an update on Engineering Structures

CONSTRUCTION NEARLY COMPLETE ON WHITE FIELD

Construction began earlier this year on the 10,000-sq.-ft., $1.9 million facility that will be part of the Center for Flow Physics and Control (FlowPAC). Located north of campus in an area previously used for football weekend parking, the building will house a new wind tunnel, and compressor and turbine facilities.

The $3 million wind tunnel, which was designed by Thomas C. Corke, the Clark Equipment Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and Director of FlowPAC, and six undergraduates in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, features an 8-ft. diameter fan, weighs 8.5 tons, and requires a 1,750-horsepower motor to operate it. Winds in the 3-sq.-ft. experimental cross-section of the tunnel can reach up to Mach 0.6, all of which make this a unique facility for any university. The tunnel, which is funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), allows Notre Dame researchers to run their experiments at higher speeds, much closer to actual flight conditions. Some of the initial experiments that will be conducted in the new tunnel will focus on the next generation of ultra-efficient airplanes and pilotless aircraft.

In addition to the new wind tunnel, an existing $.5 million compressor, formerly housed in the Hessert Laboratory for Aerospace Research, and a new $1.8 million turbine will be housed in the new facility. The compressor and turbine were also funded through the AFOSR. Construction is expected to be complete in January 2008.

CAMPUS-WIDE NETWORK UPGRADE HITS ENGINEERING

Several years ago, the Office of Information Technologies (OIT) began recabling the University as part of a campus-wide network upgrade. The College of Engineering had been working with OIT’s Integrated Communications Services (ICS) to custom build the engineering portion of the network to not only meet current needs, but also to take the college well into the future. The same type of networking now being installed in Cushing Hall, dedicated in 1932, and Fitzpatrick Hall, dedicated in 1979, will be installed in Stinson-Remick Hall, the new engineering facility currently under construction on Notre Dame Avenue. When the networking upgrade is complete in early 2008, all of the rooms in Cushing and Fitzpatrick will be re-wired with three Category 6 (Cat 6) copper cables and three pairs of 9-micron single-mode fiber. The Cat 6 cables will provide higher bandwidth connections to the campus network infrastructure for all engineering users. The single-mode fiber will allow researchers to build custom interconnections between the research facilities within the college. These connections may be used in many ways: to transport sensitive data between research centers without exposing it to the public campus infrastructure, to quickly transport large volumes of data between research data-collection instruments, and compute/storage locations, to build high-speed connections between research centers on campus where such connections are currently not available, and to facilitate research that would not be possible without the capabilities provided by a fiber infrastructure. The fiber essentially provides unlimited bandwidth and will be able to carry hundreds of gigabits of data per second.

ICS will also be bolstering the engineering wireless infrastructure. The bottom line is that the upgrade supports the high-performance computing research and academic networking needs of the college.

SOLAR PANELS TO HELP POWER NEW BUILDING AND STUDENT DEVELOPMENT

General Electric (GE) has donated a photovoltaic solar array that will be incorporated into the new Stinson-Remick Hall of Engineering. “With more than 400 Notre Dame alumni, GE is proud to make a donation that will promote awareness of clean technology solutions and support the University’s goal to expand and enhance the learning opportunities for our future technical leaders,” said Lorraine Bolsinger, vice president for ecomagination at GE. “This contribution provides the students an immediate oppor-tunity for exploration and practical experience, including future engineering curriculum expansion, as they solve the energy issues of the next generation.”

The array — the first application of renewable energy on campus — will be monitored by a system in the McCourtney Learning Center, where undergraduates will be able to track the energy being generated. This also gives faculty the opportunity to build course curricula around the system.