Department of Mechanical Engineering

With three missions to Venus planned in upcoming years, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have recently established a joint Venus Science Coordination group, VeSCoor, and they have selected Jason Rabinovitch, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, to serve on this group. He will be joined by five other scientists from across the U.S., along with six scientists from ESA member states across Europe.

The upcoming missions to Venus will take place over the next 10-15 years: one ESA mission, Envision; and two NASA missions, DAVINCI and VERITAS. VeSCoor will open a dialogue among Venus researchers to identify new scientific approaches and outcomes to these planned missions, based on synergies between them.

“It is a unique and exciting time as we are expecting to have three missions to Venus in the near future,” said Rabinovitch. “Each of these missions on its own is expected to make great contributions to the future of Venus science. As part of VeSCoor, I am excited to try to help contribute to the Venus scientific community in general, and to try to identify scientific synergies between the different missions that could enable an even larger scientific return from these missions.”

According to Rabinovitch, Studying Venus is extremely important when we consider it as a model of a planet that may have experienced a runaway greenhouse effect, and how that might apply to climate change on the Earth.

Johannes Weickenmeier, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, recently received a $570,574 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for his project, “Biomechanical Characterization of Periventricular White Matter and Its Age-Related Degeneration.” The five-year project seeks to use experimental and computational strategies to explain the impact of decade-long brain shape changes on functional brain structures, such as the ventricular wall.

Brain aging is characterized by progressive neurodegeneration that leads to cognitive slowing and functional decline. Cell-level changes manifest on the organ level in the form of cortical thinning, white matter shrinking and, most notably, lateral ventricular enlargement, in which the fluid-filled spaces of the brain (the lateral ventricles) become larger than usual.

Weickenmeier will combine medical image registration, brain tissue experiments and constitutive modeling to study how progressive tissue loss drives ventricular enlargement and leads to tissue damage that is associated with neuroinflammation and axon loss. He will also show how such loss is visible in medical imaging and establish a brain aging model that predicts ventricular enlargement and corresponding periventricular white matter lesion locations. This research stands to allow clinicians to identify subjects showing signs of abnormal aging early on.

Shima Hajimirza, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, recently received a $519,309 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for her project, “Precise Mathematical Modeling and Experimental Validation of Radiation Heat Transfer in Complex Porous Media Using Analytical Renewal Theory.” The five-year project seeks to develop advanced mathematical and computational models that significantly improve the accuracy, speed and applicability of radiation heat transfer estimations beyond the capabilities of existing methods.

Hajimirza’s research will develop a novel framework for better analyzing and determining heat transfer measurements in complex porous materials, where current methodologies especially fall short.

This research holds the potential to revolutionize the way energy transport is measured and managed at multiple scales. Potential impacts include enhancing solar energy systems, improving thermal management in electronic devices and contributing to the development of more efficient and sustainable energy technologies, including new materials with optimized thermal properties.

Christopher Sugino, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has received a $650,081 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for his project, “Non-Local Metamaterials and Metasurfaces for Next Generation Non-Reciprocal Acoustic Devices.” The five-year project seeks to enable complete control over sound waves by investigating special synthetic materials and surfaces that can change the way sound behaves whether moving in one direction or its opposite.

Sugino's research will establish a novel class of metamaterials and metasurfaces that can interact at a distance (non-locally) and create asymmetric wave behaviors, fundamentally expanding the possibilities for acoustic wave manipulation and shifting the paradigm for how acoustic waves can be used to solve engineering problems.

By enabling independent modification of transmitted and reflected acoustic waves, this research has the potential to transform technologies for applications in biomedical ultrasound, ultrasonic imaging, underwater communications and the design of aerospace structures.

Educational outreach initiatives of this project will include establishing the inaugural Stevens Acoustics Day for local middle school students. Developed in collaboration with the Stevens Teaching and Learning Center, the event will be hosted in the campus anechoic chamber (a room designed to absorb sound and eliminate echo).