students

BiSSL Student Led PLOS ONE Publication

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We can finally share this open access PLOS ONE publication “A quantitative engineering study of ecosystem robustness using thermodynamic power cycles as case studies” written with MS BiSSL alumni Varuneswara Panyam (TAMU graduate December 2019). Understanding the characteristics of biological systems from an engineering perspective is an important part of bio-inspired engineering design!

ABSTRACT: Human networks and engineered systems are traditionally designed to maximize efficiency. Ecosystems on the other hand, achieve long-term robustness and sustainability by maintaining a unique balance between pathway efficiency and redundancy, measured in terms of the number of flow pathways available for a given unit of flow at any node in the network. Translating this flow-based ecosystem robustness into an engineering context supports the creation of new robust and sustainable design guidelines for engineered systems. Thermodynamic cycles provide good examples of human systems where simple and clearly defined modifications can be made to increase efficiency. Twenty-three variations on the Brayton and Rankine cycles are used to understand the relationship between design decisions that maximize a system’s efficient use of energy (measured by thermodynamic first law efficiency) and ecological measures of robustness and structural efficiency. The results reveal that thermodynamic efficiency and ecological pathway efficiency do not always correlate and that while on average modifications to increase energy efficiency reduce the robustness of the system, the engineering understanding of ecological network design presented here can enable decisions that are able to increase both energy efficiency and robustness.

PLOS ONE (2019) “A quantitative engineering study of ecosystem robustness using thermodynamic power cycles as case studies” Panyam, V. and Layton, A.

2 BiSSL Papers Accepted to the 27th CIRP-Life Cycle Engineering Conference

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Two BiSSL students, MS student Colton Brehm and PhD student Abheek Chatterjee, have had full papers accepted to 2020’s CIRP LCE conference! The 2020 conference focuses on “the role that engineering must play in the achievement of the sustainable future that people wish.” The conference this year is hosted by Grenoble INP – Institut d’Ingénierie Univ. Grenoble Alpes and will be held in Grenoble, France May 13-15, 2020.

  • Abheek Chatterjee, Colton Brehm, and Astrid Layton (2020) “Mimicking the nested structures of ecosystems in the design of industrial water networks.”
  • Abheek Chatterjee and Astrid Layton (2020) “Bio-inspired Design for Sustainable and Resilient Supply Chains.”

J. Mike Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering Fellowships and Scholarships

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J. Mike Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering Fellowships and Scholarships. So incredibly proud of all of our BiSSL research students! Last week’s fellowships and scholarships awards dinner for the J. Mike Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering was an honor to attend, to celebrate all of our department’s diverse and accomplished students!

  • Tirth Dave was awarded a Graduate Student Fellowship
  • Abheek Chatterjee was awarded an Emil Buehler Aerodynamic Analog Fellowship
  • Colton Brehm was awarded a Graduate Excellence Fellowship
  • Varun Panyam was awarded a Graduate Excellence Fellowship
  • Shelby Warrington won the James J. Cain ’51 Award
  • Kristina Viro won the J. Mike Walker ’66 Impact Award

Two BiSSL Students Defend Their Theses!

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MS students Tirth Dave and Varuneswara Panyam both successfully defended their theses!

Dave, T., (2019) “Designing Robust Water Distribution Systems using Ecology as an Inspiration” Mechanical Engineering M.S. Thesis, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX.

Panyam, V., (2019) “Bio-inspired design for robust power systems” Mechanical Engineering M.S. Thesis, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX.

TEXAS A&M CONFERENCE ON ENERGY

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PhD student Hao Huang from the Power Systems group in Electrical Engineering will be presenting our Bio-Inspired Power Grid design work at the Fourth Annual TEXAS A&M CONFERENCE ON ENERGY on September 23-25, 2019. The event is sponsored by the Texas A&M Energy Research Society in partnership with the Texas A&M Energy Institute. The presentations will include a poster presentation in the “Seed Grant Poster Session” on Monday 23td 3:30-4:30pm as well as an oral presentation in the “Energy-Efficiency, Economics, Sustainability, and Policies” session on Wednesday 25th from 11:05-11:20am.

BiSSL Student Presents at A&M’s Resilience Rising Symposium

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Resilience Rising: Research and Practice on Hurricane Harvey and Hazards of the Future Symposium

BiSSL PhD student Abheek Chatterjee will be presenting his resilient system design related research “Investigating Ecosystems’ Mimicry towards Design of Resilient Resource and Infrastructure Networks” this Friday, September 6th at the “Resilience Rising” symposium being hosted by TAMU College of Architecture.

The symposium will be held in Rudder Tower on the College Station campus. Come learn and network with fellow TAMU researchers and practitioners as they discuss recent projects on Hurricane Harvey and disaster resilience! The event is free but registration is limited.

The schedule will include:

  • Presentations
  • Panel Discussions
  • Student Poster Presentation and Competition
  • Pecha Kucha Style Quick Presentations

For questions contact us at hrrc@arch.tamu.edu

Fall 2019 J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering Graduate Excellence Fellowships

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Congratulations to two of our BiSSL graduate research students, Ph.D. student Abheek Chatterjee and Masters student Tirth Dave, for winning the J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering Graduate Excellence Fellowship for continuing students for the Fall 2019 semester! The highly competitive graduate scholarship awards graduate students doing excellent research, academic performance, and leadership in the department.

Presentations of BiSSL Work at IDETC-CIE 2019

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BiSSL graduate students Varuneswara Panyam and Abheek Chatterjee presented their first-authored papers this week in Anaheim, CA. The papers for their talks “Bio-Inspired Human Network Design: Multi-Currency Robustness Metric Formulation Inspired By Ecological Network Analysis” and “Bio-inspired modeling approaches for human networks with link dissipation” can be found only through ASME IDETC2019.

BiSSL Presentation at ASME’s 2019 International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference

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Jewel Williams successfully presented her 1st authored paper, with BiSSL undergrad Shelby Warrington as 2nd author, at the ASME’s International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference held in Erie, PA.

Abstract: Circular economy aims to address limited resources through the continuous circulation of materials and energy. Recirculating low quality materials for reuse is a sustainability goal that is analogous to the primary function of Nature’s detritus species, a keystone for the proper functioning of ecosystems. Prior applications of ecosystem structure to human network design uncovered that even the most economically successful networks of industries demonstrate a lack of analogous detritus actors in the form of reuse and recycling. The recycling industry’s volatile nature, dependency on international factors, and financial difficulties prevent this strategy from becoming an efficient alternative. Creativity in design, inspired by ecosystems, is proposed here as a method to repurpose manufacturing byproducts that are otherwise seen as low quality waste materials. Realizing the reuse potential of these materials can create detrital-type feedback loops, an attribute that supports the characteristic resilience and efficiency of ecosystems. The work here analyzes existing methods of pursuing circular economy and investigates the potential benefits generated by purposefully adding connects that create detrital-feedback-loops at the consumer and producer levels.

(2019) Williams, J.; S. Warrington; A. Layton. Waste Reduction: A review of common options and alternatives. ASME International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference. Erie, PA.