Making News, November 2009, Part II

A recent article in The Philadelphia Inquirer details the growing trend of structural health monitoring of bridges using “smart technology.”

Drexel professor, Franklin Moon (DE A ’98), discusses the challenges of using data to report back to project partner, the Burlington County Bridge Commission.

“We have plenty of sensors, and we can get good-quality data,” said Moon. “It’s how do we interpret that data to help owners make decisions more effectively and stretch their dollars?”

Another partner of the bridge monitoring is Pennoni Associates, who receives the data and reviews it.
C.R. Pennoni, PA Z ’63, is founder of Pennoni Associates and also currently serving as interim president of Drexel.

Read the full article for more on bridge sensors

Τ

Tau Beta Pi was proud to attend the 2009 Coppell High School Engineering Expo.

Tau Beta Pi was represented by volunteer Douglas Buol, IA A ’70, of IBM. Coppell has had a School of Engineering since 2006.

This year’s Expo consisted of 20 student engineering projects, recruiters from 50 universities, and more than 30 companies and associations. It is estimated that approximately 2,500 attended the event. Read article

Β

A team of researches, led by Marco Castaldi (NY X ’92), will be publishing results from work on making the process of “gasification” more efficient in this week’s Journal of Environmental Science & Technology.

“By adding CO2 into the steam atmosphere of a gasifier, significantly more of the biomass or coal was turned into useful syngas.”

Summarizing the findings, Castaldi said, “… for a power plant producing 500 megawatts of energy, it (efficiency gain) is significant.” He also mentioned that research had begun on using CO2 in producing fuel. Read article

Π