Two UD profs awarded top Navy research grants

Anette Karlsson, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, was awarded a three-year, $300,000 grant to investigate a novel approach to establishing lifetime material performance for coated structures. Photo by Duane Perry

3:03 p.m., May 10, 2004--Two University of Delaware engineering researchers, Anette Karlsson and Daniel Weile, are among 26 scientists nationwide who have been recognized by the prestigious U.S. Office of Naval Research Young Investigators Program. This year, only UD, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Pennsylvania received multiple awards.

Karlsson, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, was awarded a three-year, $300,000 grant to investigate a novel approach to establishing lifetime material performance for coated structures.

Weile, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, was awarded a three-year, $300,000 grant to predict and correct electromagnetic interference problems using a time domain integral equation technique.

The Young Investigators Program seeks to identify and support academic scientists and engineers who have received doctorates or equivalent degrees within the last five years and who show exceptional promise for doing creative research.

“The College of Engineering has great hopes and expectations for our new faculty members, and I am proud and excited to have two more Office of Naval Research award winners in our college,” Dean Eric Kaler said. “The ONR awards are difficult to win, with only 26 given nationally, and it is strong validation of the importance with which the outside community views the work of both Anette and Dan.”

In developing the new life-prediction methodology, Karlsson plans to use a novel spatial continuum paradigm for modeling lifetime factors of layered and coated structures that fail through cyclical use. “Such lifetimes have historically been modeled by repeated cyclical testing,” she said. “Although this approach is suitable in some cases, more advanced problems cannot be accurately represented by pure experimental investigations. Our life prediction model will bridge this gap.”

According to Karlsson, the evolution of spatial morphologies linked to time-dependent material properties will provide an invaluable “road map” for lifetime characterization. Her novel approach will eliminate the need to simulate each individual cycle and significantly reduce the requirement for extensive experimental investigations.

Daniel Weile, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, was awarded a three-year, $300,000 grant to predict and correct electromagnetic interference problems using a time domain integral equation technique. Photo by Kathy Atkinson

The work, which will increase the usefulness and reliability of multilayered structures, has potential applications in a number of technological areas. Such structures may be used to improve durability, for example in wear protection, and energy efficiency, as in thermal barrier coatings, or to provide environmentally sound, reliable transportation, such as fuel cells.

Weile has been working to develop a new method for doing computational electromagnetics that could be of great use to the Navy in modeling complex systems of electromagnetic devices, such as antennas and circuits, which might interfere with one another.

Weile’s method is based on time domain integral equations, which have historically been problematic because they have tended to accumulate errors that wash out the solutions to equations, thus making them useless to scientists. However, Weile said he believes he has discovered the core problem as to why the method was unstable in the first place and has found a way to solve the problem.

Weile said the time domain integral equation, which is one of four computational electromagnetic techniques, is better suited to the modeling of electromagnetic interference than the other three and thus has special significance in the development of sophisticated military systems.

“This issue is of great importance to the Navy, since ships and submarines are like cities in sardine cans,” Weile said. “All of the complicated electronics on the ship can cause interference, and the problem is exacerbated by the fact that it is all encased in enclosure that is usually made of metal.”

Article by Neil Thomas

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