Philadelphia Section Newsletter

November 2002 www.asme.org/sections/philadelphia

Chair’s Letter

Our first scheduled activity – a tour of the Battleship New Jersey – was held on Sept 18. This very memorable event, coordinated through the AICHE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers), drew over 400 participants. The evening began with guided tours of the battleship, followed by some socializing time and dinner. After dinner, Paul Brochu of Valero Refining presented a talk on the business side of the Petrochemical industry. Many thanks to Richard Kral of AICHE for his efforts in coordinating this event!

Here are the next events on our schedule:

On October 8, Ernie Stadler of B. Braun Biotech Inc. presented a discussion on Bioreactor and Fermentor Design (at Villanova)

On November 5, we will have a presentation by Brian Sullivan on composite control surfaces for aircraft. This will be a joint meeting with the AIAA (at Villanova)

Future events will be announced as they are 'solidified'. We are always looking for new ideas for section events, tours etc. If you have a suggestion, please let me know.

On October 3, we held our annual Student Section Meeting at Swarthmore College. This meeting allows the nine student sections within the senior section to present the activities that they are working on. Also, it is an opportunity to discuss the ways that the senior section can support the student sections. In addition, the students find this meeting to be a great networking opportunity. Believe it or not, the concerns of one student section may be similar to that of another.

Activities presented by the students include: -Building a Battle Bot and entering it into competition. Students also help to -coordinate design competitions at local high schools. Thanks to the student sections for their presentations!

K-12 STUDENT AWARENESS OF ENGINEERING:

Some would agree that Kindergarten through 12^th grade student awareness of engineering could use some improvement. Sure, the students take math and science classes, but are they being introduced to 'design' skills? For example, are they learning how to apply the concepts they have learned to solve 'real life' problems?

Some characteristics of these real life problems include: being presented with incomplete information, having limited materials to work with, having to meet strict time and cost constraints, dealing with ever-changing customer requirements, etc. The job of the engineer is to come up with A solution (maybe not the only one), that meets the requirements. This creative process gives the engineer the freedom to explore his or her ideas… to try something and see if it works. If it doesn't, then try something else.

Some feel that the tremendous creativity and imagination that a child is born with begins to disappear as that child progresses through school. While it is important that concepts such as discipline and organization be woven throughout the coursework, it is equally important that the freedoms to explore, experiment, try, fail, and try again, are freedoms that should be kept alive as well.

Granted, engineers take many high level courses in math, physics, chemistry, electronics, etc. in order to have a substantial toolbox to use for solving problems. However, many of the creative design skills can still be taught to K-12 students who have not had such high level courses.

For example:

Some schools have held design contests to challenge the students to build a bridge from a given bundle of balsa wood. The bridges are then tested to failure, and the weight required to collapse them is measured. This exercise allows the students to directly see the effectiveness of the various design solutions. They learn not only from their own successes and failures, but from those of the other students as well. This is just one example of an exercise that can really get the creative juices flowing.

Obviously, it is not realistic to think that we are going make every student into an engineer. However, we can and should strive to give the students an awareness of the fun, challenging, and creative aspects of engineering, so they can make an informed decision as to their future career.

The challenge is to figure out how to get this information into schools – schools which are already very densely packed with the current coursework.

I invite your thoughts on this.

Jim Tully

November Meeting

Joint Meeting with AIAA

Light Dinner and Speaker

Design of Composite Control Surfaces

For Advanced Military Aircraft

Speaker: Brian Sullivan

Tuesday, November 5, 2002

See page 2 and 4 for details

Internet Access

If you would like to read the section newsletter on the web, contact the editor. Postage rates are about to go up again. Even using Pre-Sorted First Class rates, it now costs about 20 cents to mail each newsletter and post card. It does not sound like much but with over 2000 members in the section, it quickly mounts up.

By using the Internet to read and print the newsletter, you can help us reduce our mailing costs. We are asking each member to decide on the method of receiving the newsletter. Of course, we could just send an email notice to members and let it go at that. But it is necessary to make sure that each member is notified of section events and other information. Some of our members do not have email and others would prefer to receive the newsletter by mail. For these reasons we are asking that those who are willing to get the newsletter on the Internet, take the positive step of notifying us. Please contact the newsletter editor if you would like to read the newsletter on the Internet. You can read this issue at www.asme.org/sections/philadelphia/nov02.html.

A number of members have written, saying that they are willing to forgo the newsletter to help us save postage. These members are retired and are not active in the section. It is not our intent to cut off members just to save a small amount of postage and we will continue to send the newsletter to all our members. We certainly want to maintain contact with all section members. But if the Internet method makes sense for you, let us know.

Philadelphia Section Officers 2002/03

Chair – Jim Tully

(215) 256 5536

jtully5@aol.com

Vice Chair – Anastas Lazaradis

(610) 499 4192

anastas.lazaridis@widener.edu

Secretary – John Chen

(856) 256 5345

jchen@rowan.edu

Treasurer - Fred Willis

(856) 256 5345

fwillis@net-gate.com

Senior Director – Lou Fendo

(610) 595 2369

louis.fendo@exeloncorp.com

Junior Director – Open

News Letter Editor - John Wolf

(856) 795 1379

73211.3452@compuserve.com

Please send letters and comments to the Editor. Letters will be published unless otherwise requested depending on space limitations.

ASME Puzzler

Do you have a puzzler which we can publish in the newsletter. If so, send it to the editor. It doesn’t have to be directly related to engineering but it should have some scientific, engineering or business connection.

Last issues solution:

The last puzzler asked what was the difference between lime mortar and hydraulic cement or cement which will set under water?

Limestone is heated to make lime (CaO). Lime mortar is made from lime with the addition of water. As the lime mortar dries, the mortar turns back into limestone. The mortar will not set under water since the process requires the mortar to actually dry. The water must evaporate. Limestone reforms during the evaporation process as the mortar recombines with carbon dioxide in the air.

Hydraulic cement is obtained from limestone deposits which also contain clay in the form of aluminum oxide, silicon oxides and other mineral oxides. As this mixture is heated in a kiln, complex oxides are formed. When water is added to these oxides, hydrates are formed which are hard when the hydration process is completed.

A typical chemical reaction is as follows:

Ca₃Al₂O₆ + 6 H₂O à Ca₃Al₂(OH)₁₂

The cement appears to dry but the water is actually forming a hydrate. The chemistry of cement and concrete has developed over the years to where it is possible to design the properties of the final concrete structure. High purity materials can be combined in such a way to produce a wide variety of materials with varied physical properties.

November presentation

Brian Sullivan, the speaker for our November meeting, graduated from Villanova University in 1974 with a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering. In 1974, he received a M.S. in Structural Engineering from the U of P and then received a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics in 1979, also from the U of P. His career has taken him to the Franklin Institute Research Labs (1979-1983), General Electric Re-entry Systems Operations of the Space Sciences Division (1983-1985), the Materials Sciences Corporation (1985-1992), and MSNW, Inc. (1992-1996).  In 1996, he co-founded Materials Research & Design, Inc., a small company primarily involved in the design of composite materials and structures for aircraft and spacecraft.  Also, from 1977 to the present, he have been an adjunct faculty member of the Mechanical Engineering Department of Villanova University and from 1979-1985 he was an adjunct faculty member of the Computer Engineering and Systems Engineering Departments at the University of Pennsylvania.

His presentation will be on design of composite control surfaces for advanced military aircraft. See page 4 for more details and directions.

Practical Optics for Engineers and Scientists

Instructor: Wallace Latimer (Director, Custom Products, Edmund Optics)

Course Time: Successive Mondays, Dec. 2 and Dec. 9, 2002 8:00 AM-4:00 PM

Location: Temple University Fort Washington Campus - 401 Commerce Drive - Fort Washington, PA 19034.
For map of location visit: www.temple.edu/cjtp/ftwashington.htm

To Register: Complete and return the registration form below. Questions? Call (215) 564-2085.

Recommended text (not included in course tuition): Optical Engineering Fundamentals by Bruce H. Walker

Background Required: Basic knowledge of college math and physics at the sophomore level

Course Objectives:

• Introduction to EM energy including the optical and visible spectrum and refractive index.
• Basics of geometric optics including lens properties, stops, powers, and ray tracing.
• Compound Lens systems, mirrors, and prisms
• Basics of optical instruments including the human eye, the eyepiece, microscope, telescope, camera lens, borescopes and endoscopes
• Discuss the various types of lens aberrations including color, spherical, coma, astigmatism, and distortion
• Introduction to different types of optical materials including optical glass, optical plastics, IR materials.
• Teach the basics of optical coating, polarization, and interference
• Basics of Machine Vision including Camera, Lens, and Illumination configurations.
• Examples of Optical Solutions. Component Inspections, Process Control, Optical Sensors.
• Basic Optical Tolerance trade off’s for specification vs. price.

There will be a number of in-class exercises and demonstrations with a homework assignment designed to give the student a practical feel for working with lens systems. A few of these designs will be bread boarded in class using common lenses.

Wallace Latimer is Director of the Custom Products Group at Edmund Optics. He has a BS in Optical Engineering from the University of Arizona and has over 12 years experience in the Optics Industry. He has designed optical applications including thermal imaging systems, optical inspection instruments, medical treatment devices, industrial machine vision systems and semiconductor process controls.

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REGISTRATION FORM - IEEE-Philadelphia Section: Practical Optics Course - Questions? Call (215) 564-2085

	Reg/Pymt Rec’d. Before Nov. 15	Reg/Paymt Rec’d. After Nov. 15
IEEE Member	$275	$325
IEEE Non-Member	$350	$375

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Fax to IEEE at 215-557-9683 or Email to the Section at sec.philadelphia@ieee.org or mail to:

IEEE-Philadelphia Section, Park Towne Place, Suite 108 North, Philadelphia, PA 19130. Questions? Call (215) 564-2085

Directions to Villanova University

Take the Blue Route (Interstate 476) and exit at the Villanova exit. Proceed east on Lancaster Pike and cross Route 320. At the next light, turn right into the main Villanova parking lot. Park anywhere in the lot. Cross Lancaster Pike at the light and continue up the steps toward the Villanova Chapel. Turn left at the chapel and continue for about 500 yards to the CEER Building (the new modern building on the left). The meeting is on the lower level of the building in Room 1.

Section Outreach Activities

Outreach activities are the proud focus of the Philadelphia Section. The Section competitively awards student project funding and faculty advisor support toward attendance at the ASME International Exposition and Congress. The Section Executive committee supports these initiatives with judging and coordination efforts. I will join the Section’s executive committee to serve in the capacity of Outreach and K12 Educational Programs Coordinator. My efforts will involve developing real life engineering teamwork and enhancing skills of students carving their paths to be an Engineer and meeting industrial requests for assistance. ASME, through its outreach activities will assure contribution to the widespread interest in engineering and technology.

Submitted by Pallavi Lal – If you would like to help with the sections student outreach activities, contact Pallavi at PLal@ltk.com