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the texas engineering experiment stations center of community support (ccs) recently assisted two texas nonprofit groups and the communities they serve obtain grant funds totaling $2 932 145 these two grants will each provide five years of financial support during a time when non-profits school districts and municipalities are struggling to continue services the bryan independent school district (bisd) located in brazos county texas received notice in late july that its pre-kindergarten early start program had been approved to receive five years of funding ($553 500 per year) from the texas education agency (tea) this grant will provide bisd the means to continue and expand its current pre-k program to serve students ages 3 and 4 increase awareness and outreach to eligible families and enhance professional development for teachers and teachers aids working with these young learners in partnership with the local head start (hs) program bisd will provide space to accommodate additional classrooms and funding for expanding hs capacity to serve a minimum of 30 more students while improving professional development opportunities for its staff it is expected that more than 688 bisd students 30 head start students and 31 pre-k teachers will benefit from this program in the first year alone while 3 700 students and 45 plus teachers over the next five years will benefit district demographics of the current pre-kindergarten student population indicate that almost 90% of the students are economically disadvantaged and 81% are at-risk of not completing their education mary walraven of bisd stated that the center for community support provided the "glue" that kept the projects partners together and deserved credit for a strong proposal "we had almost no changes to make during negotiations this is the largest grant ive been affiliated with … with the fewest pre-award changes" walraven stated this grant will continue to provide and enhance bryan isds school readiness and ability to serve this high risk population in east texas nacogdoches countys appleby volunteer fire department (vfd) recently received a 2008 staffing for adequate fire and emergency response (safer) grant from the us department of homeland security for $164 645 to be awarded over the next five years appleby vfd protects the surrounding communities as a product of its 23 mutual aid agreements this increases the population served in its first due and automatic/mutual aid area to more than 45 000 residents this funded grant proposal was developed and submitted through a collaborative effort between appleby volunteer fire department nacogdoches county emergency services district no3 and the tees center for community support the purpose of safer grants is to aid fire departments by increasing the number of frontline firefighters and ultimately attaining 24-hour staffing and deployment capabilities specifically the grant will provide matching salary support of three new firefighters for appleby vfd over the next five years the first full-time paid firefighters for this fire department the addition of these positions will ensure not only improved local public safety services but benefit surrounding communities through enhanced mutual aid since 2000 ccs has worked with 125 texas fire and emergency service organizations helping secure more than $45 million in competitive grants for improvements in firefighter and public safety during this same period the center assisted 40 texas schools and educational nonprofits in developing projects dealing with issues such as teacher training vocational instruction special services for the blind minority outreach and literacy and math initiatives which resulted in over $164 million for improvements in public education in texas the tees center for community support provides a broad range of information data and proposal writing services at no cost for texas community-based nonprofit organizations support is available to pursue competitive funding for programs designed to improve the quality of life for texans in all over $402 million in federal and private grants have been garnered for texas nonprofit sector with the direct assistance of the center of which 38 grants were awarded for long-term multi-year funding support |
advances in technology and computing in particular occur on an almost daily basis todays cutting-edge technology could become obsolete in just a few months one trend in the computing industry is toward an increase in the number of cores on a microchip the rationale driving chip manufacturers to develop multicore processors is that these processors provide better performance per watt than single-core processors multicores systems require significant sharing of resources such as memory and networks which can constrain performance and impact power consumption not much is known about the power-performance tradeoffs in multicore systems texas a&m universitys dr valerie taylor is developing infrastructure that will help engineers and application developers better understand how such multicore systems work she recently received $24 million from the national science foundations computer systems research program to develop multicore application modeling infrastructure or mumi (pronounced "mummy") "multicore processors are the foundation of next-generation computing systems the computing industry is only going to increase the number of cores on a chip " said taylor who is head of the department of computer science and engineering mumi will facilitate systematic measurement modeling and prediction of performance power consumption and power-performance tradeoffs in multicore systems mumi will also be used to model analyze and optimize the power consumption and performance of key benchmarks and applications of multicore systems such as weather and climate modeling applications biomolecular simulations and energy simulations collaborating with taylor on this project are dr shirley moore from the university of tennessee in knoxville and dr kirk cameron from virginia tech tees is the lead site for mumi with a funding of $865 000 and taylor as the sole primary investigator on the tees grant tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system |
the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system and vestas wind systems a/s the worlds leading supplier of wind power solutions have signed a memorandum of understanding (mou) to develop a world-class partnership for research in wind energy the announcement of the mou was made during a ceremony friday (oct 9) when members of vestas leadership visited texas a&m and the department of aerospace engineering the mou is the latest step in expanding the engineering programs capabilities in wind energy research and development which will help propel texas toward energy independence for the past two years texas has been the top wind producer in the united states with more than 3 953 wind-generated megawatts installed texas is also the first state to achieve the milestone of one gigawatt of wind installation in a single year (2007) today we are sealing a world-class partnership for research in wind energy using the vestas and tees partnership collaboration plan as our framework said dr theresa maldonado associate dean for strategic initiatives "as we all know texas will experience rapid growth in wind power over the next five years and we are positioned to support that growth" tees and vestas previously entered into a multiyear master research agreement in june 2008 to collaborate to develop advanced wind energy technologies vestas chose texas a&m engineering as one of its major university partners for its new r&d center in the united states while they selected houston as their us-based r&d headquarters under the new agreement tees will provide academic excellence to vestas research programs in the wind engineering field as well as make a commitment to provide academic programs that will develop texas a&m university undergraduates and graduates into wind turbine specialists vestas meanwhile will sponsor a director for the wind center of excellence for a minimum of three years execute internal research projects with texas a&m staff and facilities and contribute associated funds as applicable provide steering and technical expertise toward the development of the wind center of excellence and associated curriculum and academic programs and support tees in bidding for external funding opportunities we are committed to supporting vestas through the objectives that are outlined in this agreement said maldonado "we are excited about the new wind center of excellence we will work aggressively to recruit an excellent director and we are also committed to working with vestas technical staff to develop a new wind energy academic program" |
researchers in the tees texas center for applied technology (tcat) and the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university have received a third year of funding to continue work on military helicopter rotor blade erosion technology blade erosion in military helicopters continues to be an area of concern particularly in severe environments of sand and rain the current approach to assuring safe performance relies upon frequent inspection repair and replacement of protection films without robust and reliable procedures the consequence is high cost new erosion-resistant coatings are being developed but there are no physics-based models available to guide their development a research program is under way at texas a&m to systematically address the erosion problem this program now in its third year is focused on polyurethane films that are mounted on the leading edge of blades to provide protection from erosion caused by sand particles principle investigators for the program are tcats dr john ayala and dr ramesh talreja dr amine benzerga dr zoubeida ounaies and dr tamas kalmar-nagy with texas a&ms aerospace engineering department tees (texas engineering experiment station) is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system |
a new institute led by texas a&m engineering will bring together industry and energy researchers from throughout the texas a&m university system to address some of the worlds critical energy challenges the board of regents of the a&m system approved establishment of the energy engineering institute (eei) at its meeting today (dec 4) eei will be a part of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) a member of the a&m system "texas a&m has worked in energy-related areas for more than a century and built tremendous capabilities in the area of energy technology and systems " said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering "this institute provides an organizational framework to harness our expertise resources and facilities for maximum impact" eei will serve as a central hub for strategic coordination of energy-related activities - including education basic and applied research and industry and government initiatives - conducted by texas a&m engineering and tees as well as other colleges at texas a&m and other institutions and agencies in the a&m system as an umbrella organization the institute will facilitate multidisciplinary collaboration between texas a&m the a&m system members government industry and other partners both nationally and internationally dr theresa maldonado associate dean of engineering and a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m will direct the institute "i am pleased to be leading this important institute at this time when there are critical challenges in sustainable energy to address " maldonado said "the energy engineering institute brings greater organization and focus to our established excellence in oil and gas nuclear energy electric power and energy efficiency as well as to our rapidly growing programs in bioenergy and wind and solar energy" eei researchers will seek to develop new technologies and integrated systems sustainable energy resource utilization conversion storage transmission and distribution as well as efficient use and consumption of energy those technologies could then be licensed and commercialized for the public benefit in addition to research and development the institute will also study public policy implications related to energy production implementation of new energy technologies and environmental sustainability and train engineering students and professionals in energy-related concepts and technologies the institute and its partners will also seek to initiate and support international collaborative programs and advise industry government and the public on energy-related matters "the energy engineering institute will serve as a shared platform for collaborative research and as a portal for our internal and external partners to our programs researchers students and technologies " maldonado said "this will allow us to capitalize on our history of excellence in energy research and commercialization by bringing in additional expertise from all over the a&m system and forming critical industry partnerships" |
dr kenneth r hall senior associate dean for research and deputy director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) has been selected as the recipient of the excellence in gas processing research award which is presented at an annual event hosted by the qatar university gas processing center hall will be presented the award during the centers 2nd annual gas processing symposium that will be held jan 11-14 2010 in doha qatar this is a genuine honor and i am grateful to the selection committee hall said "the vast majority of my research career has revolved around gas processing so this award holds special significance for me" the award is presented to an academic scholar who has made a recognized fundamental contribution impacting the field and the science of gas processing hall is an inventor or co-inventor in 12 patents including four that support the gas to liquids process that is licensed to synfuels inc his research includes thermophysical fluid properties obstruction flowmeters and gas to liquid processing in addition to his administrative duties hall is an active researcher and a professor in the chemical engineering department where he holds the jack e and frances brown chair he also served as the head of the department for four years the gas processing center was established in january of 2007 by the college of engineering at qatar university the center addresses the problems challenges and opportunities facing the state of qatars gas processing industry the center is focused on two main themes: asset management/process optimization and sustainable development |
the texas a&m university system has inked an exclusive license with advanced cooling technologies inc (act) of lancaster penn for momentum-driven vortex phase separator (mdvps) technology developed by researchers from the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the interphase transport phenomena group of the tees space engineering research center (serc) developed the technology that relies on centripetal driven buoyancy forces to form a gas-liquid vortex within a fixed right-circular cylinder that allows separation of different density fluids to occur the unique aspect of the mdvps is that separation relies on the incoming momentum of the fluid to produce the radial acceleration gradient reducing the power and mass of the device while enhancing the reliability texas a&m has flown several sized separators under reduced gravity conditions to investigate device scaling stability and transient behavior act specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing including the design and development of heat pipes pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for aerospace military commercial and government r&d customers the company plans to apply the a&m system technology to design systems with higher heat transport and lower overall system size for applications such as air conditioning humidity control purification and vapor compression the addition of mdvps technology expands acts portfolio of two-phase technology which uses evaporation and condensation to absorb and reject heat allowing for direct contact heat and mass transfer the technology has performed well in all orientations and under microgravity conditions suggesting suitability both for aerospace and ground applications |
seven teams from the space engineering institute (sei) presented their fall 2009 nasa projects in november to engineering mentors from nasa johnson space center sei is established under the tees space engineering research center (serc) http://serctamuedu five of the presenting sei teams (advanced antenna space based solar power integrated thermal management system smart materials for robotic space applications and urine pretreatment) come from the main texas a&m campus two of the teams (mechanical battery and space laundry) came from texas a&m-kingsville and one sei team (radiation sensors) came from prairie view a&m university the program included 10-minute presentations from each student team and individual team meetings with the nasa sponsor to discuss the details for the spring 2010 projects in addition dr kam lulla jsc deputy manager for university research and affairs gave a keynote speech "engineer 2020" since that event three other sei teams have presented their end-of-semester work to their sponsors these are the sei-south texas project team funded by the nuclear power institute the thermal management of satellites team sponsored by the us air force and the unmanned air vehicles team funded by boeing sei currently has 60 undergraduate students and graduate student mentors representing nine engineering departments on the main texas a&m campus in addition 30 more students from three other campuses (texas a&m-commerce texas a&m-kingsville and pvamu) are also participating in the sei sei was established in 2002 to engage undergraduate students in interdisciplinary and multilevel team projects with mentors from nasa and industry to improve student retention in engineering and enhance their engineering skills to meet the needs of the us workforce since 2002 more than 75 percent of entering freshman who participate in sei have graduated with an engineering degree which is about 50 percent higher than the national retention average in addition more than 20 percent of sei students pursue advanced degrees for more information on the space engineering institute (sei) and current projects please visit http://seitamuedu or e-mail director magda lagoudas at m-lagoudas@tamuedu |