Engineered wood in wind turbine blades: Focus of Clouston’s NSF-funded summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)

Engineered wood in wind turbine blades: Focus of Clouston’s NSF-funded summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)

The UMass Offshore Wind Energy Program hosted an NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) this summer. BCT Professor, Peggi Clouston, along with her PhD student, Rachel Koh from Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, mentored and supervised two of these students in research projects that explored the use of engineered wood laminates in offshore wind turbine blades. The students, Malia Charter from Smith College and Yashira Valentin Feliciano from University of Puerto Rico/Mayaguez, participated in hands-on research in Clouston’s lab, a three day field trip to Cape Cod and Boston, weekly seminars on professional development and on the state of the art in wind energy research. Malia’s research involved computer modeling turbine blades using the Numerical Manufacturing and Design tool produced by Sandia National Laboratory (SNL). Three major blade components: spar cap, skin, and shear web were volumetrically replaced with laminated veneer lumber composites. These four blades along with an entirely wooden blade were subjected to static and inertial loads through finite element...
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Crowdfunding Campaign Underway for Wood on the Plaza Project

Crowdfunding Campaign Underway for Wood on the Plaza Project

Together with her graduate students, BCT Associate Professor Peggi Clouston is starting a crowdfunding campaign to turn the idea of a 30-foot wooden gridshell into reality. The project involves a large public art exhibition on Wood Architecture and Engineering to be held on the Plaza of the UMass Fine Arts Center. The plan is to build a 30 foot timber grid shell as a demonstration structure to raise awareness about the environmental benefits of wood construction while at the same time create excitement around the new UMass Design Building being framed in wood. The promotional video is below and here’s a link to the project website where anyone can make an online donation:  http://woodontheplaza.info/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRqNPCq3PVM&feature=youtu.be There are major company donors already but the team is seeking everyone's help in getting the word out. Please share this post with anyone who may interested in supporting the cause....
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Eureka Girls Build and Test Bridges with BCT PhD Students

Eureka Girls Build and Test Bridges with BCT PhD Students

BCT Ph.D. Candidates Carl Fiocchi, Nariman Mostafavi, and Soroush Farzinmoghadam sponsored a session for “Eureka” which is on campus for the month of July. Eureka is a fantastic program where young women are exposed to opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math. In this session, “Why Buildings don’t Fall Down – Building with Macaroni” the girls, Eureka Scholars, viewed a presentation on buildings and bridges - elegant, strong, and safe; worked through a statics lecture solving a simple equilibrium problem, reviewed a vocabulary list of some structural terms and forces, and learned some of building techniques and strategies (with Macaroni). They then built a macaroni bridge and tested its response to greater and greater loads until finally the structures failed or in some cases until they started to fail as some girls wanted to keep their models. Some bridges were pretty darn robust --- check out the photos! You can find more images on our Facebook page....
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Some summer reading: Follow our BCT students’ internships!

Some summer reading: Follow our BCT students’ internships!

Many students in BCT sign up for construction-related summer work, either as internships, practicums, or just as a job that relates to their studies. They always have amazing experiences, which lets them practice what they learned during the semester. What we fond, though, was that in the past, their experiences were often just reported to their immediate faculty supervisor, which didn't allow others to learn about the breadth and the many details of "real world" work. This summer, we are trying something new: A blog for BCT students! This way, anyone can follow our students' amazing experiences and learn from what they are seeing in the field. Feel free to check out the latest posts at the following address: http://blogs.umass.edu/bct-interns...
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BCT banner on Design Building features our graduate students

BCT banner on Design Building features our graduate students

The BCT banner, one of three "occupant" banners now up on the construction fence for the Design Building, features prominently PhD student Hamid Kaboli, M.Arch. student Albert Sanchez, and Associate Professor Peggi Clouston - all deeply engrossed in their work on a timber gridshell. You can also see a nice rendering that shows what the interior atrium will look like....
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