Current Newsletter

River Study in CA Comes to Colorado State

Spring Engineering Innovations Breakfasts

ME Professor Receives Award

Explore Graduate Study Options

Spring COE Career and Internship Fair

CSU Alumni Association Awards Banquet

Student Design Projects Evolve

More Stories of Interest

College Celebrates Engineers Week

Businesses and organizations across the nation will celebrate National Engineers Week, February 18 - 24. Engineers Week, a formal coalition of more than 75 engineering, professional, and technical societies and more than 50 corporations and government agencies, was founded in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers.

During Engineers Week, programs are initiated to ensure a diverse and well-educated engineering workforce by increasing understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers among young students. Engineers Week also works to promote pre-college literacy in math and science.

Colorado State's College of Engineering will acknowledge Engineers Week with presentations at several businesses in the Denver area. Development staff, Audra Brickner and Shannon Mosness, will conduct group presentations and discuss the college's latest research and programs.

In light of Engineers Week, the college would like to thank alums for their contributions and commitment to the profession. Alumni achievements are a reflection of the quality of engineering education at CSU.

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River Study in California Comes to Colorado State

CSU academia and local industry are collaborating on a study involving the Sacramento River, near the mouth of the Big Chico Creek in northern California. A downstream-migrating gravel bar threatens to compromise the recently constructed intake pump and fish screens located on the banks of the river. Challenged to explore the complexities of the river meandering, the team is determining the causes and future effects of bank erosion through innovative modeling.

If left unattended, the downstream movement of the gravel bar and consequent sedimentation issues will result in the loss of about 150 cfs of water used to irrigate rice and orchards on the M&T and Llano Seco ranches, as well as to supply water to dedicated wetlands and State of California wildlife refuges.

Before coming to civil engineers at CSU for expertise in physical modeling, the project originated with Colorado State University alumni Drs. Bob Mussetter and Mike Harvey of Mussetter Engineering, Inc. MEI is a Fort Collins firm that originally collected field data and conducted geomorphic and modeling analyses of the M&T reach of the Sacramento River for this CALFED-funded project that is being managed by Ducks Unlimited.

Challenged to explore the complexities of the river meandering, college of engineering students will determine the causes and future effects of bank erosion through innovative modeling. Project leader and civil engineering graduate student Sean Kimbrel, working under the direction of project adviser Dr. Chris Thornton, developed a 1/75 scale physical model of approximately 7500 feet of the river. Kimbrel and several undergraduate students created the 100-foot model from aerial photography, plan-view satellite images, GPS surveys, and bathymetric surveys of the river using a geogrid of cross-sections made from plywood and soil cement.

Over the coming months, the team will investigate several alternatives for modifying the hydraulic processes affecting the river. Currently, analysis scaling of the sediment size and flow properties, which includes the depth and velocities of the reach, are underway.

An oversight committee including Ducks Unlimited, Mussetter Engineering, Inc., local property owners, the California Department of Fish and Game, the University of California-Davis, Stillwater Sciences and MWH Americas will evaluate the results of the CSU modeling and use them to develop engineering solutions to ensure the future supply of water while minimizing ecosystem impacts.

Full story available on the CSU website.

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Mechanical Engineering Professor Receives Lifetime Achievement Medal

Through four decades of research and the countless lives he has touched along the way, Dr. Paul Wilbur has impacted the field of ion propulsion and space exploration as a phenomenal researcher and world-class educator. For this, he was recently recognized for his lifetime achievements with one of the field's most prestigious awards, the "Medal of Outstanding Achievement in Electric Propulsion."

One of only a few recipients worldwide, Dr. Wilbur was honored by the Electric Propulsion Society at the International Electric Propulsion Conference Gala Dinner held this September in Florence, Italy, for his decisive work, contributions to ion propulsion, and invaluable role in electric propulsion education.

Although one of only a handful of scientists involved in electric propulsion in the early days, Wilbur has taken this vision and turned it into practical application through the educational and research enterprise he created at CSU.

"In our lab at CSU, we are doing the basic research to try to understand how electric propulsion works. Anyone can build a system, but to make them better you need to understand the processes that are going on and be able to model them," said Wilbur. "Rather than physically building system after system to test, we are using computer models to determine how to improve them. I think that has been our contribution - helping people make better thrusters and ultimately helping enable the acceptance of this technology. People are beginning to understand it isn't magic."

Ion propulsion, a fuel efficient and low thrust form of spacecraft propulsion, utilizes accelerated ions produced from xenon gas to increase the speed of a spacecraft. After being accelerated through sets of hole pairs in two closely spaced metal plates, xenon ions escape into space at very high exhaust velocities thereby imposing a force on the spacecraft, and thus propelling it toward its destination.

Full story available on the CSU website.

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Explore Graduate Study Options in Engineering

If you are thinking of taking the next step in your education and career path, consider a graduate degree in the College of Engineering.

On March 7, the College of Engineering will host a Graduate Student Visit Day, open to all individuals interested in engineering graduate studies at Colorado State. You'll learn about CSU's engineering research programs, meet with faculty, learn about funding, and tour our facilities. Find out more about the event and how to register on the College of Engineering website or by calling (970) 491-8657.

Spread the word to your colleagues!

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Spring 2008 Engineering Career and Internship Fair

The College of Engineering will hosts its annual career and internship fair on February 13 and 14 in CSU's Lory Student Center. The fair allows employers to interact with a large number of students in a finite period of time, and is a cost effective way to reach large numbers of potential interns and employees, as well as a great opportunity for alumni to network with faculty and student organizations. In addition, revenue from the career fair funds the CSU College of Engineering Professional Learning Institute, which provides resources for undergraduate professional development.

The Career and Internship Fair has become a great success with 110 companies and over 700 students in attendance last year. This year the fair will expand to two days and accommodate as many as 200 employers.

For more information or to register your company by February 1, visit the College of Engineering website or contact John Haines, career liaison, at (970) 491-0716 or john.haines@colostate.edu.

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CSU's Alumni Association Annual Awards Banquet

The Colorado State University Alumni Association will host its annual Distinguished Alumni Awards Banquet on February 9. The event recognizes CSU alumni and friends who have distinguished themselves professionally, brought honor to the University and have made significant contributions of time and/or philanthropy to the University or their community.

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2008 Distinguished Alumni Awards Banquet

Saturday, February 9, 2008

5:30-10 p.m.

Hilton Fort Collins
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Shen Chen, director-general of Taiwan’s Water Resources Agency in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, was named the College of Engineering Honor Alumnus for 2008. Chen earned a Master of Science in civil engineering from Colorado State University in 1985 and completed his Ph.D in the Department of Construction Engineering at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology in 2007.

Tickets for the Distinguished Alumni Awards Banquet are available online or by contacting the Alumni Association at 1-800-286-2586 or 970-491-6533. Tickets for Alumni Association dues-paying members are $50/singe; $500/table of 10. Tickets for non dues-paying members are $55/single; $550/table of 10. Table sponsorships are also available by contacting Donna Reiser at (970) 491-5176.

Information on the 2008 awardees is posted. More information on the banquet is available on the Alumni Association website.

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Student Design Projects Continue to Evolve

Spring semester began the week of January 21, motivating engineering students to start the next phase of their senior design projects. Two projects have gained newsworthy attention for their innovative design and impact on the industry, SimPooch and the Wireless Door Opener.

Peter Young, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Dr. Narda Robinson, the Shipley Complementary and Alternative Medicine chair at Colorado State's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, are working with electrical engineering undergraduates to build "SimPooch" - a simulated Labrador retriever with a virtual reality interface that can help Robinson teach veterinary medicine students the physical feel of correctly applying acupuncture.

Robinson started the project last year with mechanical engineering students and Sue James, director of the School of Biomedical Engineering in the College of Engineering. They built a physical model of a dog's head that attempts to reproduce the varying densities of bone, muscle, skin and fat to provide students real-life physical "force" feedback.

Now electrical engineering students are working to build computer software that will reproduce the head in a virtual reality environment and also interface with the physical model.

Team members on the Wireless Door Opener Project have designed an electronic transmission system for wheelchairs and receiving doors. Equipped with a pulsing circuit, the mobile device has transmitters that communicate with receiving doors within range and cause them to open upon approach. Currently, handicapped citizens must push the button to open doors, which is limiting to individuals who are without the use of their fingers, biceps or triceps. An innovative system, this touchless design will serve to work in conjunction with standard wheelchair access button entries, providing greater independence to those with limited mobility.

Into the spring semester the team will concentrate on adding an accelerometer circuit to the device for motion sensing. This will allow the device to remain off or inactive until wheelchair acceleration is detected. Students are also working to limit the range of a transmitter to only open doors within a determined distance, as opposed to all doors in a building. Future plans involve advancing the functionality of the product to include direction detection and security.

Each year, engineering undergraduate students participate in capstone senior design projects that allow them to develop practical, hands-on skills in an integrated, interdisciplinary engineering environment. In addition to research and design, students must work to secure donations in the form of equipment, hardware and money to complete their goals.

Information on these projects and more is available on the electrical and computer engineering senior design program website.

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Other stories of interest...

Peace Corps Ideals Started at Colorado State

Professor Finds New Technique

Colorado Harnesses the Sun

Entire State Above 100 Percent of Average Snowpack

More College of Engineering stories are available on-line
at Engineering News.

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