The future of hypersonic flight may depend on nanoparticles in fuel—and getting them to behave
MANE News and Events
If you’re going to build for an aerospace engineer, you have to think like an aerospace engineer. That insight may be obvious but it’s not innate—which explains why many mechanical engineering students come to campus without it.
The Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering (MANE) at RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE in Troy, NY invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position in the area of Nuclear Engineering to begin August 15, 2018 or thereafter. The emphasis is on individuals at the Assistant or Associate Professor levels. Exceptionally qualified individuals in all areas of nuclear engineering are encouraged to apply. Special consideration will be given to candidates with experience in all aspects of reactor thermal hydraulics, dynamics and safety.
60 Years Ago — On this day, August 26, 1956, the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) achieved the first critical self-sustained nuclear reaction at the Reactor Critical Facility (RCF) in Schenectady, NY.
The MANE department’s Graduate Student Services Office held a poster session on Thursday, May 8th, where a number of Spring 2014 Master of Engineering graduates presented posters representing their research accomplishments.
Institute News
The day Laura Antoniello attended a campus job fair at Rensselaer Polytechnic Instititue changed everything. She was an electronic media, arts, and communication (EMAC) major and the fair was geared for engineering jobs. But Hasbro was at the event and Antoniello was really interested in working at the company, having grown up near its headquarters. The Hasbro recruiter gave her valuable pointers.
In high school, Joseph Vengen faced adversity and suffering every day. Born completely deaf, he received his first cochlear implant as a toddler. The technology opened doors but has limitations in noisy environments.
Powerful hurricanes and earthquakes have wreaked havoc in the United States and around the world in recent years, often leaving people stranded for months and even years without access to water, food, and shelter. A unique collaborative project at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute seeks to provide a sustainable solution, while also considering the environment.
Heat pipes are devices to keep critical equipment from overheating. They transfer heat from one point to another through an evaporation-condensation process and are used in everything from cell phones and laptops to air conditioners and spacecraft.
Normally, heat pipes contain porous metal wicks that return liquid to the heated end of the pipe where it evaporates. But engineers are working to develop wickless heat pipes that are lighter and more reliable. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute initiated the Constrained Vapor Bubble (CVB) project to study these wickless heat pipes for use in near-zero gravity environments for aerospace applications.
Aquaporins are proteins that serve as water channels to regulate the flow of water across biological cell membranes. They also remove excess salt and impurities in the body, and it is this aspect that has led to much interest in recent years in how to mimic the biochemical processes of aquaporins potentially for water desalination systems.
An international team of researchers co-led by Georges Belfort has discovered water, in the form of “water wires,” contained in another molecule—the imidazole—a nitrogen-based organic compound that could be used as a potential building block for artificial aquaporins. The findings were recently published in Science Advances by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Belfort is Institute Professor and professor of chemical and biological engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.