Title:

The Tribology of Particles and Particle Flows:Studying their Behavior wherever they Surface

Speaker:

Dr. C. Fred Higgs

Affiliation:

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

When:

Monday, December 5, 2011 at 11:00:00 AM   Add to Calendar

Where:

MRDC Building, Room 4211

Host:

Dr. Itzhak Green
itzhak.green@me.gatech.edu
404.894.6779

Abstract

Particles and particulate flows often emerge as barriers or enablers to the advancement of a wide array of engineering technologies. At the nanoscale, they are used to planarize wafers to produce next-generation data storage and integrated circuit devices. They can also cause diseases such as osteolysis in artificial hip and knee joints. At the macro-scale, dry particles have been explored as lubricants for extreme-environment applications. Such particles are also critical components in multifunctional drilling fluids used in ultra-deepwater drilling operations. Yet, a complete understanding of particulate materials, whether free-flowing or residing in sliding contacts, requires the use of modeling, simulations, and experiments. The initial part of the talk will introduce the overall core competencies of the Particle Flow & Tribology Laboratory (PFTL) at Carnegie Mellon. Subsequently, numerous research projects involving powder, granular, and slurry flows from the nano-scale to the macro-scale will be highlighted to show the breadth of projects being grappled within the PFTL. Many of these projects have profound implications in the nanotechnology, biotechnology, energy-related, and space-related arenas. The second segment of this presentation will go into a depth sequence on our research on granular flows. Often found in sliding contacts, the flow of granular materials is of great scientific interest because these materials are prevalent in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, food service, solids processing, mining and power generation industries. While applications with flowing dry particles typically appear straight-forward, they can quickly begin to show highly nonlinear behavior and require numerically-intensive computer models which are difficult to validate experimentally. Often, basic fundamental classical physics experiments are needed to elucidate the macro-scale behavior of the granular materials. However, these experiments then require novel computational methods and fastidious engineering students to capture their micro-scale behavior. This segment will walk through some of the interesting steps the PFTL is taking to advance the science and engineering of granular flows.

Biography

C. Fred Higgs, III is an associate professor in the mechanical engineering department at Carnegie Mellon University. He obtained a BS degree in mechanical engineering from Tennessee State University, and received his graduate degrees at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). He did a post-doctorate at the Georgia Institute of Technology before accepting a faculty position here at CMU. A researcher in numerous Carnegie Mellon research centers and an affiliated faculty member in the electrical & computer engineering (ECE) department, Professor Higgs is an Associate Editor for both the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) Journal of Tribology and the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineering (STLE) Tribology Transactions journal. From the Fall of 2003 to the present, he has been the research advisor to 60 undergraduate, 17 Masters, and 10 doctoral students. Two of his three graduated PhD students are now tenure-track assistant professors in mechanical engineering. He was the recipient of a NSF “CAREER” award and is the director of the Carnegie Mellon Sloan Minority PhD program. In 2010, he was named the Clarence H. Adamson Career Faculty Fellow, and was also the recipient of the 2010 ASME Burt L. Newkirk award, “given to an individual under 40 who made a notable contribution to the field of tribology through research and/or development.”