Spring 2024 Faustin-Prinz Research Fellowship Awardees

The Faustin-Prinz Research Fellowship supports undergraduate Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Mechanics students who want to develop a research project with ME or EM faculty, get access to cutting-edge laboratory equipment, and work closely with a faculty project advisor.

Learn about the projects starting in Spring 2024:

Student: Mitchell Erickson
Advisor: Professor Greg Nellis
Project: Cost Reduction of Advanced Integration Heat Exchanger Technology for Micro-Reactor

This fellowship work will plug into an existing project to develop and demonstrate the underlying advanced heat exchanger technology necessary to integrate a micro-reactor with any end-user application. The analysis and design process has been carried out for the air-Brayton cycle and will now be completed for an sCO2 power cycle. This work includes creating and analyzing thermohydraulic, CFD, 3D design, and structural strength sCO2 PCHE models and an sCO2 HPIHX cycle model. This will result in a PCHE-based HPIHX design optimized for sCO2 as well as a sub-size prototype that will be fabricated and instrumented.  This prototype will be installed in the sCO2 test loop at the UW-Madison for experimental testing. Experimental testing and preparation will also be done for the air-Brayton cycle.

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Student: Jacob Hansen
Advisor: Professor Xiaoping Qian
Project: Design optimization of simplified heat sink plates research proposal

Heat sinks are components designed to dissipate heat away from electronics and they need to be radically re-designed to meet cooling needs of energy dense devices. This project aims to study a machine learning based method that utilizes freeform geometric shaped fins and accounts for condensation that results from the cooling process. This has several advantages over previous studies: the design space can be searched faster and more thoroughly, the optimization computations would be less complex and thus less computationally expensive, and it may be more accurate for real heat sinks by incorporating the effect of condensation. The end goal of this project will be an optimal heat sink design that can be validated via commercial CFD software.

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Student: Grace Heinrich
Advisor: Associate Professor Pavana Prabhakar
Project: Thermoset-Based Additive Manufacturing of Architected Syntactic Foams for Sandwich Composites

This research project aims to investigate the additive manufacturing (AM) of multi-functional polymer composites using a thermoset extrusion-based printing process with applications in lightweight aerospace structures and wind blades. We will explore the AM of architected thermoset-based syntactic foams, with features resolved at multiple length scales spanning micrometers to millimeters. This research is essential to develop new strategies for designing and fabricating core material for sandwich structures of aerostructures in wind turbine blades or aircraft wings/blades.

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Student: Grace Morgan
Advisor: Professor Darryl Thelen
Project: Pitching a wearable sensor to understand UCL injury mechanisms

This project proposes a way to measure force in the Ulnar Collateral Ligaments (UCL) while someone is pitching a baseball in order to get a more accurate depiction of the loading in the UCL. This will be done by correlating the UCL shear wave speed to the Common Flexor Tendon shear wave speed, and correlating that to external forces. This project will demonstrate how different motions of pitching impact UCL loading,  how speed of the ball correlates to UCL loading and hopefully distinguish ways to prevent the UCL from being overloaded or damaged.

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Student: Austin Xu
Advisor: Assistant Professor Eric Kazyak
Project: The Role of Li Metal Anode Thickness in Solid-state Battery Safety and Abuse Response

Batteries are commonly used to power many of the current technologies many people use. These products are often prone to abuse and damage; because of this, battery safety is an important subject of research. This research will focus on both developing methods of fabricating metal anodes and how the properties of these anodes affect safety testing of solid-state battery cells. The thickness of lithium metal will be varied to test its effect on the abuse response of solid-state batteries.

Students interested in participating in the Faustin-Prinz Research Fellowship can find more information about the opportunity on the ME Intranet under research opportunities or can reach out to Xiaoping Qian, qian@engr.wisc.edu, with questions.

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