For the week of
December 2, 2011

The final edition of @COE for 2011 will be sent out December 16; the first edition for 2012 will be sent out on January 13.

Please send submissions for @COE to Julie Stansberry in the Engineering Communications Office at [log in to unmask] by noon on Thursdays.

Student News

Scholarship Information Available

Information about ACEC and ACEC of Tennessee's scholarships is now available at http://www.acectn.org/Scholar.htm. The deadline for submitting applications is January 20, 2012.

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Intern Program Fellowship Information

2012 Program
The Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship (MLEF) is a 10-week paid summer internship with opportunities in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy for women and minority students who are currently enrolled in Science, Technology (IT), Engineering and Math majors at an accredited college or university.
 
MLEF Mission
Provide opportunities for educational advancement and career development through an award winning internship program for women and minority students in Science, Technology (IT), Engineering and Math.
 
Eligibility
• Applicants must be a U.S. citizen
• Undergraduate students completing their sophomore year in Spring 2012 through Ph.D.    candidates
• Cumulative GPA of 3.0 or above
 
Application
Application deadline is December 31, 2011. The start date for the summer internship program is June 4, 2012. For more information about DOE/FE and to complete the
MLEF application, please click here.

For more information, please contact the MLEF Program Office at [log in to unmask].

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Help Bring The PHD Movie Screening to Campus!

The NIH-sponsored UTK PEER Graduate Fellowship would like to bring The PHD Movie screening, based off Dr. Jorge Cham's famous PHD comics (www.phdcomics.com), to the University of Tennessee. To bring the screening to campus, email [log in to unmask] and tell them that you would like to see The PHD Movie at the PEER Symposium on Thursday, March 29, 2012 or Thursday April 12, 2012.

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Travel Awards for Women in STEM

The Association for Women in Science (AWIS) Educational Awards support travel for professional development, and any woman who works in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) discipline and who has earned at least a bachelor’s degree is eligible to apply. Individuals may be graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, employed scientists and engineers, or those seeking employment or to return to school. The application deadline is Dec. 31. Awards range from $1,000 to $3,000. For more information, please click here.

Engineering Professional Practice Student Feature

Featured Student: Ben Byers

This week’s featured student is Ben Byers, a mechanical engineering major who is completing his co-op assignment at The Dow Chemical Company located in Dalton, Ga.

Byers describes the department he worked in and what his responsibilities and projects were in relation to the department’s operations: “I was working within Dow’s Building Materials department – specifically in a plant producing Extruded Styrofoam for building applications. This specific co-op assignment was unique within Dow, as I was able to determine and define my own scope, projects and even production designs.”

Byers had to overcome some challenges during the assignment.

“I developed and took on the task of improving the overall reliability and efficiency of a Dow-specific manufacturing process," Byers said. "I analyzed the task at hand, studied the situation, designed a manufacturing process which would incorporate my vision with custom machinery, bid this out to several competitors, lobbied for the appropriation of future funds to secure my vision, and left it in the hands of my employers – all while saving my company time and money while decreasing the overall number of errors or malfunctions of the plant by 20 percent.”

The most valuable benefit Byers gained in his co-op assignment was "experience."

Students may read more about their peers’ co-op/internship experiences by logging into their Engineering Professional Practice profile via www.coop.utk.edu, clicking “Resource Library” (on the left margin) and selecting “Students at Work – In Their Own Words.”

For information on engineering co-op and internships, contact Engineering Professional Practice at [log in to unmask] or 865-974-5323.

Seminar Announcements

Graduate Student Research Highlights 2011-2012 Seminar Series
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Friday, Dec. 2, 2011
3-3:30 p.m. Dougherty Engineering Building, Room 601
Speaker: Mr. Michael Hemphill

Department of Materials Science & Engineering, UTK

Fatigue Behavior of Al0.5CoCrCuFeNi High-Entropy Alloys

Abstract: Research was performed on the Al0.5CoCrCuFeNi high-entropy alloy (HEA) in an attempt to study its fatigue behavior. The present fatigue investigation shows encouraging fatigue-resistance characteristics due to their high fatigue lives of various samples at relatively high stresses. The current results indicate that the fatigue behavior is comparable and even outperforms many conventional alloys, such as steels, titanium alloys, and advanced bulk metallic glasses with a fatigue-endurance limit to ultimate tensile strength ratio between 0.402 and 0.703. Some unpredictability in the fatigue life of the samples was seen by scattering in the stress versus life plot. Weibull models were applied to predict the fatigue data and to characterize the variability seen in HEAs. A Weibull mixture predictive model was used to separate the data into two groups, a strong and a weak group. This model predicts that at stress ranges above 889 MPa the mean time to failure will be greater than 107 cycles. It was shown that microstructural defects, such as aluminum-oxide inclusions and microcracks, may have a significant effect on the fatigue behavior of HEAs. It is believed that a reduction in the number of these defects will result in fatigue behavior that exceeds that of most conventional alloys.

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Graduate Student Research Highlights 2011-2012 Seminar Series
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Friday, Dec. 9, 2011
3-3:30 p.m. Dougherty Engineering Building, Room 601
Speaker: Mr. Kurt Johanns

Department of Materials Science & Engineering, UTK

Studying Indentation Cracking with Finite Element Modeling
Using Cohesive Elements

Abstract: There are a number of empirically based models that relate the fracture toughness of a material to the length of cracks that often appear at the corners of residual impressions during pyramidal indentation testing of brittle materials. Here, we employ finite element modeling techniques with cohesive elements to simulate the complex elastic-plastic problem of indentation cracking in order to 1) comment on the applicability of current indentation cracking models, and 2) examine the fundamental driving forces behind indentation crack growth. An introduction to both indentation cracking and finite element modeling using cohesive elements will be followed by results from 2D wedge indentation modeling that highlight material dependencies on crack growth. Finally, some observations from 3D pyramidal indentation will be provided as well as a comparison between the modeling and experimental results in glass.

Career Services Announcements

EF 301 – Career Services for Engineers

Planning your class schedule for Spring 2012?  Don’t forget to register for EF 301 – Engineering Career Planning!

This class is offered each Spring and Fall semester and is taught at Career Services, 100 Dunford Hall, on Mondays, 1:25 – 2:15 p.m.  This class is a perfect fit for all juniors and seniors and will equip students with the right tools to land that great job. Sophomores and graduate students may also register for the course. The class is offered on a 1-hour Satisfactory/No Credit basis and is taught by Career Services Consultant for the College of Engineering, April Gonzalez.  Expect visits from company representatives, tips and tricks from HR Recruiters, advice on resumes, cover letters, interviewing and salary negotiation and learn the ways you can stand out and get noticed at the job fairs. 

Here’s what students are saying about the class:

• “This is the most useful non-engineering class I have ever taken.  It gave me insider information about what employers are looking for during interviews, and I have a resume that I feel great about!”

• “I felt that I knew exactly what the companies were looking for at the job fair and on my interviews.  The tips we got in class really helped me feel comfortable talking to the employers.”

• “This class exceeded all my expectations – it really works!”

Don’t wait to sign up as space is limited, and the class will fill up fast!

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Attention: Seniors & Graduate Students Graduating in December 2011
Don’t forget to complete the Post-Graduation Survey.

Congratulations from all of us in the UT Career Services Office upon your upcoming graduation! It has been my pleasure to work with many of you, and I wish you the best in your life and new endeavors! In order to keep Career Services’ records up-to-date and provide the best service to you, please take a moment to fill out the Post-Graduation Survey via HIRE-A-VOL.

To complete the survey, log in to your Hire-A-Vol student or alumni account:
https://utk-csm.symplicity.com/students
User Name: your entire email address
Password: your net id password

Find the Graduate Placement Survey link on your homepage on the right hand side under the Career Tools and Advising Section. On the survey page, please click on Add New and fill out your placement information.** Your submitted information will be anonymously included in our Annual Report as well as shared with College of Engineering, prospective students and employers interested in recruiting at the university. All the individual information will remain confidential and will only be reported in aggregate form.

**If you have any difficulties accessing our survey, you may also email your placement data to [log in to unmask] Please include your name, email address, employment status (Still seeking, Graduate School, Internship/Summer Job, Out of Job Market, Employed), company or grad school, salary/wage and location of new job or grad school.

Again, congratulations and thank you for completing the Post-Graduation Survey.

Regards,
April Gonzalez
Career Consultant-College of Engineering
UTK Career Services
100 Dunford Hall
[log in to unmask]

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If you have submissions for @COE, the college's electronic newsletter, please send them to Julie Stansberry at [log in to unmask] by noon on Thursdays.