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Babak Eslami, associate professor and chair of mechanical engineering, published in the international, peer-reviewed journal Polymers. The study titled, "," ran in the Special Issue 3D/4D Printing of Polymers: Recent Advances and Applications.

The study's objective was to develop a low-cost, non-destructive framework for predicting tensile strength during 3D printing by directly measuring convective thermal gradients surrounding the print. To accomplish this, Eslami and his team of student-researchers introduced thermal fingerprinting, a novel non-destructive technique that combines Background-Oriented Schlieren, or BOS, imaging with machine learning to predict the printed material's strength during printing. The findings represent the first successful application of Schlieren imaging to polymer additive manufacturing and establishes a methodological framework for real-time quality prediction. The demonstrated framework enables real-time application and contact-free quality assurance of 3D printing by enabling on-the-fly identification of mechanically unreliable prints in laboratory, industrial, and distributed manufacturing environments without interrupting production.

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Faculty in the School of Engineering have been awarded grant funding through the Manufacturing PA Innovation Program. Funded in part by the Department of Community and Economic Development, this fellowship program pairs graduate and undergraduate students with local manufacturers on research projects to develop new technologies and advance innovation statewide. 

Three Widener engineering projects have been selected to participate in the 2024 initiative:

1. Babak Eslami, associate professor, and Kamran Fouladi, associate professor and associate dean, mechanical engineering.

   Associate Professors Eslami and Fouladi are working with industrial partner American Additive Manufacturing to enhance durability and repeatability of 3D printing with Polyeth-ether ketone (PEEK) polymer. During this project, a Widener student-research team are modeling the industrial 3D printers used by American Additive Manufacturing to perform computational fluid dynamics study to have a better understanding of flows around the parts. Multi-scale material characterization will be performed on 3D printed parts in order to develop the optimum printing condition for PEEK.

2. John Suarez, associate professor, electrical engineering.

   Associate Professor John Suarez and his student-research team will develop a radio-frequency system for sensing roadway nonuniformities in front of vehicles. The system is intended to operate in vehicles moving at relatively high speeds. The nonuniformities of greatest interest are potholes or other defects in the road which can damage vehicles or create unsafe conditions. Dr. Suarez’s group will work with Dorman Products, an industry leader in aftermarket automotive products located in Colmar, Pennsylvania.

3. Xiaochao Tang, associate professor, and Vicki Brown, professor, civil engineering.

   Associate Professor Xiaochao Tang and Professor Vicki Brown along with a team of student-researchers are working to create a low-carbon sustainable alternative for concrete, the most widely used construction material. Cement, a key component of concrete, is a highly energy-intensive product that releases a large amount of carbon dioxide when produced. In collaboration with two partners, the Delaware County Reginal Water Quality Control Authority (DELCORA) in Chester, Pennsylvania and Conewago Manufacturing, LLC in Hanover, Pennsylvania, this project will utilize sewage sludge ash, a byproduct from DELCORA's wastewater treatment facility, to create an inorganic polymer binding agent, known as geopolymer, at ambient or slightly elevated temperatures. This project will potentially enable repurposing the ash, which would otherwise be disposed of in landfills, for beneficial reuse at scale. The project will also utilize Conewago's concrete mix and testing facility to characterize the geopolymer product and cast pilot scale test bed. 

The Manufacturing PA project was financed [in part] by funding from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Community and Economic Development.

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Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Babal Eslami, Associate Professor Kamran Fouladi, and engineering alumnus Thomas May published an article titled, “Optimization of 3D printer enclosure environment” in The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology. The article explains their study of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and experimental testing that was used to optimize 3D printing.

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A faculty-student research team published findings on the limits of microscopic research. Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor Babak Eslami and student-researcher Dylan Caputo published an article in a special issue of Advances in Surface Modification of the Materials explaining how Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is used to measure different types of material properties, including mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. The findings may provide an alternative way to understand how the material’s elasticity without having to physically test the theory with a hands-on experiment. As the article demonstrates, this technique used with AFM is beneficial as the technology gives scientists a way to understand the material’s properties without increasing the risk of losing important measurements to either humidity or artificial dissipations.

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