Hey, it's me Destin welcome back to Smarter Every Day. Here's the deal Um, I'm in a super weird place in life right. I've got four kids. I'm an engineer. I've got this YouTube thing I give talks, but my channel name is Smarter Every Day I've been wanting to go back and get a PhD for years, but it's never felt right. It feels right now. I met a guy; his name is Dr. Kavan Hazeli. We click, we're on the same wavelength I'm going to get a PhD and there's more to it than that. Dr. Hazeli applied for a National Science Foundation grant. Over a five-year period, he's got a million bucks And he's asked me if I'd come work with him as a part of my PhD I could help work with transfer students for research, and the research is incredible. Like that's the thing about the University of Alabama in Huntsville, right? This is a school located right next to Marshall Space Flight Center. You got all these army organizations nearby. There is a ton of Research that happens at UAH so here's the deal. In this video I'm going to show you three research programs that are actively looking for undergraduate transfer students. Topic number one 3D lattice structures printed by NASA. We're testing the strength. Check out. Dr. Hazeli's lab. I'm about to film Dr.Hazeli when he doesn't expect it Dr. Hazeli
Hey Okay, so so this is doctor Hazeli and he's in charge of the lab here It's... what what do we call this? It's the so what we do here basically, we are we are learning about material behavior, so we try to understand how materials reacts with different environments could be impacts could be loading could be just cycling the materials and The entire idea is learned from the material behavior and in for manufacturing so Dr. Hazeli showed me this and he's like "are you interested in getting a PhD," and I said Yes Because what do you call this so we call them lattices structures. Basically we remove the mass from materials by carefully printing them out so the idea behind them is make the matter as light yet strong Enough to withstand a lot of pressure and lots of different environments So we have this set of the topology which was given to us by NASA Our ultimate goal is to optimize the topology Which one is strongest? For quasi-static compression test Octet Truss is the strongest one What what about for impact, is it different? We haven't tried here, so we wanted to do it today maybe Is it possible that impact is different and quasi static yes, possible
why? Because the mechanisms by which material deform at highest strain rate is different than quasi-static Okay, Andrew is about to do this first shot and it's a dodecahedron, right? Yes, right Dodecahedron. So the way this works is there's this large piston over there? He pressurizes the piston, slams it into this long rod This rod is going to impact the sample right there So you can get the input and output energy of this impact and you can see how much energy that particular sample absorbed Three-two-one Three-two-one So it got squished Is it like, perfectly flat? Yes
Let me see Wait nuh-uh And it's hot!
It's hot? Yeah, you cannot dissipate a lot of heat when deformation is very fast so that amount of pressure stored in the material. This was very hot So it's hot right now?
Yeah
Can I feel it? Oh, it sure is It sure is so that was dodecahedron
right
What are you going to do next? So the next is a rhombic dodecahedron sweet? Let's do it. This is a big deal like everybody knows you can 3D print metals But this problem is very difficult. For example stress equals force divided by area, but what is the cross-sectional area? Do you treat it like a bolt material? Do you measure the cross-section of each individual leg on the topology? What is the angle, how does it matter blah blah blah, there's a ton of stuff We're measuring the overall strain of the material. We're acquitting that to a stress This is the future of metal. Like we are figuring out how to work as humans with 3D printed structures and is fantastic. So that's one option for research. Another one is Dr. Gabe Xu who's working at the plasma Electrodynamic research lab. This is incredible stuff.
Okay, so Dr. Xu is... just.. I mean I like walk in the room and He's showing me an ion thruster. That's how it rolls here. The planned use is eventually, we want to develop it for small satellites, Cube sets 1U, maybe not 1U, say 3U or 9U Cube Sats A lot of them have orbit maneuvering capabilities So what kind of ISP, would you see from something like this? I mean I've played a little bit of Kerbal Space Program [laughs] For very small ones like these, ISP, you may be looking at it. I'll say like a thousand seconds Whoa Those are startup transients
Startup transients? Are you not entertained?! I walk in and the man's firing an ion thruster And he's like, "oh whatever, just startup transient. It's not a big deal." What?! What's hap- Dr. Xu just made it work like MacGyver, only ion propulsion. Is that pretty much what happened? like MacGyver? [scoff] MacGyver you know oh come on just embrace it [laughs] So there is a electromag.. electromagnet wrapped around the thruster, which, without it turned on [...?...] Generate a magnetic field inside to trap the electrons to reduce the electron currents of the anode basically So we're trying to control the amount of current that the anode is seeing really? So is, is thrust directly proportional with current? thrust is propor... [waves hands] kind of It's is proportional to the acceleration voltage, and how many ions come out which you can sort of say is current? Aaand it just died
[Laughs] So to be clear dr. Xu is interested in getting research assistants at the undergrad level Which would be what these students are doing here, so they can basically come work with you and develop ion propulsion yeah, we've got different propulsion plasma projects That's awesome I know right? Is that awesome or what? Okay, the last lab. I've actually featured this on Smarter Every Day in the past It's called the atom lab. They are researching How butterfly wings work and they're doing it with these really cool cameras that can calculate the position of a butterfly wing just by putting a reflector on his wing when he flies. okay, I'm in the atom lab with Dr. Kang and you get to do some pretty cool stuff with butterflies, right? mm hmm
What do you do? so we are interested in butterfly flights or in particular, the monarch butterflies Because they are known for their migration distance, which is the longest among insects. no one really understands how they are able to make that distance which can be as long as 4,000 kilometers, so we are trying to understand their aerodynamic mechanisms and to apply that to develop bio-inspired micro air vehicles these cameras emit infrared rays which will reflect off of these markers and we can treat those markers When we have a bunch of cameras, we can triangulate those markers to one position in space You can study the motion or the kinematics of the butterfly and the way it flaps
so this is the CFD Simulation and here we are seeing the work the [?] activities that the wing is producing will interact The fluid around it
so is that is that a vortex that you're showing us?
That is, that is a vortex. those are three-dimensional shapes of the vortex around the wing. So you're modeling vortex shedding
yes
using computational fluid dynamics
exactly
and retro-reflective imagery from actual
yes
biological specimens
yes, yes, that's where we are going, towards that, yeah And the whole point is to make a micro air vehicle or at least study the efficiency of The butterfly so that we can understand how to apply that toward of micro air vehicle
The possibility of actually using it to do, cool things That's rad!
This flapper is hooked up to a force transducer at the bottom and this measures the force produced by the flapper and we can see the forces in our software which is directly connected to the force transducer [Mechanical flapping noises] So lets do a...
I don't know why that's so exciting but it It reminds me of those birds. You remember the old birds that you could wind up and throw?
yeah, and then they fly, yeah You're trying to figure out by flapping modes how a butterfly steers I'm trying to get the communication between The flapper and our transmitters
She's trying to develop our remote controller so that she can control something like this
are you doing this?
Yes
This looks like electrical engineering [laughs] A Little bit
Really? So, that's awesome! What year are you
I'm a junior
Really? Are you gonna be a grad student? I am going to grad school, yes. So the whole, the whole point of this whole program Dr. Hazeli is Undergrads can come in and they can work with you on the matrix stuff the squishing Structure, designing the light structure material, for impact situation
And it's that's probably what I'm working on
Exactly Yeah, and so and then there's also the ion propulsion and plasma.
That's true and also we have the project about supersonic wind tunnel with the Prof. Ligrani and you have already discussed about Dr. Xu now
and also here in the atom lab Students come to the program. They have opportunity to interact with the more senior students and also the professors or to get some hands-on experience About the active research which is important for education and the government This is a big deal, so if you want to check this out You can go to -- you made a website, didn't you?
We did. matrix.uah.edu
matrix.uah.edu
yes that's right you can check it out, work with me work with Dr. Hazeli, work with butterfly wings big deal! I'm excited about this
so go to the website matrix.uah.edu and apply and and who is it for? It's for transfer students?
for transfer students basically They get to pay for their education through the NSF money we have, and in return They need to improve their GPA and be involved with the research So it's not for free. You actually have to work hard and do a good job Well, they don't have to but if they need to stay in the program...
[laughs] so yeah you gotta work harder So is that what you're thinking, Dr. Kang? Yeah, okay, cool anyway matrix.uah.edu. That's an NSF grant That doctor Hazeli is leading up, and I'm working on so go check it out. Thanks bye
Wow Destin, I'm really excited to hear you are going to get a PhD! Will you be starting this Fall and how will it affect your upload frequency and and your job?
I'm actually beginning my PhD in mechanical engineering in September. I started watching your videos while I was in high school and I can definitely say that you have played a role in my decision to get a PhD. Your fascination with the natural world is infectious, and your enthusiasm has kept me motivated at times when I've questioned whether I'm cut out for academia.
Good luck to the both of us!
Engineers that get to work in the physical do some of the coolest stuff. Hard to be as impressive in the digital domain
Woohoo Destin, that's right my field! I am finishing my PhD on small Hall thrusters and I have started experimenting with additive manufacturing for them. I saw prof Xu in Atlanta last Fall. Funny how small the world can be.
nice quote at the end
What was the plasma-stream looking experiment at 9:30?
Also, good luck!
Wow nice dmls prints! Extremely fascinating stuff they are doing. I wish I could go back to school for additive manufacturing but alas no money. Would love to see more on dmls as it's a really cool process. I own a 3d printing service bureau so learning as much about the industry as possible is my goal :)
That and I already have a master's degree so I don't think I'd qualify :(
He is going to become the arch nemesis of Dr. Doom
Hey! I work with resin 3D printers, those lattices are fantastic! How did they design them? Iād love to find (or make) stuff like that
You may be interested in this as it seems related to your new subject area: https://cen.acs.org/materials/polymers/Polymers-composites-made-incredibly-cheaply/96/i20
Researchers have found a way to create industrially important thermoset polymer and fiber-reinforced polymer composite products at considerably lower expense than has been possible before.