Author: alayton6

Collaborative student-led conference paper accepted to the 2021 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

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BiSSL MS student Samuel Blair has had his first, first-authored conference paper accepted to the American Society of Engineering Education 2021 annual conference! The conference was to be held in Long Beach, CA but unfortunately has since shifted to an entirely virtual format. The paper is titled “Bipartite Network Analysis Utilizing Survey Data to Determine Student and Tool Interactions in a Makerspace” and is a collaborative work with our partners at Georgia Institute of Technology, Dr. Julie Linsey and her MS student Henry Banks. The conference will take place July 26-29, 2021.

Abstract: “Engineering makerspaces are a powerful new tool in the educators’ toolbox. A growing body of empirical data demonstrates their benefits to student learning, but more needs to be done to ensure they meet their full potential. Analyzing the design of these spaces to maximize student tool interactions and identify barriers to entry supports goals for these spaces to be inclusive environments were all students are comfortable. The representation of student interactions with tools in a graph form enables analysis on the tools by mapping combinations between tools and shared student. The bipartite model of the network allows for students to be the “actors” while the tools are the “events” that students interact with. Using the one way interaction allows for a matrix simplifying the complex interactions in the space. The matrix can then be manipulated to yield important information about makerspaces. The results of this ongoing research propose advice regarding what tools and tool types are the most accessible to students, primarily high interaction tools such as basic 3D printers and handheld tools. Utilizing the analysis can also reveal how tools depend on higher interaction tools such as the advanced forms of 3D printing, as well as what student groups have may need extra support or outreach to increase their inclusion.”

Blair, S., Banks, H., Linsey, J., & Layton, A. (2021). Ecosystem Modularity as a Guide for Makerspaces Evaluations. Paper presented at the ASEE 2021 Conference & Exposition, virtual.

Research paper accepted to the Journal of Cleaner Production

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BiSSL MS alum Jewel Williams just had her coauthored full-length research paper accepted and published in the Journal of Cleaner Production! The paper, titled “Matrix Trays: From Waste to Opportunities,” advances a circular economy approach and was done in collaboration with the Department of Architecture Dr. Ahmed K. Ali and his Ph.D. student Patricia Kio. The work couldn’t have been done without the 2019 Mechanical Engineering senior design team of Alexandra Stewart, Zachary Merrill, Austin Grosklags, Miguel Cervantes, and Joseph Bustillo. This team came up with a case study design that reused matrix trays – which are currently a major single-use plastic filling our landfills – as part of an interdisciplinary seed grant from Texas A&M.

Abstract: “Matrix Trays are single-use plastic carriers used to transport integrated chips and circuit board components during automated test and assembly processes for Printed Circuit Boards. These trays represent a significant yet consistent waste stream; primarily in the electronics industry and many other industries that integrate microchips into their products especially the automotive industry. By the end of 2017, the National Sword Policy which was implemented by China on plastic waste import from other countries and especially the United States catalyzed a huge crisis and forced manufacturers and companies to deal with their own plastic waste streams. This study presents two alternative approaches of reusing trays to the reduced conventional recycling practices which have caused used trays to remain in storage or be deposited in landfills. Approaches including a students’ design competition and a proof of concept case study for an autonomous shading device are presented. The shading device was designed, tested and validated. Trays were transformed from waste into 13 possible products showing that a circular economy and industrial symbiosis can be achieved by integrating multidisciplinary reuse approaches for by-product reuse and sustainable industry practices. Environmental and economic impacts were evaluated comparing reuse to recycling, combustion and landfilling. The results showed that reusing trays reduces energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.”

Ali, A., Layton, A., Kio, P., & Williams, J. (2021). Matrix Trays: From Waste to Opportunities Journal of Cleaner Production, 300. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126813

Research paper accepted to the journal Resources, Conservation & Recycling

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BiSSL PhD student Abheek Chatterjee and alumn Colton Brehm (MS) just had their full-length research paper accepted and published in the journal Resources, Conservation & Recycling! The paper, titled “A Quantitative Benefits Evaluation of Ecologically-Inspired Nested Architectures for Industrial Networks,” investigates the use of ecological nestedness – a structural characteristic of ecological food webs, to guide the design of eco-industrial parks and other resource networks to improve it’s ability to survive network disturbances AND to guide inter-actor connections based on resource cost and distance between actors.

You can find a high level summary of the paper written by Texas A&M Engineering’s Vanada Suresh here: “Following nature’s cue, researchers build successful, sustainable industrial networks”

Research shows that design guidelines based on the connection characteristics of food webs can create successful industry networks. | Image: Rachel Anthony Barton/Texas A&M Engineering

Abstract: “Industrial Symbiosis (IS), inspired by the highly effective resource utilization found in nature, advocates byproduct-exchange partnerships between industries to reduce raw material use, emissions, and waste generation while promoting economic growth. Ecological research on mutualistic ecosystems (such as plant-pollinator networks) has found a connection between high values of nestedness, a unique linkage distribution strategy, and effective resource utilization. The present work is the first to test the benefits of nested architectures for IS goals, a characteristic thus far overlooked in bio-inspired IS efforts. A generated large dataset of hypothetical-realistic Industrial Water Networks spanning the entire nestedness domain shows that highly nested designs significantly reduce resource consumption. Circumstances where these savings outweigh any additional infrastructure and operation costs are also shown, highlighting that low to moderate resource abundance and manageable geographical dispersion between participating industries (conditions that commonly generate interest in IS) are particularly favorable for nested architectures. Ecologically-similarly nested IS networks, especially those with highly connected high-throughput industries, are also found to have a reduction in negative impacts during pipeline disruptions. The results provide promising evidence that the principle of nestedness can be a powerful quantitative bio-inspired design guideline for IS, capable of simultaneously addressing environmental, economic, and resiliency concerns.”

Chatterjee, A., Brehm, C., & Layton, A. (2021). A Quantitative Benefits Evaluation of Ecologically-Inspired Nested Architectures for Industrial Networks. Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 167. doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105423

Three New BiSSL Students joining the group Spring 2021

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We’d like to welcome three new undergraduate students to the BiSSL research group this semester! Learn more about them at out “Students” page on the website!

Jessica Ezemba

Undergraduate student Jessica Ezemba joined the BiSSL group Spring 2021 to continue with research she started in MEEN 440 Honors – Bio-Inspired Engineering Design. Jessica’s research interests include brain injury prevention. She is researching biology draw inspiration from how brain injury is prevented or minimized in nature.

Angel Alex

Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering student Angel Alex joined the BiSSL lab group in Spring 2021. She is working on research of Net-Zero Communities and the benefits of implicating their design with ecological network analysis.

Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering student Christian Mendiondo joined the BiSSL lab group in Spring 2021, inspired by what he learned in Bio-Inspired Engineering Design (MEEN 440). He’ll be working on a design project focused around robotic prosthetics.

Collaborative Research paper accepted to the Journal of Mechanical Design

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Abstract: “In this work, we show that bioinspired function-sharing can be effectively applied in engineering design by abstracting and emulating the product architecture of biological systems that exhibit function-sharing. Systems that leverage function-sharing enable multiple functions to be performed by a single structure. Billions of years of evolution has led to the development of function-sharing adaptations in biological systems. Currently, engineers leverage biological function-sharing by imitating serendipitously encountered biological structures. As a result, utilizing bioinspired function-sharing remains limited to some specific engineering problems. To overcome this limitation, we propose the Function-Behavior-Structure tree as a tool to simultaneously abstract both biological adaptations and the product architecture of biological systems. The tool uses information from an existing bioinspired design abstraction tool and an existing product architecture representation tool. A case study demonstrates the tool’s ability to abstract the product architectural characteristics of function-sharing biological systems. The abstracted product architectural characteristics are then shown to facilitate problem-driven bio-inspiration of function-sharing. The availability of a problem-driven approach may reduce the need to imitate biological structures to leverage biological function-sharing in engineering design. This work is a step forward in analyzing biological product architectures to inspire engineering design.”

Bhasin, D., McAdams, D., & Layton, A. (2021). A Product Architecture-Based Tool for Bioinspired Function-Sharing. Journal of Mechanical Design, 143, 0814011-0814010. doi:10.1115/1.4049151

MEGSO, MEFEGs, and MEEN Girls present: “Info Session for Grad School”

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October 6-7, 2020

The Mechanical Engineering Graduate Student Organization (MEGSO), the Mechanical Engineering Female Graduate Student Group (MEFEGs), and the Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Women’s group (MEEN Girls) are together hosting an informational session series about “Graduate School as a Mechanical Engineer.”

Faculty/Staff Panel: Tuesday, October 6th 3:30-4:30pm
Student Panel: Wednesday, October 7th 4:30-5:30pm

Ask questions or come to hear the answers! Find out about admittance procedures, what it’s like to be a graduate student firsthand, and what opportunities you can unlock!

Article in ASME’s Mechanical Engineering Magazine: “How the Food Web Can Keep the Electricity Flowing” by Jean Thilmany

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“Whether intended or not, engineered, industrial systems often mirror those found in the natural world. Case in point: the relationship between today’s electrical power grid and the way food chains function.

Drawing on principles from bio-designed systems—in this case, the food web—will help scientists build more resilience into the electrical power grid, said Astrid Layton, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University. She collaborates with Katherine Davis, an A&M assistant professor of electrical engineering, on the project.

A more resilient power grid means reducing the damage from outages and shorten their duration, Layton said.”https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/how-the-food-web-can-keep-the-electricity-flowing

Purdue’s Environmental & Ecological Engineering Department Graduate Seminar

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Excited to share our BiSSL group’s research to the Environmental & Ecological Engineering Department at Purdue! Feel free to virtually stop by if you’re free, I’ll be talking about “Ecosystems as Design Inspiration for Resilient and Sustainable Human-Engineered Networks.”

Seminar Abstract: Biological ecosystems have been through millions of years of R&D, producing complex networks of interacting species that are able to support individual needs while maintaining system-level functions. In this talk, Dr. Layton will show that biological networks offer a relatively untapped source of design inspiration for improving the sustainability and resilience of our human-engineered networks. Quantitative descriptors and analysis techniques are adapted from ecology through close collaboration with ecologists, enabling desirable ecosystem characteristics to be used as optimization guides for industrial resource networks (or eco-industrial parks, EIPs), water networks, supply chains, and power grids. Characteristics such as a high level of cycling of materials/energy within the system and a unique balance between redundant and efficient pathways are connected back to the achievement of traditional engineering goals such as cost and robustness.

Texas A&M’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department: Environmental, Water Resources, and Coastal Engineering Graduate Seminar

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Honored to have been invited to give a graduate seminar in A&M’s Civil Engineering Department for the Environmental, Water Resources, and Coastal Engineering students. Feel free to virtually stop by if you’re free, I’ll be talking about my research regarding “Bio-Inspired System Design: Using Nature to Improve the Resilience and Sustainability of Our Water Networks.”

Seminar Abstract: Biological ecosystems have been through millions of years of R&D, producing complex networks of interacting species that are able to support individual needs while maintaining system-level functions. In this talk Dr. Layton will show that biological networks offer a relatively untapped source of design inspiration for improving the sustainability and resilience of our water distribution networks. Quantitative descriptors and analysis techniques are adapted from ecology through close collaboration with ecologists, enabling desirable ecosystem characteristics to be used as optimization guides for industrial water networks. Characteristics such as a high level of cycling of materials/energy within the system and a unique balance between redundant and efficient pathways are connected back to the achievement of traditional engineering goals such as cost and robustness.

Fall 2020 J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering Graduate Excellence Fellowship

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Congratulations to BiSSL PhD student Abheek Chatterjee for winning a J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering Graduate Excellence Fellowship for continuing students for the Fall 2020 semester! The highly competitive graduate scholarship awards graduate students doing excellent research, academic performance, and leadership in the department.

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