UA News

University of Arizona teams have won first and second place in a competition for materials-related senior projects sponsored by the Arizona Chapter of ASM International (The Materials Information Society).

The competition, which was held on the Arizona State University (ASU) campus, included four teams from UA and four from ASU, with the winning team earning $1,000 and bragging rights to a traveling trophy for the coming year.

The trophy, which was designed by an ASU art student, became part of the competition last year, with an ASU team taking it home in 2006. The competition has been held for the past four years.

This year's winning teams completed their projects as part of UA's two-semester interdisciplinary senior design class, ENGR 498, which is a capstone course taken by many engineering seniors. The class is directed by Meredith Aronson, an adjunct professor in the Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) Department.

The First-Place Project
The first-place project entitled "Development and Testing of Nafion®-Silica Hybrid Polymer Electrolyte Membranes" focused on improving the performance of a membrane material that can be used in fuel cells to separate hydrogen from an electrolyte.

Fuel cells have been of great interest as a means of producing hydrogen fuel for some time. But the technology has been held back by design issues and materials limitations. Research breakthroughs in these areas could result in systems that decompose water electrolytically to form hydrogen, which could replace gasoline in vehicles of the future.

The Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Team's project, which was sponsored by Energy Materials Corp., worked under the direction of MSE Associate Professor Douglas Loy.

The team members are: Jason Wertz, Adam Grochowski, Krystal Placencio, Stephanie Candelaria, Veronica Augustyn, and Jonathan Alexander.

The Second-Place Project
The second-place team won $600 with a project entitled "Development of an Anthropomorphic Radiographic Respiratory Phantom." The team developed a model that simulated the properties of bone, soft tissue, and lung tissue to be used for evaluating algorithms that position equipment during radiation therapy.

This team also won the Lockheed Martin Best Interdisciplinary Award of $500 at Engineering Design Day in May. The annual Engineering Design Day showcases senior projects designed by student teams from UA's College of Engineering.

The Respiratory Phantom Team was sponsored by UA Radiation Oncology and worked under the direction of Christopher Watchman, a clinical physicist associate in UA's Radiation Oncology Department, and Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professors Pak Kin Wong and Xiaoyi Wu.

The team members are: Ashley Mcphee, Nuna Yoon, Jacob Egan, Rebekah Quick, Stephanie Sara, and Sierra Hoff.

ASM International has about 40,000 members in 100 countries and serves the community of materials engineers and other materials professionals with information and opportunities for interaction.

MSE Professor David Poirier, a past chairman of the Arizona chapter of ASM International, helped organize the competition for ASU and UA teams and recruited the UA teams for the competition.

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