LehighWeek Volume 13, Issue 07

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Volume 13, Issue 7
LehighWeefc
The campus digest for innovation, news and events
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October 19,1999
Congress
approves $5
million for ATLSS
ship hull project
Lehigh has broadened its 40-year
research affiliation with the U.S.
Navy, thanks to a $5-million
grant to the ATLSS Research
Center that was included in the
Defense Appropriations bill recently passed by Congress.
The bill, which awaits President Clinton's signature, will
support continued research by
ATLSS (Advanced Technology for
Large Structural Systems) into
the Navy's Fleet of the Future,
the centerpiece of which is the
double-hulled warship.
The annual Defense Appropriations bill finances the Department of Defense and defense-related research projects
nationwide. The announcement
of its approval was made at a
press conference on Monday, Oct.
. 18, by U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey, R-
Pa., who requested the $5-million
grant for ATLSS.
"Lehigh's research into
double-hulled ships has been
recognized internationally as a
superior first-class program,"
Toomey said. "The expected funds
will help the program continue
research that could lead to significantly lower procurement and
operations cost in the future."
ATLSS received nearly $5 million from the Defense Department in 1991 for research and
development related to the Fleet
of the Future. Researchers have
since verified that the double hulls
were more resistant to the impacts
associated with sea storms and
combat than the single hulls of
conventional ships.
Researchers also developed
new materials, design methods
and manufacturing technologies
for Navy ships, including computer models for a design composed of hollowed segments and
development of a new, low-cost,
low-alloy steel.
In 1998, ATLSS received $1.1
million from the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock
Division, in Maryland, to conduct
tests on a half-size cross-section
of a ship hull to determine the
viability of a fiber-reinforced
polymer composite material.
The latest funding, combined
with state and university money,
will support research into advanced, non-magnetic, stainless
steel, double hulls, and will enable
scientists to investigate the structural behavior of life-sized models
under varying degrees of stress.
ATLSS's three-walled, 100-
foot-long, 50-foot-tall multi-directional experimental laboratory for testing prototype structures is the largest facility of its
kind in North America.
Air Products offers new scholarships
Lorna Hunter, dean of admissions and financial aid, and
Harold A. Wagner, chairman of
the board and CEO of Air Products and Chemicals Inc. and
member of the Lehigh Board of
Trustees, announced a scholarship program that will award four
Lehigh freshmen each year a
$5,000 scholarship.
"This is what happens when
people of like minds come together," said Hunter.
This is not the first collaboration between Lehigh and the
Trexlertown-based corporation.
The partnership started in the
1950s when Air Products helped
Lehigh strengthen its chemical engineering graduate program. This
grew and in the early 1980s, the
Carl R. Anderson professorship
was established at Lehigh. The
chair is named for one of Air Products first three employees, and is
currently held by John Chen, dean
of the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science. The
corporation now has 11 Lehigh
Ph.D's and 500 alumni among its
17,000 employees worldwide.
"Air Products' relationship
with Lehigh is a prime example
of the synergistic relationship
that can be developed between
corporate and academic partners
who share technical interests
and goals," said Wagner.
Photo by RobUpton
Hap Wagner, chairman and CEO of Air Products and Chemicals Inc., unveils a new scholarship program for Lehigh freshmen. Students seated, front row left to right: Rachel Goodman,
Leslie Ann Bauer, Melody Lester, and Stephanie Menjivar.
The four recipients of the
new scholarship this year are
Leslie Ann Bauer, Rachel T.
Goodman, Melody R. Lester
and Stephanie Menjivar.
James W. Brockington, director
of university relations with Air
Products, says four students
will be added per year, so that
16 will be involved in the program by the time this year's
group are seniors. He said Air
Products employees would mentor the scholars.
Lehigh President Gregory
Farrington said the experience
"should be extremely powerful"
for the students.
"Receiving he scholarship
helped me decide between
Lehigh and Cornell," said
Goodman. "It helps to make the
school a more personal place."
Menjivar said, "It is a wonderful opportunity to meet students
with similar interests. I feel privileged to receive the award. "
-Jeffrey Bachman
Engineering in the real world:
Checking boiler ops in a heat wave
Even in the middle of a heat
wave, the air in Massachusetts
last July felt cool to Mathew
Christman '00 and Aaron
Mengel '00 after they had inspected the massive, box-shaped
boilers of Unit 3 of the Brayton
Point Power Plant in Fall River.
"It had to be 150 degrees up
there," says Christman. "The
fire inside the boilers was enormous. We wore special white
suits to keep the grime out, and
we wore ice vests with racks of
frozen-gel packs. Even still, we
could only stay up there for 30
seconds at a time."
The mechanical engineering
majors spent one month working at the power plant through a
summer internship with the Energy Research Center, whose scientists are conducting research
at the plant.
The students' task was to
help plant operators generate as
much power as possible while
minimizing, or reducing, emissions of nitrogen-oxide (NOx), a
pollutant that causes acid rain.
Achieving those two goals can
be complicated, the students
said. The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) sets
limits on the amount of NO that
plants may release and imposes
fines for exceeding the limits.
With a boost from Boiler OP,
a software program for combustion optimization that was developed by scientists at the ERC
and the Potomac Electric Power
Co. (PEPCO), Christman and
Mengel said, the ERC has already helped Brayton cut NOx
emissions by more than a third.
The students tested a simple
and inexpensive method of reduc
ing NOx by regulating boiler
cleanliness through the activation of large air jets called
sootblowers. These are located in
areas of the furnace that are susceptible to the buildup of combustion-related residue, or slag.
The plant contains 70
sootblowers, each of which must
be tested individually for two
one-hour periods to determine,
Please See BOILER, Page 3
Photo Courtesy of the Energy Research Center
Mat Christman '00 checks out the boilers of the Brayton Point
Power Plant in Fall River, Mass., where he and Aaron Mengel
'00 worked one month last summer as part of an internship
with the Energy Research Center.
Sasaki planners
update campus
Labs and classrooms are of uneven quality, and academic and
residential buildings are isolated from each other, according
to the findings of a consultant
that is helping the university
draft a new campus master plan.
Sasaki, the consulting firm,
met with faculty, staff, students
and community members Oct. 13
and 14 to discuss the year-long
planning endeavor.
The three stages of the process, Sasaki said, are- to do an
inventory and analysis of space
(the current phase), to develop
alternative proposals, and to
draft the campus master plan.
The goal is to create an overall
campus plan that benefits Lehigh
and the surrounding community.
At an open meeting with faculty and staff, Sasaki reviewed
its findings and discussed possible conceptual directions for a
campus plan. The consultant
discussed historic land use patterns on the campus and in surrounding neighborhoods, the
quality of existing buildings, and
circulation systems for pedestrians, cars and shuttle buses.
Concentrating most of the student housing on the hill above the
academic buildings instead of
interspersing them among each
other has resulted in a split campus, Sasaki said. The
Mountaintop Campus is alive
from 4 to 10 p.m., the Asa Packer
Campus during the day, and the
residential area after 4 p.m.
through the night. The consultants said Packer Avenue is "deserted" in the evening, while the
area above the University Center is "jumping."
While statistics show Lehigh
has plenty of classrooms and
laboratory space, the consultants
found after touring the rooms
that malry classrooms are poor.
Many lecture halls do not have
working technology for pedagogical purposes and those that do are
"fought over" at scheduling time.
"The scarcity and/or disrepair
. of audiovisual technology is the
number-one complaint by the
faculty," said the draft report. In
addition, "the technology budget
does not allow for repair or replacement" of stolen or broken
equipment.
"Lack of air conditioning and
poor control of temperature and
ventilation" prevents scheduling
of some classrooms during the
warmer months and is also the
number-one complaint of students, who also lament poor
lighting and uncomfortable, overcrowded seating with poor writing surfaces. The team members
suggested that some poor classrooms, such as those in Christmas-Saucon, should be converted
to other uses such as faculty of-
Please See PLAN, Page 3
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