91社区

Aluminum can serve be used as a sustainable, zero-carbon energy carrier, facilitating the compact storage of renewable energy. It could contribute to decarbonizing remote communities or industries, trade clean energy on a global scale or enable seasonal energy storage. The process involves storing electricity in through the Hall-H脙漏roult reduction process, which converts alumina (oxides) into aluminum. To release the stored energy, aluminum can react with water to release heat and hydrogen. These byproducts can then be used to generate electricity through heat engines and fuel cells. The reaction also produces solid aluminum oxides that must be collected and converted back to metal to close the loop and make aluminum a circular fuel. For more details about the project, visit the Alternative Fuels Laboratory (AFL) website: alternativefuelslaboratory.ca/research/metal-water-reaction.
To evaluate the competitiveness of this technology, techno-economic analysis of seasonal energy storage is required to compare aluminum with other solutions such as hydrogen or ammonia. The project aims to develop a model of the Hall-H脙漏roult cells and integrate it into a renewable electricity profile. The objective is to evaluate the load following capabilities of this process and its impact on aluminum production costs. Please contact Pascal Boudreau (pascal.boudreau [at] mail.mcgill.ca) to interview for the position.

Build a high-level physics-based model to approximate the performance of Hall-H脙漏roult reductions with a varying electricity profile, based on examples found in the literature. Integrate that model to the current techno-economic framework and study the impact of various parameters on aluminum cost through simulations. The student will work in collaboration with a Ph.D. student, engaging in regular meetings. Applicants should be autonomous, adapt easily, detail-oriented, critical thinkers, and have proficient coding skills (using MATLAB or similar). Enthusiasm for research in the field of energy transition and an interest in techno-economic analysis are desirable.

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Metal fuels can be burned with air or oxygen to generate heat without greenhouse gas emissions. This thermal energy can be used for various applications, including space heating and powering heat engines. The products of metal combustion are carbon-free metal oxides, which can be captured and reduced back into metal powders using renewable energy sources within a closed sustainability loop. A similar reduction concept can also be applied in space, where metal oxides in planetary soil can be reduced into combustible metal for rocket propulsion and on-board power generation. The Alternative Fuels Laboratory (AFL) is working on various metal fuel technologies for both terrestrial and space applications. Three SURE students will be recruited to work on various specific projects within the group. Please contact Cloud Heng (cloud.heng [at] mcgill.ca) to apply for this position.

Students will engage in hands-on experimental research of metal combustion systems. Daily tasks include improving lab equipment, assisting with data collection, performing theoretical/computational analysis, and conducting small-scale lab demonstrations to illustrate the applications of metal combustion in rocket propulsion and/or energy storage.

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Aluminum can react with water, releasing energy and producing hot hydrogen gas. The hydrogen gas can then be used in a fuel cell or burned with air to release additional energy and either generate electrical or mechanical power. The other products of the reaction are solid aluminum oxides that can be collected and converted back to metal. This closed utilization loop makes aluminum a sustainable zero-carbon energy carrier that could enable the storage and transportation of renewable energy. For more details about the project, visit the Alternative Fuels Laboratory (AFL) website: alternativefuelslaboratory.ca/research/metal-water-reaction.
This project involves characterizing the aluminum-water reaction rate for commercially available aluminum granules as well as evaluating the recyclability of the byproducts of the reactions. Please contact Jocelyn Blanchet (jocelyn.blanchet [at] mail.mcgill.ca) to interview for the position.

The student will be tasked with assembling an apparatus that will enable to investigate the reaction rate and impact of different quenching methods on the recyclability of byproducts. The student is expected to carry out preliminary experiments, troubleshoot problems and iterate on designs. Applicants must be autonomous, have good critical thinking skills, and be willing to work in a lab environment and use tools.

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Wearable devices are booming and started to seep into many aspects of our daily lives. Nanofilms are widely applied as components of wearable devices (e.g., wearable electronics) to serve multiple functions, such as ultrathin conductive layers, dielectric layers, etc. However, the interface between nanofilms-based devices and human skin was rarely studied in terms of its mechanical stability. Failure at this interface can cause sustainability issues for these devices. Thus, it is very important to study the mechanics of these interfaces.

Conduct literature reviews in related fields
Prepare nanofilms on skin-like substrates
Perform mechanical characterizations to study the interfacial behaviors between nanofilms and various substrates
Analyze the experimental results
Write manuscript

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Transfer printing (i.e. pick and place at small scale) technologies are becoming more and more crucial for the semiconductor industry as electronic components are getting ever smaller. To assemble microscopic parts into functional devices, proper transfer printing technologies are in demand. Various methods have been explored including aspiration-based, electrostatic-based, magnetic-field-based, etc. However, no mature technology has been mass-adopted by the industry yet due to various reasons. Acoustic-based levitation methods can potentially be a great mechanism for such purposes.

Conduct literature reviews in related fields
Develop acoustic-based transfer printing stamp
Demonstrate the pick and place capability of the stamp
Analyze the experimental results
Write manuscript

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Near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) can exceed the blackbody limit owing to the tunneling of evanescent frustrated and surface modes. We recently discovered a new physical mechanism of NFRHT mediated by electromagnetic corner and edge modes. We showed that these modes can dominate the NFRHT in the dual nanoscale regime in which both the thickness of the thermal sources, and their gap spacing, are much smaller than the wavelength (Tang et al., Nature, Under review, 2023). For two coplanar 20-nm-thick SiC membranes separated by a 100 nm gap, we predicted and measured a NFRHT coefficient of 830 W/m2K, which is 5.5 times larger than that for two infinite SiC surfaces and 1400 times larger than the blackbody limit. This enhancement can be exploited for localized radiative cooling and in energy conversion devices.

Student 1: (i) Learn the DSGF method; (ii) Perform NFRHT simulations between two SiC membranes for various thicknesses and gap spacings; (iii) Establish the relationship (i.e., power law) between the NFRHT enhancement, membrane thickness and gap spacing; (iv) Compare results against experimental data.

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This SURE project is focused on the design, construction and testing of a rectangular semi-wing equipped with multiple propellers and electric motors. This tilting DEP (distributed electric propulsion) wing model is also equipped with different flow control techniques, such as leading-edge injection, trailing-edge suction, and co-flow jet, to suppress or eliminate the flow separation at large tilt angles. The 3D printed wing model is tested in the J.A. Bombardier wind tunnel in the Aerodynamics Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Aerodynamic loadings and flowfield of the DEP wing subject to different propeller rotations, advance ratios, and controlled mass fluxes are acquired and analyszed. A large trailing-edge flap is also added for extreme STOL operation. Flow control schemes applied on the main wing and flap and along the flap rotation hinge are also considered.

Design, construction and test of a DEP wing model with flow control

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The objective of the project is to create and validate a protocol for the cryopreservation of lung organoids. The procedure should allow fast freezing and thawing of the organoid while maintaining the viability and functionality of the model.

read the literature on cryopreservation and cryo-bioprinting
try protocol using freshly made organoids
test response of frozen and unfrozen organoids to infection and various therapeutic drugs.

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The objective is to create computer models of mass transfer from pulsating jets impinging on dirty surfaces. The pulsating jets are produced by synthetic jet actuators. Water, dust and debris removal will be investigated and results compared with experimental data. The acoustic noise emissions of the synthetic jet actuators will be predicted using Power Acoustics. Strategies to mitigate the noise emissions through active control will be explored.

The student will get trained to use the commercially available software Power Flow, and the overarching Simulia suite from Dassault Systems. The computational model will include the vibrations of the actuator surface, the flow within the actuator cavity, the jet flow and the impinging flow over the surface to be cleaned. Mass transfer will be evaluated using analogies with heat transfer.

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The goal is to accurately evaluate and explore strategies to reduce the fabrication costs of a lung organoid through automation using a 5-axis robot. The cost analysis is to include all material and labor costs, as well as shipping, for various production scenarios.

The student will be trained and use a Bioassemblybot robot from Advanced Solutions. The student will learn the fabrication steps and evaluate all costs. The costs of facilities rental for large scale production will be researched and evaluated.

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Pulmonary circulation plays a crucial role in oxygenating the blood and ensuring that the body's vital organs receive the necessary oxygen to function properly. Unfortunately, disorders related to the pulmonary circulation system can lead to serious health problems and even death. For premature babies, pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) is one the best indicator of survival. The means to measure PVR are limited and especially in a non-invasive context. The ultimate goal of the project is to refine a new mathematical model for the evaluation of PVR using imaging data and peripheral pressure assessment as diagnostic tool. The project specific aim is to design a circulatory setup (dynamic phantom) that can accurately reproduce the pulmonary resistance by simulating the flow of blood between the left and right ventricles of the heart (double ventricular dynamic phantom). The dynamic phantom needs to incorporate two pumps (one for the left ventricle and one for the right ventricle) with tubing mimicking arteries and a blood analogue. A concept is needed to reproduce, under controlled conditions, the pulmonary vascular resistance in order to evaluate the new diagnostic mathematical metric.

Design hydraulic flow loop, contribute to assembly and testing of the flow loop and perform data analysis.

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The transport of chemical compounds in vascular tissue is an important phenomenon both for natural and synthetic substances. For example, drug eluting stents are used to inhibit neointima growth after stent implantation. Multiple natural compounds are also transported in vascular tissue in the various biological pathways. In particular, the diffusion of growth factors has an important role in the initiation and progression of diseases. The transport of the compound can be modeled with the Advection-Diffusion equation combined with fluid convection modeled with Navier-Stokes equations. The needed parameter is the diffusion coefficient D in the different media. However, this parameter is poorly documented in the literature. The diffusion coefficient can be assessed using a Franz Cell setup with a membrane sample of the tissue. In practice, for human tissue, this can be done with resected or post-mortem tissue which makes these characterizations challenging. The project aims to develop an hydrogel based surrogate (Polyvinyl Alcohol PVA) to simulate vascular diffusional properties. PVA synthetic membranes can be made with freeze-thaw cycling protocols and dedicated mold to achieve the anatomical shapes and sizes for the specific circulatory contexts (coronary, aortic).
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Research about soft tissue and hyrdogel properties including hyperelastic and diffusional properties.

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Interventional medical devices and implants (catheters, canulae, stents, biopsy collectors) are often coated with a polymer, bristles or plasma layers to achieve certain functions (drug elution, fluid collection, nanoparticles transport). During the operation, the device interact with the surrounding tissue (blood, mucus, organ). During that interaction, the coating might be damaged (eroded, scratched, removed) which affects the efficiency of the device. The project objective is to design and develop a testing setup to characterize the adherence of the implants coating reproducing the physiological conditions (pulsatile flow at different flow and shear stress levels). The setup needs to allow to test complex structures (cylindrical, multi-prong) under perfused conditions with Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids.

Contribute to the design of the setup. Participate to the fabrication of the setup and perform tests with devices.

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The ability of turbulence to mix one or more scalars (e.g. temperature, chemical species concentration, etc.) within a fluid is of particular relevance to a variety of engineering applications (e.g. heat transfer, combustion, environmental pollution dispersion). In general, the turbulent mixing process stretches and stirs the scalar field, which serves to increase the scalar gradients. The scalar fluctuations are then smoothed out by the molecular mixing that principally occurs at the smallest scales of the turbulence. However, our comprehension and ability to predict turbulent mixing are limited because the fluid mechanics that govern turbulent mixing involve multi-scale phenomena for which the details are not yet fully understood, due the complex, nonlinear and chaotic nature of turbulent flows. The objective of the proposed work is to improve our understanding of the turbulent scalar mixing process in internal flows (e.g. pipes, ducts and channels), with an emphasis on oscillating flows. To this end, direct numerical simulations will be undertaken to simulate the full range of scales in turbulent flows without resorting to any turbulent models. They will be undertaken using a code entitled 3DFLUX (Germaine et al., 2013. 3DFLUX: A high-order fully three-dimensional flux integral solver for the scalar transport equation, Journal of Computational Physics 240, pp. 121-144). The simulations will focus in the effect oscillation of the flow field on the subsequent mixing of the scalar in the channel.

1) Become familiar with the fundamentals of turbulent flow and scalar mixing therein. 2) Learn about the code being used, the platform on which the simulations will be undertaken, and post-processing tools. 3) Undertake some fundamental, smaller (low-Reynolds-number) simulations to benchmark the code and data analysis / post-processing techniques. 4) Once validated, undertake simulations investigating scalar mixing within oscillating channel flows. 5) Prepare a report summarizing the student's activities.

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Hot-wire anemometers are devices employed to (most commonly) measure the velocity fields of turbulent flows. Their strength lies in their i) high temporal resolution, ii) high spatial resolution, and iii) good signal-to-noise ratio. However, commercial hot-wire anemometry systems are produced by only 2 companies and can be excessively expensive (>$30K). Moreover, modern designs suffer from a certain failing, which leads to increased drift (see: Hewes et al., 2020. Drift compensation in thermal anemometry, Measurement Science and Technology 31 (4), 045302). The proposed project involves the testing, benchmarking and production (in the 91社区 Aerodynamics Laboratory) of a custom-built hot-wire anemometer designed by a prior SURE student, with the ultimate aim of commercialization of the device.

1) Become familiar with the design and operation of the existing hot-wire anemometer (subsequently referred to as the prototype). 2) Test the existing prototype, to become fully versed in its operation. 3) Benchmark the prototype against commercially available systems in 3 different turbulent flows. 4) Preparation of a specification sheet to characterize the prototype. 5) Perform a market analysis with the aim of commercialization. 6) Build multiple new prototypes for testing by others researchers and for ultimate sale. 7) Prepare a report summarizing the student's activities.

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Over the past several decades complex turbulent flows over three-dimensional aerodynamic surfaces such as aircraft wings and automotive vehicles have been accomplished through the solution of the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes Equations (RANS) through computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The approach is used industry-wide and forms the backbone of all commercial software. However, the level of accuracy is subject to the capability of the RANS-turbulence model and for complex flows over aerospace and automotive vehicles, the approach has not proven to be reliable. The direct numerical simulation of the Navier-Stokes equations and/or the large eddy simulation (LES) offers a superior approach to modeling turbulent flow; however, current numerical schemes are not stable for extremely non-linear flows. The 91社区 Computational Aerodynamics research group has developed in the past two years new novel algorithms that will allow LES to be stable and accurate. Traditional CFD programs rely on what are known as low-order methods. The numerical software (PHiLiP) developed in the group employs a high-order approach. These methods allow for much higher spatial orders of accuracy, thus allowing the ability to obtain numerical solutions with low errors on coarser meshes. The objective of the summer project is to implement LES-turbulence models and investigate the impact on benchmark test cases within such a high-order numerical scheme.

Student 1: The student will implement new LES-turbulence models and investigate the impact on benchmark turbulent flows.

Student 2: The student will implement new and simulate LES flows using existing entropy-stable fluxes on canonical problems.

In the first month, the students will develop an independent numerical code to better understand discontinuous Galerkin methods. Once this is accomplished, the students will be trained on the use of GitHub which is a version control software to establish proper coding practices. Once the student is familiar they will be given access to the research group's in-house code, PHiLiP.

The students will work on independent projects as well as together during the latter parts of the semester. Both students will be supervised by the research supervisor as well as senior doctoral students in the group. An opportunity to present to the industrial partner would be made available depending on the progress of the summer research.

As part of the academic/research training, the student will be trained in three areas: applied mathematics, computer science, and the physics of fluid mechanics. The student will work on understanding how to solve partial difference equations using numerical codes written for high-performance computing. I embrace a diverse research group that creates an open and inclusive environment for students. I will meet the student weekly and have the student present at research meetings.

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The student will help graduate students in fabricating and testing proof-of-concept paper-based materials with reconfigurable and load-bearing characteristics. The deliverables include the fabrication and mechanical testing of samples.

The research tasks include the experimental testing of foldable metamaterials responding to a mechanical input, and the fabrication of cm-scale prototypes .

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Soft end effectors for surgical robots offer several possible advantages including reduction of invasiveness of surgical procedures, dexterity and conformability. Yet, practitioners can often face challenges using such devices due to a lack of feedback about the robot's spatial configuration and forces.

The project will undertake the integration of acoustic sensors into the soft robotic structures designed by the SuPER Lab. It will start with selecting suitable acoustic sensors and embedding them into the soft robots without hindering their flexibility and functionality. The focus will then shift to developing algorithms for interpreting acoustic data to achieve shape reconstruction and force detection. This phase will include calibration of sensors for accuracy in various surgical environments and exploring data fusion for enhanced sensory input. The final stage involves controlled experimental validation in simulated surgical scenarios, assessing accuracy, responsiveness, and reliability. This student will be supported by graduate students in the MACRObotics and SuPER labs.

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