High School Scholars Program Projects
The glass industry in the USA has been facing economic challenges as more and more foreign glass is entering the market at competitive prices. Currently there is concern and proof that many of these foreign glass beads do not meet the heavy metal content specifications set by various federal regulations for manufacturing and use by various industries. The transportation industry is one of the largest users of glass beads for highway marking. These beads are embedded on pavement markings to obtain retroreflectivity which is an optical phenomenon that plays a crucial role in maintaining the guiding function of the highway stripings to ensure safe driving. This project will focus on the heavy metal content of glass beads used by the transportation industry.
This project will focus on developing hands-on experiments to evaluate recycled waste in asphalt concrete. The students will review magazines, book and articles from the library and search on internet about the origin, history and composition of the recycled material and determine the impact of recycling on the environment in collaboration with junior senior clinic students. The students will conduct laboratory tests to determine physical properties of recycled materials, such as rubber particles. These experiments will provide an appreciation of testing procedures and how these materials influence performance of roadways. They will prepare laboratory specimens of recycled materials with construction materials such as cement concrete or asphalt concrete and test them in the laboratory and break specimens to determine mechanical properties, such as strength.
Passenger safety in school buses/
Safety of handicapped passengers in school buses
This project will focus on recent research in the area of school bus safety and the use of seat belts and shoulder harnesses in school buses. It will also focus on the safety of wheel chairs, wheel chair occupants, and wheel chair restraints on school buses. This work will require in-depth literature searches, preparing annotated bibliographies, and obtaining design drawings for modern school buses with seat belts, shoulder harnesses, wheel chairs, wheel chair occupants, and wheel chair restraints. The work would also involve hands-on computer modeling studies of modern school buses to determine if they are adequately designed to resist accident-induced loads applied by seat belts, shoulder harnesses, wheel chairs, wheel chair occupants, and wheel chair restraints.
This project will focus on recent research in the area of school bus safety and the use of seat belts and shoulder harnesses in school buses. It will also focus on the safety of wheel chairs, wheel chair occupants, and wheel chair restraints on school buses. This work will require in-depth literature searches, preparing annotated bibliographies, and obtaining design drawings for modern school buses with seat belts, shoulder harnesses, wheel chairs, wheel chair occupants, and wheel chair restraints. The work would also involve hands-on computer modeling studies of modern school buses to determine if they are adequately designed to resist accident-induced loads applied by seat belts, shoulder harnesses, wheel chairs, wheel chair occupants, and wheel chair restraints.
The research project that is being done in collaboration with the FAA looks at the effect of compaction energy on the maximum density obtained by performing a laboratory study. The laboratory tests that will be undertaken include the ASTM modified Proctor analysis and the Superpave Gyratory Compactor (SGC) analysis. The soils that will be analyzed include the subbase material, which is one of the material layers that comprise an airport pavement. The study will provide information on the compaction induced during various levels of simulated trafficking and under various simulated contact tire pressures in the gyratory compactor. By performing a sieve analysis of the material in the SGC at different levels of gyrations, an assessment of whether crushing occurs during trafficking or field compaction can be made. This will help determine if compaction occurs due to crushing and rearrangement of the particle or just due to rearrangement of the particles.
There are over 450,000 school buses in the United States in which a large majority (390,000) are powered by diesel fuel. These buses carry 24 million children to and from school over a total of 4 billion miles. This results in an average of an hour and a half that each child is on a school bus each weekday. This may be of concern because diesel exhaust consists of a number of pollutants that are hazardous to human health and increased exposure to these pollutants may occur on school buses as a result of self-pollution. It is suspected that particulate matter within the cabin of a school bus originates from two major sources: tailpipe emissions and crankcase emissions. This project will evaluate the relative contribution of emissions from both the crankcase and the tailpipe to in-cabin levels of fine and ultrafine particles (FUPM); and determine whether technologically feasible reductions in tailpipe emissions would significantly reduce the health risks associated with exposure of children to particles in the cabin of a standard school bus.
Solar Panels
The world is becoming increasingly conscious of the consequences of its dependence upon fossil fuels, and the need for more energy from renewable sources such as solar, wind, etc. A local company called Helios has recently invented a new type of solar panel, which has the potential to be more efficient and cheaper than existing panels. Helios is now partnering with Rowan University in a project on testing and improving these panels to make them commercially viable. Summer interns in the GAMTTEP program will have the opportunity to carry out experiments and find ways to make these new panels cheaper, safer, more durable and more efficient.
The use of high-performance polymers such as Kevlar (poly p-phenylene terephthalamide) fibers in the transportation industry is growing rapidly, in applications ranging from high-end to mundane. Kevlar honeycombs are used as structural reinforcement in airplane hulls and in the Mars rover, while many tire manufacturers are including Kevlar fibers in their steel-belted radials, and Kevlar-enhanced protective gloves protect road construction workers far more effectively than standard work gloves. The specific project will focus on students developing the skills to manufacture reproducible fiber-resin composites then performing comparative analysis of the composites made with as-received and altered Kevlar fibers. These experiments should focus the long term strategies for developing optimal composites for specific transportation applications.
The framework for the project is the process for producing bioethanol from biomass. Recent legislative initiatives have renewed the interest in the use of ethanol in gasoline. Bioethanol is a clean burning renewable energy source. However the use of fertilizers, pesticides associated with production of corn and energy consumption during farming and manufacturing stages may not make bioethanol truly renewable and better for the environment. This project will investigate innovative processes for bioethanol production and lifecycle impacts of ethanol use as automotive fuel.
Dr. Douglas Cleary
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Self-consolidating Concrete (SCC) is a highly flowable concrete that can be placed and consolidated without the use of mechanical vibration. It is used in applications with congested reinforcing patterns or simply to avoid the noise and labor of mechanical vibration. In this study, the team is evaluating how properties of the material vary in applications with large continuous vertical placements such as sound barriers or bridge piers.
Pervious Pavements
As areas transition from rural to more urban conditions there is usually a significant loss of pervious ground. This can lead to flooding as rainwater can no longer penetrate into the ground and is instead channeled into stormwater systems that may not be able to handle the flow. Pervious pavement are designed in such a way that water is able to pass through them rather than running off. Hence, the water moves back into the soil to recharge the groundwater table rather than being channeled into the stormwater system. In this project the team will be planning demonstration areas of pervious pavements on Rowan University’s campus.
The head is the most frequently injured body region in seat belt and booster restrained children 4 to 7 years old. One way that current motor vehicle and child restraint safety regulations limit head injury potential is by limiting the distance the head is allowed to travel. This project will focus on measuring the motion of the head and neck in order to improve a computer model of the human neck and to provide data for improvements to safety standards and crash test dummies (anthropomorphic test devices, ATD). This work will require searching the literature and assisting with data processing and analysis.
This project involves the development of piezoelectric rubber composites for optical data transmission and vibration attenuation. This work developed layered composites of a polymeric material, either PDMS or polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) sandwiched between piezoceramic bending elements as strain actuators. The research will also focus on smart composite vibration absorbers made of magnetorheologic elastomers (MRE). Current usage of these materials in actuation and control applications in the automotive and aerospace industries is testament to the utility of MRE devices.
Intelligent Transportation Systems apply high technology and computer power to our current freeway, traffic, and transit systems. These systems have the potential to solve future problems of increases in population, traffic congestion, and less land for new roads. Students will be exposed to computer programming and use of existing simulation models to learn about ITS applications.