OU Engineering

Spencer Popp/The Daily Tuesday, August 31, 2010 Fresh off a summer of competition in California and Germany, the Sooner Racing team is gearing up for another year atop the national rankings of the Formula Society of Automotive Engineers. The team builds a new car to race in the summer competitions throughout each school year, team captain Thomas Ingram said. Ingram, mechanical engineering junior, said the car is like a miniature race car. “We are limited to motorcycle engines, so we have to design everything around the engine and size it all proportionally,” he said. Ingram said the team is in the design phase, with plans to finish research and other necessary tests by November. The car will be completed to make test runs in the Lloyd Noble Center parking lot by April, he said. “We design all the vehicle dynamics, engine packaging, a full [computer aided design] model and get all of our components of what we want done designed,” Ingram said. “We do all the research at the beg...

By Doris Wedge The Norman Transcript August 30, 2010 NORMAN — An e-mail to an instructor at Michigan Technological University opened a door to an opportunity for Brent Van Rite on the OU campus, an opportunity which will lead to a doctorate and might play a big role in the treatment of solid tumor cancers. Van Rite was nearing graduation from MTU with a degree in bio-medical engineering when his path took an unexpected turn. “I was on the wait list at two pharmacy schools,” Van Rite recalls, and he had nothing to lose in responding to the e-mail from Dr. Roger Harrison at the University of Oklahoma. The professor of chemical, biological and materials engineering was looking for a student who would be interested in entering a doctoral program. Harrison had a “carrot” to offer the right applicant: the chance to work with the professor as a graduate assistant in his research project looking for a breakthrough in the treatment of solid tumor cancers. Van Rite had taken a course that had to...

University of Oklahoma researchers Muralee Muraleetharan, left, and Charbel Khoury discuss an earthquake study in Miami, Okla. Gary Crow, for The Oklahoman BY SHEILA STOGSDILL Published: August 19, 2010 MIAMI, OK — Pipes that represent bridge pilings will be "shaken" next month in northeast Oklahoma during an earthquake simulation project designed to improve bridge building in quake-prone areas. University of Oklahoma researchers Muralee Muraleetharan, left, and Charbel Khoury discuss an earthquake study in Miami, Okla. Gary Crow, for The Oklahoman Ottawa County is not prone to earthquakes, but the soft clay soil found there is similar to the soil in San Francisco — and in areas of Missouri and Arkansas affected by the New Madrid fault line — said K.K. "Muralee" Muraleetharan, a University of Oklahoma researcher who is leading the five-university study. A "hydraulic actuator" will be used to shake giant pipes buried near the Neosho River Bridge on t...

Meredith Moriak/The Daily Thursday, August 19, 2010 More than two dozen freshmen and transfer students participate in event to promote female engineering careers. Growing up around airplanes and getting her pilots license early in life convinced freshman Katie Gayon aerospace engineering is the major for her. On Wednesday, the Keller, Texas, native wore a bracelet and a necklace adorning airplane charms as she played icebreakers, heard speakers and talked with upperclassmen engineers at the inaugural College of Engineering Women’s Welcome. Gayon and 28 other women entering OU’s engineering program participated in a two-day event open to all female freshmen and transfer students. Attendees heard from multiple women engineers, participated in team building activities, mingled with college faculty and staff and talked with upperclassmen about eve...

Daily Sparks Tribune By Cortney Maddock August 11, 2010 RENO — A slight breeze blew through northern Nevada on Tuesday morning, but by mid-afternoon the breeze had grown into gusts. Those invisible forces of nature are what NV Energy is hoping to harness with the help of area homeowners, business owners and land owners. During the Nevada Wind Conference held Tuesday sponsored by NV Energy, renewable energy resources and projects — such as wind turbine installations — were discussed in terms of affordability and sustainability. Karl Walquist, a spokesperson for NV Energy, said more than 90 people attended the event seeking information about wind power. He added that the power company has seen an increase in the number of people wanting to install solar panels or wind turbines. “There has been an increase in applications from year to year, especially in solar, since the program started in 2004,” Walquist said about the RenewableGenerations program, which helps offset the cost of installa...

By April Wilkerson April is a reporter in Oklahoma City. Contact her at 278-2849. Posted: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 Hank Grant, Ph.D., director of The Wireless EMC Center at the University of Oklahoma, demonstrates a testing process for medical devices and wireless technology. (Maike Sabolich) NORMAN – The number of cell phones, wireless systems and emitters operating at any given moment is staggering. But it’s the interaction of those devices – such as a cell phone frequency with a piece of medical equipment or a defibrillator – that will keep a University of Oklahoma center busy for years to come. The Center for the Study of Wireless Electromagnetic Compatibility at OU was formed in 1994 at the request of the cell phone industry, said Hank Grant, Ph.D., director of the center and OU industrial engineering professor. Cell phone technology was just taking off and there were early problems between cell phones and pacemakers. In the years since, the center’s work has spanned automotives...

From the Institute of Industrial Engineers Web site - the Global Association of Productivity and Efficiency Professionals When paleontologists from the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History decided to display the bones of a juvenile apatosaurus, they ran into a problem. They only had 15 percent of the bones required to form a display skeleton of the dinosaur. It is not unusual to find so few bones, but it does pose a challenge. In order to create molds of the complete dinosaur, each individual bone needed to be sculpted from clay by referencing similar bones, images of bones, and domain knowledge. This can be a very time consuming project that requires many volunteers and scientists. Fortunately the University of Oklahoma paleontologists met with the engineers at the Center for Shape Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing (SEAM) at the university. SEAM was founded by OU School of Industrial Engineering faculty members Shivakumar Raman, an IIE fellow, and Binil Starly to provide...

Two University of Oklahoma graduates took center stage at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) today to ring the Opening Bell that signifies the start of trading. J. Mike Stice and Robert S. Purgason, both Chemical Engineering graduates at OU, rang the opening bell in celebration of the successful completion of Chesapeake Midstream Partners’ (NYSE: CHKM) recent initial public offering. Mike serves as CEO and Bob is COO of the newly formed company. Chesapeake Midstream Partners is a 50/50 joint venture with Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK) and Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). Headquartered in Oklahoma City, Chesapeake Midstream Partners owns, operates, develops and acquires natural gas gathering systems and other midstream energy assets. J. Mike Stice is pictured in the center in the red tie; Robert S. Purgason is standing to the left.