RAPID Institute
Principal Investigator: Brian Paul, Tom and Carmen West Faculty Scholar, Professor of Manufacturing Engineering and lead of the Modular Manufacturing Focus Area within the RAPID Institute
Research focus: Process intensification; arrayed microfluidics for green nanosynthesis; microreactor-assisted materials processing; precision bonding for microsystem packaging and ackaging of arrayed microfluidic systems for distributed and portable energy, chemical, and biomedical applications
Current work: RAPID Institute—Modular Manufacturing Focus Area

 

 

Advanced Sensing and Metrology
Principal Investigator: Zhaoyan Fan, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, School of Mechanical Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Research focus: Model-enhanced sensor design and characterization for in-situ monitoring of manufacturing processes, energy-efficient sensor networks, and MEMS-enabled sensor miniaturization and packaging.
Current work:

  • Model-enhanced sensor design for in-situ process monitoring
  • Energy consumption monitoring and clean energy manufacturing
  • Additive manufacturing process monitoring

 

 

Industrial Sustainability
Principal Investigator: Karl Haapala, Associate Professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, School of Mechanical Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Research focus: Sustainable design and manufacturing, including life cycle engineering, manufacturing process modeling for environmental performance improvement, and evaluation of novel approaches for environmental impact reduction
Current work:

  • Sustainable design, sustainable manufacturing, and life cycle engineering
  • Manufacturing process modeling for environmental performance improvement
  • Applications of advanced manufacturing technologies for sustainability assessment
  • Analysis of energy systems and energy, material, and product supply chains

Other activities: The Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CESMII) is a partnership with industry and other universities that positions OSU to significantly expand its outreach and collaboration with Pacific Northwest business and industry, helping to save energy, waste less, create jobs, and become more internationally competitive. OSU’s CESMII efforts are led by Professor Haapala.

 

 

Chemical Engineering
Principal Investigator: Goran Jovanovic, Professor of Chemical Engineering, School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering
Research focus: Microchannel chemical process design and development; microreactors and micro-separation unit operations design and development; development of microscale-based biomedical devices; process intensification for renewable fuels and chemicals
Current work:

  • Microscale chemical reactors and separators suitable for the development of microscale based chemical processes
  • Microscale biosensors devices
  • Zero gravity-compatible chemical processes for long space missions
  • Environmental microreactors for in situ deployment

 

 

Powder Metallurgy and Additive Manufacturing (PMAM) 
Principal Investigator: Somayeh Pasebani, Assistant Professor of Advanced Manufacturing, School of Mechanical Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Research focus: Powder metallurgy and advanced sintering—high temperature alloys, ceramic-reinforced metal matrix composites, aerospace and energy materials via advanced manufacturing.
Current work:

  • Fuel cladding materials (Gen IV) by mechanical alloying and spark plasma sintering
  • Genetic algorithm for designing Nickel-based super alloys
  • Alloy design and water atomizing manufacturing of metal powders for additive manufacturing

 

 

Manufacturing Process Control
Principal Investigator: Burak Sencer, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, School of Mechanical Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Research focus: Precision motion control, and optimal trajectory generation for multi-axis machine tools, and intelligent machining process control.
Current work:

  • Process planning and control for Hybrid Additive-Subtractive Manufacturing (HASM)
  • Metal cutting process modeling, control and optimization
  • Machine tool dynamics and control
  • Manufacturing process automation

 

 

Nuclear Materials and Metallurgy
Principal Investigator: Julie Tucker, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, School of Mechanical Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Research focus: Thermal/irradiation stability of structural alloys used in nuclear power systems and leverages both modeling and experimental techniques
Current work:

  • Next-generation materials and devices
  • Materials process development

 

 

Additive Manufacturing for Microwave and Applied Electromagnetics Application
Principal Investigator: Tom Weller, Professor of Electrical Engineering, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Research focus: Laser-assisted direct print additive manufacturing of microwave electronics, packaging and antenna systems
Current work:

  • Reconfigurable electronics packaging using additive manufactured micro electromechanical systems
  • Direct print additive manufacturing of optical interconnects
  • Three-dimensional, zero-power high efficiency microwave passive sensor nodes