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Fixing on Six

The future is in the hands of SRU engineering students. Here are six items they handle in the labs that have real-world implications.

hat does a concrete block, a plastic wrench, coffee grounds, an air heater, a spiked shoe and a bucket of sludge all have in common? These aren’t tools to survive a hypothetical scenario on a deserted island. They are six items that, on any given day in the engineering labs at Slippery Rock University, students are handling to solve real-world problems.

In the SRU Engineering Department, “practical, hands-on experience” is not an overused expression. That’s because there’s more action to back up those words. Faculty and students are busy getting their hands dirty, often literally.

Across six laboratories on campus, some of which also function as classrooms with modular equipment, SRU students are gaining experiences and learning through projects led by faculty with industry experience and insights. The work occurs in the labs and outside in the community. The following are only a sampling of projects happening at SRU, using six objects that might seem random or insignificant, but they tell a story that makes a huge impact for academic discovery and human growth.

From top down, Amina Tandukar and Amber Maurer, Nicco Mickens and Ashley Rimmel gain hands-on experience by working on projects in SRU’s engineering labs.

Amina Tandukar and Amber Maurer (above), Nicco Mickens and Ashley Rimmel (below) gain hands-on experience by working on projects in SRU’s engineering labs.

student Ashley Rimmel surveys sludge from an acid mine in a jar she hold at eye level

close cropped view of small glass jars filled with sludge from an acid mine

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Sludge and a Nudge

What good can come from acid mine drainage? Well, it turns out it’s more than a bucket of sludge. There are rare earth minerals and metals that can be used to make batteries for smartphones, computers or electric cars and many other practical uses. The question researchers at SRU are trying to answer: How do you remove water from the sludge on site so that the byproducts can be delivered to a central facility for refining? Shipping the weighty sludge to a treatment facility to remove the water would otherwise be more costly than what it’s worth.

low angle view of student Ashley Rimmel and professor Iuri Santos in deep discussion while in a lab

Ashley Rimmel learns from assistant professor Iuri Santos about how to use a triaxial machine in SRU’s lab that tests properties of soil.

This mobile system at an acid mine drainage site in Morgantown, West Virginia, extracts water from soil on site rather than transporting it to a lab.

“This project is a great way to move us forward as engineers because we are giving purpose to pollution.”

student Josephine Reott scoops acid mine sludge from an buckets, transferring the material into a smaller container

Civil engineering major Josephine Reott has the inside scoop on taking sludge from an acid mine to a commercially viable product.

Thanks to a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, three SRU civil engineering majors are digging into the research under the direction of Iuri Santos, assistant professor of engineering. They are working both inside SRU’s environmental engineering lab and at an acid mine drainage location near Morgantown, West Virginia, where a mobile dewatering system sits on a trailer to filter the water from the sludge.

Josephine Reott, a senior from Butler, is working on the design of the mobile unit, including its greenhouse roof. Amina Tandukar, a sophomore from Kathmandu, Nepal, is working on the dewatering properties of the sludge and how much energy is required to obtain the solid byproduct. Ashley Rimmel, a junior from Ford City, is operating a triaxial machine in the SRU lab to test different loading conditions of soil to determine a safe way to slope the materials on the mobile dewatering system to prevent landslides.

“This project is a great way to move us forward as engineers because we are giving purpose to pollution, something that is not useful, and monetizing it or offsetting the costs that are needed to treat waste,” Reott said. “In our classes, we’ve done so many different tests, so it’s cool to do some of the same tests but on site in projects as professional engineers.”

viewed from inside the Instron Universal Testing Machine, student Amber Maurer tests the amount stress of a cement-based composite

Amber Maurer tests the amount stress that different cement-based composites (bottom right) can withstand by using an Instron Universal Testing Machine in a lab at SRU.

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a cement-based composite block on the Instron Universal Testing Machine testing platform

a hand holds a cement-based composite block

close up of a cement-based composite block

Concrete Knowledge

Just across the hall, in the Mechanics of Materials lab at SRU, Tandukar is working on a separate project that compares different compositions of concrete. By experimenting with different synthetic fibers in cement-based composites, researchers at SRU are coming up with ways to make cement buildings and sidewalks more resistant to stress.

Tandukar and Amber Maurer, a senior civil engineering major from Cowansville, are research assistants under the advisement of Robabeh Jazaei, associate professor of engineering. They tested three types of four-inch cube samples by curing them in water, drying them and compressing them in a testing machine. The amount of stress applied averaged 25 megapascals, which is about 3,600 pounds of force per square inch, before they start breaking.

“Having more resistant composites that last longer will decrease the materials that people need for infrastructure,” Maurer said. “We wouldn’t have to rebuild a sidewalk every 20 years and that will reduce the carbon footprint.”

Maurer and Tandukar have presented research at global research conferences, including the International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition.

“It’s really good to have hands-on experience because that’s what employers are looking for,” Maurer said. “They want to see people who’ve been going out of their way to experiment with the materials that they’re going to encounter in the field. That is beneficial for students here at SRU.”

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3D Ingenuity

SRU students are also creating new things from scratch. In the Advanced Manufacturing Lab, where students have access to more than two dozen 3D printers, you might see coffee grounds and wrenches. That’s not because researchers need caffeine to tighten screws.

Students like Janey Parks, a sophomore mechanical engineering major from New Brighton, has been involved with a research project in which she is exploring the potential use of biodegradable materials, such as used coffee grounds, as filament for the 3D printers. By testing various parameters such as temperature, flow rate and nozzle diameter, Parks is finding more sustainable techniques that could be used in the additive manufacturing industry.

Some students get to compete with one another. In a Manufacturing Processes class taught by Jheng-Wun Su, assistant professor of engineering, students were tasked with designing a wrench with a 3D printer. The lightest and strongest wrench that could output the most torque on a 19-millimeter hex nut would win. The first-, second- and third-place winners were mechanical engineering majors Jennifer Cichra, a junior from Renfrew; Michael Rozic, a junior from Cranberry Township; and Alexander Vollmer, a junior from Saint Marys.

From left, Alexander Vollmer, Michael Rozic and Jennifer Cichra smile while standing in front of a rolling tool box displaying their 3D printed wrenches

From left, Alexander Vollmer, Michael Rozic and Jennifer Cichra created the lightest and strongest wrenches in their Manufacturing Processes class using 3D printers.

The wrenches were created using standard polylactic acid filament instead of the biodegradable materials, but they still involve a high degree of ingenuity. The students used modeling software to test the different stress points on their wrench and imported the data into a different software to conduct a stress analysis.

“I learned a lot because I had to figure out the different stress points and what I needed to fix on my project to make it the best that it could be,” Rozic said. “We have great professors here and it is always a combination of in-class and out-of-class work. We had introductory level teaching that Dr. Su showed us, but then we worked through hours of different designs and figuring out how we can optimize it.”

Also working outside the classroom, Cichra was able to develop a separate project on her own using a 3D printer to create a spike plate that straps to people’s shoes that can assist with fall prevention in slippery conditions. Her design was the runner up in the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Digital Manufacturing Challenge, competing against teams from the top universities around the nation.

From left, Alexander Vollmer, Michael Rozic and Jennifer Cichra created the lightest and strongest wrenches in their Manufacturing Processes class using 3D printers.

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assistant professor Jheng-Wun Su looks on from the background as students Emilee Fields and Janey Parks prepare a mixture of xanthan gum and used coffee grounds

close cropped view of hands in blue gloves holding a plastic container of xanthan gum mixed with used coffee grounds

Foreground, Emilee Fields and Janey Parks mix xanthan gum with used coffee grounds to create a filament for 3D printers, under the direction of assistant professor Jheng-Wun Su (background).

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quarter view of a shoe wearing Jennifer Cichra's 3D printed spike plate

See how Jennifer Cichra created an award-winning traction spike plate for shoes using 3D printers in SRU’s Vincent Science Center.

Warming Up to Ideas

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Not all students come to SRU ready to get their hands dirty or even to think like an engineer. Nicco Mickens started studying exercise science, but something changed after he took a physics class.

“That changed the trajectory of my entire life,” said Mickens, a junior mechanical engineering major from Masontown. “I love the problem-solving aspects of physics. I love learning the material within itself. I love watching how it is applied within the labs.

“I even started to catch myself looking at different wooden structures and trying to think about what calculations were made to build the truss and the internal or external stresses.”

Mickens began warming up to the idea of mechanical engineering, so it was fitting that he was interested when a friend and classmate introduced him to a project involving an experimental air heater.

close up of Nicco Mickens's air heater circuit board

Nicco Mickens works on the circuit board and electronic components of an air heater he built in the SRU lab.

close cropped quarter view of student Nicco Mickens wearing safety goggles and sitting at a lab desk working on the circuit board of an air heater he built

Working in the Mechanics and Robotics Lab over the course of eight months, Mickens constructed a wooden box and soldered on electronic components and metal piping to come up with an experimental heater. The apparatus simulates what would happen in a gas turbine engine with all the rotating components that need internal cooling passages.

Under the advisement of Louis Christensen, assistant professor of engineering, Mickens is learning the optimal ways to transfer heat, which, from a physics perspective, is the same as cooling a system down.

“It’s just easier to watch things heat up because it’s easier to put a lot of hot air through something than put really, really, cold air through something,” Christensen said.

It’s also easier for students to learn through experiences in the lab than theories shared in the classroom.

“Hands-on learning is the best way to learn,” Mickens said. “I love seeing what works and what doesn’t and just having complete control over everything. Whenever I’m experiencing it all and applying the same principles from the class here in the lab, that’s a truly beneficial way to learn. I’ll know how to apply it later down the road.”

Future engineers will be tasked to solve the problems of tomorrow, whether that’s sustainably extracting rare earth minerals, building durable infrastructures or innovating manufacturing. That’s all down the road, but to get there, their paths start at SRU.

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