Imagine a robotic arm that could one day allow scientists to hold and “touch” objects on other planets without leaving Earth. Or a model that will give scientists a full picture of how a new, 3D-printed metal super-alloy will behave in the harsh conditions of air and space travel.
UWM engineering students are working on both projects this summer with research funding from the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium (WSGC).
Researchers from a variety of disciplines are presenting at the WSGC’s annual conference, hosted this year by UWM’s College of Engineering & Applied Science on Aug. 9 at the Student Union.
In the last year, the WSGC has awarded $86,000 in grant money for student fellowships and faculty research at UWM in engineering, geosciences and physics.
The college garnered more than half of that amount, including $15,000 to Nathan Salowitz, associate professor, mechanical engineering, who is coordinator of the conference. Two faculty members, Qingsu Cheng and Priyatha Premnath, both assistant professors, biomedical engineering, each received $10,000 in research grants.
Here, we take a closer look at two student projects.
Brandon Rocole, junior, Biomedical Engineering
Advisor: Habib Rahman
Rocole has always been interested in robots and he began building robotic arms with Legos while he was still in grade school. While most kids that age don’t know what prosthetics are, Rocole was introduced to the idea because his dad was a Marine Corps sergeant during the Iraq War.
He is interested in creating prosthetics with robot features to help lower-arm amputees. But, because he is focused on reducing the cost and making the devices easier to use, he felt the project fit the grant’s space-related requirement.
“A robotic arm could be very useful in remotely exploring an environment in space with data collection from it happening back on Earth,” he said. “For example, by picking up a rock, the arm could tell you things like weight and texture.”
Rocole’s design uses flexible tubing to connect components of the arm, providing comfort to the wearer. Other unique aspects include “five-finger” control and a sensory feedback method called “mechanotactile” – it ties the intensity of the arm’s grip to different levels of pressure to the remaining limb.
Of course, that would be different from person to person, so his next step is to recruit and work with actual patients to calibrate the levels of pressure. Already, Rocole has taken the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps entrepreneurial training at UWM to assess his prototype’s commercial prospects.
“I’m really grateful to be working with Dr. Rahman here and have access to all of his resources,” Rocole said. “I feel like I’m definitely putting my college tuition to good use.”
Harry Smith, doctoral student, Mechanical Engineering
Advisor: William Musinski
About two years ago, NASA scientists created a 3D-printed metal “super alloy,” designed for superior strength in extremely high temperatures. Called GRX-810, the alloy is primarily a combination of nickel, cobalt and chromium that can withstand the temperature extremes of space travel.
More testing is needed, however, to further understand and enable the use of GRX-810 by NASA and other original equipment manufacturers for aerospace applications. The process of making the 3D-printed alloy often results in changes to its microstructure and may introduce defects that affect the material’s strength and crack development.
Existing models that predict a material’s mechanical properties in various testing conditions do not take into account the potential changes in the microstructure that may occur in GRX-810.
With WSGC funding Smith will devise a computational model that can predict at what temperature the material’s strength is affected.
Metals are crystalline materials at the microscale, meaning the alloy will behave differently if their internal crystals are arranged differently, Smith said.
“I’m using what are called constitutive equations to define how the crystals will react under load,” he said. “Then I can simulate how a chunk of this material behaves at different temperatures.”
Once the simulations are completed, he will calibrate them to the experimental data, so that the two match, he said.
Smith is working on his PhD with the goal of teaching one day in an area of computational science.
“I wasn’t super passionate about material science specifically, but I do really like computational science,” he said. “So, Dr. Musinski opened the door to that for me.”