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Flat windows chop up the smooth contours of this Gehry-designed health center. Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany have developed an economical process for bending large sheets of glass. Credit: Wikipedia.

The southern elevation of architect Frank Gehry’s design for the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, Nev., rises and swells in waves of steel and glass crashing over each other as if caught in a confluence of currents going in opposite directions. However, the building’s windows break up the smooth motion of the waves—some are carved out of the curves, some look as if they are tentatively balanced on top of the wave. The viewer’s eye wants the windows assume the contour of the building like a leaf would on a wave.

However, curved glass panels are expensive to manufacture, and even more so when each one is different. The process involves making a mold of the shape, laying a sheet of glass on top of it, loading the mold-glass rig into a furnace and heating it to a temperature where viscous flow of the glass allows it to slump and conform to the mold’s contour. The piece must be closely monitored—remove the glass too soon, and you don’t have the right shape; wait too long, and you get pressure marks at the support points.

Fraunhofer Institute researchers inspect a curved glass panel in front of the test furnace. Credit: Fraunhofer IWM.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Germany have found a way to economically produce bent glass pieces by getting rid of the mold itself. In a press release, scientist Tobias Rist says, “It’s no longer necessary to produce a special steel mold.”

Instead of forcing a sheet to conform down onto a mold, they have found a way to have the form fall away from the sheet so that only the necessary parts of the glass sink into it. The process uses an array of pins or rods, similar to the “pin art” gadgets that make impressions of things pressed into them, like hands, faces, etc. A sheet of glass is slid onto the flat array and rolled into an already hot furnace. The array is programmed to assume the desired geometry after the assembly is in the furnace.

In the press release, Rist says, “Our process is roughly six-times faster than the conventional process, as well as being considerably more energy-efficient and cost-effective.”

Energy is saved because the furnace is held at temperatures slightly below that at which the glass becomes viscous. The additional heat needed to cause viscous flow is applied only to the spots that need to deform. Time and more energy are saved because the furnace can be kept hot between pieces, and additional cost is saved by eliminating job-specific mold forms.

The new approach allows for more precise control of the process. Rist says, “While the conventional process relies a great deal on trial and error, we simulate the process and the material behavior on a computer. We then compare the outcome with the results from physical tests so we can identify and implement the most favorable process conditions.”

The Fraunhofer team has demonstrated the process on sheets of glass measuring approximately one meter square. Those sizes are big enough for a guy like Gehry to work with.

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The Game
Yale University at Lehigh University
Oct. 1, 12:30 p.m., ET

Both of these teams know their football and have rich traditions. Lehigh, I’m told, has the longest running matchup in college football in their 146-game rivalry with Lafayette. At Yale, “The Game,” (meaning the Harvard contest) is much anticipated every year.

However, these guys play each other tough.

At stake is the Yank Townsend Trophy, which honors Lehigh alum (class of 1895) and Connecticut resident, Charles Frederick Townsend, a big fan of athletics at both schools. Yale was first to take it home in 2006 and has been able to hang onto it with two wins since then, including a 7-0 shutout win in 2009. Lehigh’s older players are still smarting from that, and sure would love to be the next custodians of the Yank Townsend Trophy

My pick? Tough call, but I’ll go with Lehigh in a hard-fought, close game.

The home team
Lehigh University, Materials Science & Engineering

World’s largest nanotube: MSE undergraduates gaze down the column of a model single-walled CNT during NanoDays at the Da Vinci Science Center. Credit: Lehigh University

Up close and personal describe Lehigh’s department of materials science and engineering. And, Lehigh’s concept of up close is really up close, like electron microscope close.

The department has a long tradition of excellence in microscopy, backed up by a clean sweep of this year’s International Metallographic Society’s annual contest. Two Lehigh teams tied for first place honors and third place also went to a Lehigh team (no second place prize this year). Department head, Helen Chan says the department has some entries into this year’s ACerS Ceramographic Contest, so don’t be surprised if some Mountain Hawks are in the winner’s circle at MS&T in Columbus in a few weeks.

The department has a scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscope dedicated to undergraduate activity. Senior Chris Marvel says the electron microscopy course has been his favorite so far: “[Electron microscopy] takes several principles from quantum mechanics and utilizes them to extract topographical or chemical characteristics of a sample.” In fact, it is the relationship between “materials on the smallest possible scale” and properties that drew him to study materials.

First-year engineering students at Lehigh participate in a common curriculum, which includes a project-oriented course designed to introduce students to the many flavors of engineering. Students choose two projects to “test drive” the major. This year students will be designing and casting aluminum putter heads using the lost foam process. Open house department tours are held several times during the year, and of course, include stops at the microscopy station. As Chan says, “Microscopy is a big deal with us.”

In addition to a BS degree, there are three minor programs: nanotechnology, polymer science and engineering and mechanics of materials. Also offered is a five-year program that leads to a BS and a BA degree in the arts, and another five-year program leads to a BS and a master’s of education. Finally, an integrated and business engineering functions similar to an honors program.

In the upper years, there are two options for students to get hands-on experience. The industrial option give students a for-credit opportunity to work at a local company, and they function like part-time internships. A very popular option, it sometimes leads to a paid internship.

The research option is a for-credit opportunity for students to work in a professor’s lab. Students participate during the school year or over the summer, and many will register for research credit for several semesters, allowing them to see how a scientific investigation evolves.

Lehigh is also home to the NSF-sponsored International Materials Institute for New Functionality in Glass, which recently won a second five-year grant. Partnering with Penn State University, IMI conducts an REU program in the summer, and has been strongly engaged in sponsoring international research exchanges (see the September Bulletin), including some for undergrads.

Once students find their way to MSE—and about 30 per class do—they find themselves in a close-knit group. A highlight of the year is the annual winter banquet, where Marvel says “you learn a lot about the professors in an atmosphere that is not as formal.” Chan says there even have been several marriages between undergrads in the department.

The easy relationship between faculty and students extends into the community, too. The department has partnered with the local Da Vinci Science Center during their annual NanoDays event, which introduces elementary school students to nanotechnology. Faculty and students lead the youngsters in activities that get the idea of the nanoscale across in a way they can understand, like building human snowflakes, or building Lego towers while wearing oven mitts to show how hard it is to manipulate nanoscale objects with larger-scale tools.

Football season is liberally interpreted. “A lot of the faculty are from the UK, so we are also soccer people. Anytime there are big soccer events like the World Cup, we like to make an occasion of it in the department,” says Chan, who is herself from the UK.

To get the campus revved up for the game, the marching band traditionally brings their unique enthusiasm directly to the classroom, interrupting classes to play a few bars. Every Mountain Hawk touchdown is celebrated by shooting a cannon, a duty currently performed by an MSE student.

Of the 13 faculty in the department, those involved in ceramic and glass research include Chan, Martin Harmer, Himanshu Jain and Jeff Rickman. Harmer was the ACerS 2010 Sosman Lecturer.

The visitors
Yale University, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science

Prof. Schroer demonstrating induction melting of metallic glasses

Yale’s history is firmly planted in colonial times, but its vision is all about the future.

Yale College dates back to 1701 when it was established as a liberal arts college, “wherein Youth may be instructed in the Arts and Sciences [and] through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for Publick employment both in Church and Civil State.”

Today, the university maintains its liberal arts tradition, but has expanded over the years to offers students a wider range of academic options, including engineering. The department of mechanical engineering changed its name in 2010, adding materials science. At present, the department does not offer a degree in materials science; instead, students earn a mechanical engineering degree and can add a concentration in materials science.

The department’s name change, however, is an indicator of a much larger commitment to materials science that is being implemented in phases.

Since about 2002, the department has strategically expanded its faculty and hired several new professors, most with expertise in materials science. A recent $13 million NSF award for the Yale Center for Excellence for Materials Research and Innovation expands the materials footprint on the research side. And, the department is in the final stages of developing a curriculum that will lead to a BS in materials science and engineering. Director of undergraduate studies, Prof. Corey O’Hern, said he expects that “When we roll it out, it will strike a major chord”

Senior Bryn Pitt echoed O’Hern’s prediction in an email, paraphrasing his high school history teacher, “materials has to at least be your second favorite aspect of engineering because no matter what your favorite aspect is, it involves materials.”

The dual nature of the department was a perfect fit for senior Adam Verreault. Inspired by the idea that machines can improve the quality of life, he was drawn to alternative energy, knowing that society “would have to come up with smart ways to extract energy from other sources.” He says “I first became interested in materials science in while learning more about alternative energy, and in particular, solar energy technologies.”

Staying true to its origins, students are embedded in a liberal arts environment. O’Hern says students gain a “liberal arts education, and on top of that, significant engineering coursework.” Students tend to have very broad interests that expand beyond the technical. Junior Nick Demas says the liberal arts emphasis “allows me to look at a problem and its potential solution from many different perspectives, which is really how you get the best results.”

A tangible manifestation of the arts and sciences connection, the university is building an “idea incubator” on campus that will provide space and facilities for undergraduates to get their creative juices flowing. The incubator is sited at the intersection between the humanities and science sides of campus to emphasize the synergy between creativity, design, science, technology and art.

There is ample opportunity for hands-on experience, too. O’Hern explains that the department works to ensure that all undergrads have a research experience, especially during the summer. In his role, he helps students find faculty research mentors and helps guide students to fellowships and off-campus REUs.

Two student groups in the department give students a chance to exercise their engineering muscle. Relevant to materials science is the DROP Team, which participates in a NASA-sponsored gives student teams a chance to conduct research in microgravity on parabolic flights. Students interested in less dramatic flying may prefer to participate in the Yale Undergraduate Aerospace Association, which conducts experiments on payloads in the upper atmosphere using, for example, weather-related balloons.

Outside the classroom, “engineering majors are able to have rich extra-curricular lives,” says Verrault. For example, he took a short-term mission trip to East Asia that gave him the chance to “engage with students with a totally different world-view … This experience helped me to identify my most essential beliefs and taught me how to share those beliefs in a culturally relevant way.”

Gabe Fernandez, a senior and Yale right guard, will be sending plenty of messages of his own to the Lehigh football team on Saturday. Life as a student-athlete, he says, is “extremely hard” but worth it. “I enjoy the feeling you get when you know you’ve given it your all and come out victorious at the end of the day with your teammates (friends).”

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Mathematical simulation of silicate glass.

The International Commission on Glass has announced it is holding its third annual summer school event for new researchers in glass science and technology in Montpelier, France, July 4–8. The school’s program is specifically aimed at new Ph.D. students and others just starting research for the glass industry.

The ICG is still working on the final program, but the preliminary announcement says, “Each day will start
with a discussion of available measurement/simulation methodologies and their contribution to our understanding of glass structure, both on different length scales and for a broad spectrum of inorganic glass-forming systems. These lectures will underpin talks on properties and their structural dependence, e.g., optical behaviour, viscosity and aging, nucleation and crystallization.”

The commission says lectures will come from world-class experts. It also says there will be ample time for discussion of how these concepts can be applied to the student’s projects.

The key information to know for now is that pre-registration begins April 4, 2011 and the registration deadline  is June 1, 2011. I am not sure how accurate this is, but ICG says simple registration can be emailed here.

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Friday, April 16, is the last day to take advantage of the $100 early-registration for one of the top glass and optical materials conferences going on in the world in 2010. ACerS’ Glass & Optical Materials Division has organized a great program for May 16-20 in Corning, N.Y., that promises to cover all the best in science and technology coming out of industry, government labs and academia.

Organizers say the schedule of symposia will emphasize interdisciplinary studies incorporating physics, chemistry, materials science, mathematics and engineering.

Topics include:

• Glasses for energy and environmental applications.
• Glasses for medicine and biotechnology.
• Glass–ceramics.
• Optical materials.
• Super-high-strength glasses.
• Atomistic modeling.
• Melting and process modeling.
• Glass corrosion.
• Photoinduced structural change in glass.
  
• Topology and rigidity.
• Transition and Relaxation.
• Rheology.
  

The meeting web page has more information on registration fees, hotel rooms and preliminary program, plus details on related special workshops, short courses and Corning Glass Museum tours.

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I received some additional information about Carlo Pantano’s presentation on “The Art of Science of Glass” that will be held at 12 noon, March 26, 2010 at Penn State University.

Don’t expect a formal and technical lecture. Instead, Pantano’s presentation/conversation is part of Penn State’s ongoing “Unplugged” luncheon series that is modeled on the Café Scientifique concept that looks for opportunities to have an informal exchange between scientists and the public.

Here is what Pantano - who directs the Penn State Materials Research Institute – tells me he hopes to cover in his presentation:

“Historically, artists and scientists have been very successful collaborators. The glass artists in Italy gave Galileo his first glass lens. Archaeological stained glasses provide models for nuclear waste disposal. The Glass Flowers, which are precise, realistic models of plants, served as models for botanists at the turn of the century. Obsidian, a natural volcanic glass, first served stone age man for utilitarian purposes but progressed to be an artform. Today, both natural and synthetic glasses are widely used to create glass art. (Or, is it art glass?) Moreover, the materials and technology used to create the world-renowned glass art of Tagliapietra and Chihuly are as important to artists today as the samples of arts and craft glass were to the early scientists who made the first spectacles, thermometers, telescopes, batteries and vacuum chambers.

“Yet, we do not really educate across the art-science interface.

“In this conversation, I will describe these and other crossovers between the art and science of glass: glass manufacturing defects that inspire art; stained glass and photovoltaic solar art glass; glass art using a femtosecond laser; the increasing use of glass in architecture and medicine; and the broader impact of glass in our society. I will also describe our DaVinci glassblowing program at Penn State and our recent international excursion to bring artists, chemists and conservation scientists together at the graduate and professional level.

“My primary motivation for the DaVinci program at Penn State is to put real materials into the hands of undergraduate students in any discipline. A material they can make, study, control and be creative with. Glass art, especially glassblowing, familiarizes art students with scientific principles, materials and technology; for science and engineering students, it provides a sense of aesthetics and the importance of creating new ideas through association rather than simply deductive thinking. Artists and scientists may have different practical goals and approaches, but understanding and describing the nature of things is always at the root. Other motivations for the program are to heighten the interest of children and the public in science, and more generally, to introduce students to the real world of interdisciplinarity and the difficulties of communication therein.

The talk will take place in the Executive Room at the Penn State Conference Center Hotel. It is open to the public and includes a buffet luncheon. The event will begin at 12 noon, with the talk to begin at 12:15 p.m. to allow time for people to go through the buffet line. The cost is $8 per person for members of the Penn State Alumni Association and $12 per person for nonmembers. Reservations are required and can be made by contacting Marilyn Engle at mbengle@psu.edu or 814-863-8117. Payment will be accepted at the event by check made payable to Penn State. The deadline to make a reservation is Friday, March 12.

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