Category: News

Dr. Endel Iarve, Director, Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies and Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, hosted a three-day workshop for government, academia, and industry supporting aerospace defense projects. The annual workshop is between Australia, Japan, and US DoD. It is devoted to recent advances in the modeling and testing of advanced composite materials. Dr. Iarve’s presentation was focused on BSAM Advancements and BSAM fatigue Modeling Developments.

The Texas Legislative Budget Board (LBB) visited UTARI as part of a tour of UTA and UTD. UTARI’s focus was on automation and unmanned systems. The Automation and Intelligent Systems Division gave demonstrations of unmanned aerial systems, unmanned ground vehicles, as well as AR/VR. UTARI’s research in these areas serves the department of defense, first responders, federal and state agencies, as well as industry and the public sector.

The LBB is a permanent joint committee of the Texas Legislature that develops budget and policy recommendations for legislative appropriations, completes fiscal analyses for proposed legislation, and conducts evaluations and reviews to improve the efficiency and performance of state and local operations.

Dr. Muthu Wijesundara, Principal Research Scientist and Head of the Biomedical Technologies Division was inducted into the NAI as a senior member on June 14, 2022, at the Academy’s annual meeting in Phoenix. Welcome remarks were delivered by UTA’s new President, Dr. Jennifer Cowley, and the awards presentation was delivered by Paul Rosenthal with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The NAI was founded in 2010 to recognize and encourage inventors with patents issued from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, enhance the visibility of academic technology and innovation, encourage the disclosure of intellectual property, educate and mentor innovative students, and translate the inventions of its members to benefit society.

UTRAI is pleased to announce Dr. Muthu Ram Prabhu Elenchezhian (an alumnus of MAE and IPPM-UTARI) as a finalist award winner in the SAMPE 2022 Young Professionals Emerging Leadership Award. The award recognizes the achievements of young professionals (who have graduated from university and are also under the age of 35) by sending application finalists to the SAMPE North America technical conference and exhibition to network with peers and industry professionals, and to increase their understanding of the materials and process community.

Elenchezhian graduated with his M.S (2017) and Ph.D., (2021) in Aerospace Engineering, from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington. During his time at UTA, he was an active graduate researcher at the Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies, University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute. His research work focused on developing prognostics methods for life prediction in composites, using broadband dielectric spectroscopy and artificial intelligence methods. He is also the founding president for the SAMPE Student Chapter at UT Arlington.

“I am thankful to MAE for introducing me to the SAMPE DFW Chapter meetings through their weekly emails in 2016, and UTARI IPPM, Dr. Reifsnider and Dr. Raihan for constantly supporting me to attend the SAMPE and CAMX conference and events held nationally,” Elenchezhian said. “SAMPE has been a wonderful opportunity, for networking and career development, to share thoughts with like-minded persons in the field of materials science and research.”

“Dr. Muthu Ram Prabhu Elenchezhian has set a high standard for innovation and creativity in advancing material and process engineering,” said Jerome Berg, President of SAMPE. “This award is a testament to the skill, dedication, and professionalism of its creators.”

“Dr. Muthu Elenchezhian regularly exemplifies the highest standards of professionalism,” said Dr. Raihan “so it pleases me to no end to know that the industry also recognizes him. He was the founding president of UTA SAMPE student chapter and contributed in many outreach program during his tenure as a graduate research assistant of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department and Institute of Predictive Performance Methodologies at UTARI. Muthu is going to play an integral role in setting the standard for the future of our industry.”

“Muthu is a top-level scientist who has made, and continues to make, critical research advances with national and global significance for composite material systems as well as a Young Professional with leadership qualities, who actively participates and contributes to the materials society,” said Dr. Kenneth Reifsnider, NAE, Presidential Distinguished Professor, and Elenchezhian’s Ph.D., Advisor, “I think he will be a leader in science and engineering, like his excellent leadership as a student”.

Dr. Frank Lewis has been ranked 19 in the world for top electronics and electrical engineering scientists. This 8th edition of top scientists ranking for electronics and electrical engineering was published by Research.com, one of the major websites for electrical engineering research offering credible data on scientific contributions since 2014.

The top scientists ranking is a reliable list of leading scientists from the area of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, based on a meticulous examination of 166,880 scientists on Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Graph. For the discipline of electronics and electrical engineering, over 4,838 profiles were examined.

On Thursday, April 21, UTARI hosted UTA’s Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) Student Chapter and SAMPE DFW seminar on new innovations for composite repairs. Speakers included Louis Dorworth from Abaris Training Resources and Ray Cornell from Henkle. The discussion was on composite repair best practices, latest trends, developments, and challenges in the area of composites repair. Representatives from UNT, Tarleton State, Bell, Henkel and Abaris were in attendance.

SAMPE is a global professional member society that provides enhanced educational opportunities, by delivering information on new and advanced materials and processing technology. SAMPE provides growth and educational opportunities via conferences, exhibitions, technical forums, and publications. As the only technical society encompassing all fields of endeavor in materials and processes, SAMPE provides a unique and valuable forum for scientists, engineers, and academicians. SAMPE North America is a regional subsidiary of SAMPE that serves Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

Dr. Xin Liu’s, Assistant Professor, Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Department, team won first place in Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) at Innovation Day 2022. The winning project is “Design and Manufacturing of Ultralight Lattice Metamaterials Inspired by Nature”. Dr. Liu’s team includes UTARI research assistants, Noor Alyasiri, Clay Gifford, and Abhimanyu P Patel.

The material properties of beam lattice metamaterials are highly customizable by tailoring beam connections (i.e., topology), showing promising properties in many engineering areas. “We are looking for a different path to improve material performance.” Dr. Liu says. “Leverage on multiscale modeling, machine learning, and additive manufacturing, we are exploring the potential benefits of design and fabrication of individual beams with unconventional cross-sectional shapes. This will bring tremendous opportunities to further improve material stiffness, strength, and energy absorption with a reduced weight.”  This undergraduate project designed a bio-inspired beam cross-section with a much-improved beam bending stiffness and the results will be further applied to understand the deformation and failure of the metamaterials with irregular beam cross-sections.

Innovation Day celebrates and showcases the innovative, transformative research and undergraduate capstone projects being done by College of Engineering students. In addition to showcasing the outstanding work of student researchers, the event is an opportunity for industry and the community to become more involved and aware of the quality of UTA’s engineering students as they prepare to enter the workforce.

Army Major General Darren Werner met with researchers from the Autonomous & Intelligent Systems Division, the Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies, and faculty from UTA main campus. MG Werner received demonstrations of UTARI projects and technologies, many which are Department of Defense related.

MG Werner is the Commanding General, U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, Army Materiel Command. The command employs thousands of people worldwide and oversees an annual budget of $30 billion. In addition to the command staff at the headquarters located at the Detroit Arsenal, MG Werner oversees activities at the Integrated Logistics Support Center, four depots, two arsenals, the Army’s ground equipment supply chain, life cycle management, and sustainment efforts affecting active-duty Army units around the world.

The University of Texas at Arlington is a gold-level sponsor for the newly opened Biolabs at Pegasus Park, a state-of-the-art co-working facility for biotech startups. The entire story here.

NBC 5 interviewed Dr. Muthu Wijesundara regarding his show insole that assists with preventing diabetic foot ulcers. Watch the interview here.