PLASMA SCIENCE SEMINAR SERIES

FALL SEMESTER, 2007

 

Room 405 Ferris Hall

Fridays, 12:20 to 1:10 p.m.

 

All Interested Persons are Invited to Attend

For further information, contact Prof. J. Reece Roth, 974-4446

 

  DATE                                                     SPEAKER AND TOPIC

 

August 24            ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING - Course requirements will be reviewed, with announcements relating to the UT Plasma Sciences Laboratory.  Also short talk by Prof. J. Reece Roth, UT:  “How to Keep a Laboratory Notebook”.  This talk will discuss some of the legal and practical requirements of a good laboratory notebook, and how to keep a record of the lectures in this seminar series to submit for grading at the end of the semester.

 

August 31            Dr. J. Reece Roth, Professor Emeritus, UT Plasma Sciences Laboratory:  “Gears from the Greeks: The Antikythera Mechanism and the Early History of Computer Science”.  Nautical Archaeologists recently made a discovery that extended the history of computer science back to circa 80 BCE.  The Antikythera Mechanism was discovered in an ancient shipwreck, and is the only such geared mechanical device known for at least the next 1000 years.  It consists of a clockwork – like mechanism containing more than 30 toothed gears, including a system of differential gears. This early calculator has been the subject of intense scholarly research. to determine what it is and what it was intended to do.  It has been found that this device was used to calculate, among other things, lunar eclipses and planetary positions.  It is already clear that computer science has deeper historical roots than previously realized.

 

September 7         Dr. J. Reece Roth, Professor Emeritus, UT Plasma Sciences Laboratory:  “Trip Report on the Sixth International Symposium on Polymer Surface Modification, June 11-13, 2007, Cincinnati, OH”.

                               Prof. Roth will summarize papers presented at this meeting which relate to our interest in surface energy enhancement and deposition of thin polymeric films with the roll-to-roll MOD VIII OAUGDPÒ Reactor, as well as summarize our own invited paper presented at this meeting.

 

September 14       Mr. Zhiyu Chen, MS Student in Industrial Plasma Engineering, also Ph.D. student and GTA, Image and Pattern Recognition Laboratory, EECS Department:  “Progress Report on Impedance Matched OAUGDPÒ Plasma Actuators for Application to Wind Turbines”.  Mr. Chen will report data taken from a single plasma actuator and an array of such actuators on a panel, and report the effects of impedance matching on their electrical and aerodynamic performance.  Similar data may also be forthcoming from actuators mounted on an operating wind turbine.

 

September 21       Mr Sirous Nourgostar, GRA, UT Plasma Sciences Laboratory: “Improvement of Wind Turbine Performance by Application of OAUGDPÒ Plasma Actuators for Flow Attachment.  Mr. Nourgostar will give a progress report on his dissertation research, which includes the application of plasma actuators to the blades of wind turbines to improve their efficiency by reducing drag and improving flow attachment.

 

September 28       Ms. Penelope Beasley, MS Student, EECS Department, also Ph.D. Student and GTA, Department of Economics UTK:  “The Economic Implications of applying OAUGDPÒ Aerodynamic Plasma Actuators to ‘Green Power” Wind Turbines”.  Ms Beasley will discuss a proposed study of the economic value of improving the efficiency of wind turbines.  This will be related to on-going research at the UT Plasma Sciences Laboratory on the application of aerodynamic plasma actuators to reduce drag and flow separation over the turbine blades and improve the coupling of the blades to the airstream.

 

October 5              Dr. Peter P. Tsai, Associate Research Professor, TANDEC, and UT Plasma Sciences Laboratory:  “Trip Report on the INDA-TAPPI Nonwovens Conference, held September 24-27, Atlanta GA.”.  Dr. Tsai attended the conference to report on some of our recent results from the MOD VIII Roll-to-Roll OAUGDP^Ò Reactor, and he will review some of the major results and trends revealed by other papers at the conference.

 

October 12            Fall Break – no seminar this week.

 

October 19            Mr. David E. Blanding, Technical Fellow, Systems/Subsystems Technology, Boeing Phantom Works, Huntington Beach, California:  “Future trends in flight control on Boeing commercial aircraft”.  Mr. Blanding helped develop sophisticated electric actuators for advanced unmanned air systems, space vehicles and commercial airplanes at the Boeing Phantom Works, the company's advanced research and development unit.  He is a recognized authority in electrically powered and fluid subsystems.  Mr. Blanding joined Boeing in 1971 as a lab test engineer on the B-1 program. He progressed through increasingly responsible positions, working on such programs as the Space Shuttle vehicle, the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, the B1-B Lancer, the National Aerospace Plane, AC-130U gunship and the Space Launch Initiative. The electric actuators he helped develop will be used on the X-45 Joint Unmanned Combat Air System, the X-37 space technology demonstrator, and the 787 Dreamliner.  Mr. Blanding is visiting UTK to familiarize himself with the OAUGDPÒ plasma actuator, a potential use for which is aircraft flight control.

 

October 26            Dr. J. Reece Roth, Professor Emeritus, UT Plasma Sciences Laboratory:  “Background information on aerodynamics relevant to the plasma actuator”.  This meeting will consist of a VCR videotape on the principles of aeronautics that underlie the operation of the OAUGDPÒ plasma actuator. 

 

November 2          TBA

 

November 9          Mr. Zhiyu Chen, MS Student in Industrial Plasma Engineering, also Ph.D. student and GTA, Image and Pattern Recognition Laboratory, EECS Department:  “Defense of Thesis, ‘SPICE Simulated, Impedance Matched OAUGDPÒ Plasma Actuators for Application to Wind Turbines’”.  Mr. Chen will defend his MS thesis and report additional data on the application of impedance matched plasma actuators to wind turbines.

 

November 16        TBA

 

November 23        No Seminar Today – Thanksgiving holiday.

 

November 30        Mr. Sirous Nourgostar, GRA, UT Plasma Sciences Laboratory:  “Progress Report on a Wind Turbine with Plasma Actuator-Enhanced Performance Characteristics”.  Mr. Nourgostar will describe some initial laboratory work on developing a wind turbine for green power applications that uses plasma actuators on the leading edge of the blades to improve the coupling of the airstream to the blades.

 

December 6, 7      The final exam is TBA, probably on Thursday, December 6 or Friday, December 7, at 2:45-4:45 pm in Room 502 Ferris Hall.  Laboratory notebooks are due at the start of the examination.