pipeline of engineers and scientists trained in hypersonics research methods, equipping graduates for industry and service to the nation in this high-priority field.

Written by Holly Henley

MARC program at Ohio State seeks to empower nascent researchers

A new program at The Ohio State University seeks to grow the ranks of the next generation of biomedical scholars doing impactful research.

The Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) program provides undergraduate students with a research-focused training program that includes courses, experiential learning, faculty and graduate student mentoring, and peer support.

The program will provide scholarship funding and a monthly stipend. The work doesn’t end when the students graduate. The MARC program includes an evaluation process that extends 15 years after students complete the program.

The MARC program emphasizes interdisciplinary research because some of the world’s biggest challenges will require a collaborative approach to solve.

“Science and technology, as we have progressed through the last century, has increasingly become a multidisciplinary domain and there are very few problems that are left that one discipline can address alone,” said Shaurya Prakash, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

The program is a collaboration between the colleges of Public Health, Engineering and Arts and Sciences and is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

“Our theme is ‘molecules to society,’ which makes sense, given the three colleges involved,” said Amy Ferketich, a professor of epidemiology in the College of Public Health. “Our goal is to recruit a diverse group of undergraduate students who are interested in eventually pursuing a Ph.D.”

Program leaders expect that 80% of students will publish at least one paper as co-author or first author, 50% will apply to a doctoral program at graduation and 80% in three years, and 80% will have a biomedical science career within 10 years.

“This is a training program, and the training program is really intended to show these students there is a way to conduct unbiased, thoughtful research,” Prakash said.

“So our message is that if you want to contribute to a research path and a research career, think big, think bold and learn the methods of how to do this in the right way.”

There are four labs identified as MARC mentor labs in MAE. Those labs are led by Dr. Carlos Castro, Dr. Jonathan Song, Dr. Gunjan Agarwal and Prakash’s lab.

Students from the MARC program can be mentored within each of these labs towards developing into the future of the biomedical science and engineering workforce.

As of the fall 2024 semester, the program has now added a second cohort of students and also launched a pipeline program open to first and second year students.

This program is funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for five years.

Written by Chris Booker, Ohio State News

$2 million NSF grant furthers DNA Nanotechnology research at Ohio State

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Professor Carlos Castro and Physics Professor Michael Poirier have received a four-year, $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to create novel DNA nanodevices that could have far-reaching applications in sensing, soft robotics, energy, information storage and medicine.

The award is a part of NSF’s Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) program, which aims to foster the design, discovery and development of advanced materials to address major societal challenges. Castro and Poirier received the grant in collaboration with Professor Gaurav Arya in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Material Sciences at Duke University. Castro, Poirier and Arya have been collaborating for several years to bring together expertise in DNA nanotechnology, single molecule biophysics, and theoretical and computational modeling. Their recent proposal is focused on developing materials with unique, useful mechanical and dynamic functions based on assemblies of dynamic DNA devices.

“Our team has unique expertise in the design dynamic DNA devices,” said Castro, who is the Ralph W. Kurtz Chair in Mechanical Engineering. “Here we aim to construct those devices into materials where the structure and properties of the individual devices and their interactions within larger assemblies enable behaviors, like sensing and signal amplification, that are difficult or impossible to achieve in typical engineering materials.”

This is the team’s second time receiving the NSF DMREF grant. Their first project, supported by a $1.7M grant, was focused on designing materials consisting of assemblies of dynamic devices and using dynamic behavior to sense applied forces.

“We will take this foundation in new directions to design materials that exhibit unique structural and mechanical properties, like shape morphing or mechanical instabilities,” Castro said. “We hope to engineer these materials into systems that can detect multiple types of inputs from the environment to store and process that information.”

Their research has three focus areas:

• Assemblies with special mechanical properties or behaviors: The researchers aim to make assemblies that exhibit unusual shape changes or mechanical instabilities under applied forces.
• Signal transcending materials: Their goal is to make devices that can sense various parameters in the local environment, process information based on those parameters and create a detectable response such as a fluorescence readout or release of another molecule.
• Designing devices that can be triggered to assemble into various types of networks: Different input signals to the devices can lead to assembly of distinct networks with tailored properties, such as stiffness or porosity.

“Our approach is to construct these materials from nanoscale DNA building blocks with precisely designed structure, and tailored mechanical and dynamic properties,” Castro said. “We will establish principles for materials with new functions using molecular simulation and machine learning approaches to identify nanodevice assembly designs for on-demand material properties.”

The funding will support graduate students and post doctoral researchers for each laboratory. It will also cover research materials and supplies necessary to make the proposed devices, additional training for team members on techniques like electron microscopy, and will enable students to present their research at conferences.

Collaborating with other laboratories with different expertise has allowed Castro and Poirier to have impactful DMREF projects. The DMREF support has currently led to over 10 scientific journal publications including a recent study focused on recycling DNA materials to improve cost-effectiveness and sustainability of nanofabrication methods, recently highlighted in Chemical & Engineering News.

“Having a team that works so well together has also made the overall project exciting and enjoyable,” Castro said. “We are thrilled to be able to continue making a strong impact on developing new DNA-based materials.”

Written by Kierra Hampton

Nuclear engineering program receives $1.6M in research and development awards

The U.S. Department of Energy - Office of Nuclear Energy Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) has selected 24 new Rapid Turnaround Experiment (RTE) projects for funding, totaling approximately $1.42 million, to support the advancement of nuclear science and technology. The Ohio State University Nuclear Reactor Laboratory (NRL), an NSUF partner facility, is the place of performance for 3 of the 24.

“All three of the funded proposals have investigators and team members who have previously relied on the unique and exceptional capabilities available at Ohio State for their research,” said Dr. Raymond Cao, Director of the NRL.

“Our staff and facility have made valuable contributions to the nuclear engineering field through the NSUF collaboration. We are pleased to have that recognized by the researchers who chose us and our facility for additional investigations, and the agencies who fund their proposals.”

The 2023 NRL awards are:

• “Measurement of 254-eV Nuclear Recoils in Germanium” – Igor Jovanovich (University of Michigan)
• “Neutron Irradiation of Updated In-Pile Steady State, Extreme Temperature Experiment” – Emily Hutchins (University of Tennessee)
• “Irradiation of Radiation-hard GaN Transistors for Mixed Gamma and Neutron Field Under High Temperature” – Jack Lanza (The Ohio State University)

NSUF competitively selects projects from a pool of high-quality RTE proposals. Each proposal is evaluated based on a variety of factors, including technical approach, mission relevance, and scientific-technical merit. NSUF recipients receive access to state-of-the-art experimental irradiation testing, post irradiation examination, and technical assistance for the design and execution of projects at no cost to the user.

Through previous RTE awards, the NRL has collaborated with researchers from across the country to continue to advance the understanding of irradiation effects in sensor and sensor materials in support of the mission of the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy.

As the only operating research reactor currently in the State of Ohio, the NRL is a unique teaching and research laboratory that delivers high quality service to its customers and excellent instruction and research opportunities to nuclear engineering students.

In 2017, the DOE designated the NRL as a partner facility of the Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) program, allowing awarded researchers, often in collaboration with other laboratories and industry, to perform DOE mission-supporting research at the NRL at no cost to users.

Written by Jake Rahe

Ohio State, Honda, business, state, federal leaders announce partnership for battery cell research center

The Ohio State University was joined by Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, congressional leaders, Honda, Schaeffler Americas and JobsOhio officials in fall 2023 to announce the creation of a new battery cell research and development center.

Slated to open in April 2025, the lab will accelerate the domestic development of battery cell materials and manufacturing technologies while providing an experiential learning setting for advanced battery technology workforce development.

With $22 million in commitments to date, this project will include the renovation of a 25,000-square-foot facility in Ohio State’s innovation district into a dedicated battery cell research, production and education support space.

“Ohio State’s commitment to research, innovation and bringing solutions to the world is at the heart of our land-grant mission,” said Peter Mohler, executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge at Ohio State. “We have more reach and impact when we work with our partners at the local, state and federal levels and we join industry-leading partners like Honda and Schaeffler.”

Honda will serve as lead foundational partner for the project and has committed $15 million for the research and development center. The project was also endorsed by the State of Ohio and JobsOhio.

“Honda is committed to an electrified future for our automobiles, motorcycles and power products worldwide,” said Bob Nelson, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co., Inc. “We have had a long-standing relationship with Ohio State that goes back more than 30 years, and this new facility is an extension of that great partnership. This facility will be a great resource to train the next-generation workforce in advanced manufacturing technologies.”

The completed project will also create a hub for academic and industry connections across chemical and physical sciences, engineering, business and policy. Once completed, the project will create a strong pipeline of industry talent while also attracting electric vehicle battery manufacturing and supply chain businesses to help support the evolving vision for the industry.

Congressional champions for this project include U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and U.S. Reps. Joyce Beatty and Mike Carey. Through their work, $4.5 million in federal funding was secured through the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Extramural Construction program.

The federal funding will support a 4,000-square-foot dry room, which is necessary for the assembly of battery cells due to the extreme moisture sensitivity of cell components. The dry room and new battery cell assembly equipment will facilitate the accelerated development and translation of batteries from the lab to practical scales, including the electric vehicle market.

Originally published by Ohio State News

This story was edited to include updates from 2024, a previously published version of this story can be found here.

Ohio State awarded $15 million for autonomous transportation research

The U.S. Department of Transportation has chosen a research consortium led by The Ohio State University to address cybersecurity risks in various modes of transportation.

Ohio State will receive $10 million in federal funding and $5 million in cost-share over the next five years to establish a Tier 1 University Transportation Center (UTC). In early 2023, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced up to $435 million in grant awards for 34 UTCs that will help the next generation of transportation professionals make our roads, bridges, rail, shipping and airspace safer, more innovative and more efficient.

“We are proud to support University Transportation Centers across the country that are developing cutting-edge technologies to improve our transportation systems for years to come,” said Secretary Buttigieg. “With this investment, we’ll be able to support a new generation of leaders as they continue to pursue research that will usher in safer, cleaner and more accessible ways to get people where they need to go.”

UTCs advance transportation expertise and technology in the varied disciplines that comprise the field of transportation through education, research and technology transfer activities.

The new UTC is called CARMEN+, short for Center for Automated Vehicle Research with Multimodal Assured Navigation, and will be led by Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Zak Kassas. CARMEN+ will expand upon work completed in the two-year CARMEN UTC, awarded to Ohio State in 2020 and led by Kassas.

The CARMEN+ consortium also includes North Carolina A&T State University, University of Texas Austin and University of California, Irvine. With expertise in positioning, navigation and timing (PNT), cybersecurity and autonomous vehicles, the team will study how to make highly automated transportation systems resilient to deliberate attacks against their sensors, communications devices and controls.

“From a potential future of zero roadway fatalities to increased transportation accessibility and equity, the promises of highly automated transportation systems are compelling,” said Kassas, who is also affiliated faculty at Ohio State’s Center for Automotive Research. “But autonomous vehicles will fail to gain the public’s trust if they are seen as vulnerable to cyberattacks.”

The types of potential attacks include jamming or spoofing global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) or radar signals, injecting false data into a network of cooperating vehicles, and compromising the timing or sensing of a smart intersection, among others.

“If attacks like these successfully snarl traffic, ground air taxi fleets, or worse, endanger lives, public trust in highly automated vehicles will be eroded, and their benefits to society will be delayed,” Kassas added.

The Ohio State-led consortium will develop concrete, testable and scalable solutions to reduce transportation cybersecurity risks. Relevant expertise and resources are abundant between the four institutions, including three preeminent PNT labs, four dedicated transportation and autonomous vehicle research centers, an electromagnetics research center, The Ohio State University Airport and close affiliation with Transportation Research Center, Inc., home of the nation’s largest autonomous vehicle proving grounds. Members of the team also are active partners with Edwards Air Force Base in live GNSS interference testing and high-altitude aircraft flight testing.

“We will leverage these facilities and testbeds to demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed cyber-resilient mitigation strategies through rigorous real-world testing,” said Kassas. “And our work will extend beyond unmanned road and aerial vehicles to infrastructure and Internet-of-Things applications.”

The CARMEN+ education and workforce development plan supplements the partner institutions’ accredited undergraduate and graduate programs with new curriculum development, a biannual symposium connecting students with industry, and new transportation research immersion programs for high-school and community college students. Student recruitment will include efforts to attract members of underserved or underrepresented communities.

Technology transfer and collaboration also will be a priority for Ohio State’s UTC, according to Kassas. A comprehensive advisory board includes representatives from industry, nonprofit organizations, academia and local, state and federal government agencies.

Reflecting the popularity of the program that launched in 1988, the U.S. Department of Transportation received a record 169 UTC grant proposals, from which only 20 Tier 1 UTCs were awarded.

Written by Colleen Herr

Atkinson completes three year rotation at U.S. Department of Transportation

Chris Atkinson has made a name for himself in the field of advanced mobility research. Atkinson, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, joined the Ohio State University in 2020 to lead the Smart Mobility initiative housed in the Ohio State Office of Research, Innovation and Knowledge (ERIK). At Ohio State he has worked to enhance the university’s existing research efforts in transportation and the mobility sciences, and collaborates with industry partners to create corporate, foundation, state and federal research partnerships.

Prior to joining Ohio State, he spent six years at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) in the U.S. Department of Energy where he served as a program director, developing programs to fund high-risk, high-reward innovative technologies for energy generation, storage, distribution and usage, including the $55 million NEXTCAR program. On leave from Ohio State for the past three years, Atkinson has been working at the U.S. Department of Transportation to help set up the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Infrastructure (ARPA-I), a new agency aimed at building the future of transportation through developing infrastructure that is safe, secure, efficient and resilient, while achieving net-zero emissions, increasing equity and access to mobility for all.

“The innovation part of the transportation infrastructure R&D pipeline is missing in the United States, and that’s the role that ARPA-I will fill,” said Atkinson, who has served as deputy director of technology for the new agency. “It’s very exciting helping to set up an entirely new federal agency, and developing new directions for our nation’s infrastructure research and technology is incredibly rewarding.”

ARPA-I will develop specific solutions to transportation problems such as enhancing roadway intersection safety for pedestrians and other vulnerable road users and improving mobility through innovative technologies like automation, robotics, artificial intelligence and advanced materials, while also taking human factors and human behaviors into consideration.

“Having practitioners, creators and innovators assist in the development of new federal funding agencies and programs is incredibly important,” said Atkinson. “Faculty have a view into both technology and education – including how our future leaders are being trained. They bring new perspectives and new approaches to solving both new and old problems.”

Atkinson says that he has come to realize what an impact his time with ARPA-I and the U.S. Department of Transportation will have on his future work at Ohio State. “It’s changed my attitude towards engineering - it’s reinforced to me the need to educate our students about the broader societal and ethical implications of what we do. These are obvious things, but we don’t always think about them. As engineers, we tend to look for technical solutions to the most persistent and pernicious problems facing humanity, but often there are more accessible human-centered solutions that should not be overlooked.”

Written by Colleen Herr

MAE impact on industry