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Hydrogen Properties for Energy Research (HYPER) Laboratory Cool. Fuel.

Doing what Hilsch couldn’t

He didn’t have access to modern day computers. A lot of research is in progress and you may wonder how they work. Good news! You can build one in your home with some hardware store parts. Here is an instructable on How to build a Vortex tube in your own home!

My undergraduate research project is on the computational modeling of the vortex tube. The long term goal of determining the most important geometric parameters. It is also important to determine how each of these factors into various fluids, specifically hydrogen. With patented technology the plan is to use the vortex tube in … » More …

Decorating The Thermodynamic Property Tree

At the 18th Symposium on Thermophysical Properties Eric Lemmon and Vince Arp had a presentation on the Gruneisen (Γ) and Phase Identification Parameter (Π) as useful properties for fitting Equations of State. In that talk they showed a slide titled “The Thermodynamic Property Tree”:Thermodynamic Property Tree

The exact origins of the tree are unknown and this was the first version I’ve personally seen. Unlike our Christmas trees that are ready to come down, this tree is just beginning. For example, the Helmholtz Free Energy (A) at the top is actually at the same … » More …

The colors of hydrogen

Two ways to color sort hydrogen have become popular. Although this post was originally developed with the physical colors that hydrogen fluoresces in mind, the community has since developed a color coordinated renewability scheme which is shown after the physical color scheme.

Hydrogen has signature colors that appear when the atoms are excited. This image from NASA-Ames shows a hydrogen arc lamp fluorescing:

Neils Bohr used the emission spectra of hydrogen to develop his model of the atom. In short, quantized energy levels release specific bands of light with unique colors. A description of the physics is … » More …

Why 2010 was the worst (and best!) time in history to start a hydrogen lab

University of Tennessee Professor Matthew Mench reviewed the recent history of hydrogen research in Foreign Affairs, “High Hopes for Hydrogen: Fuel Cells and the Future of Energy.”

Most folks know the history of George W. Bush’s push to develop the hydrogen fuel cell car around 2004. Today we have the Toyota Mirai, Hyundai Tucson, and Honda Clarity to thank for making the dream a reality. This all came in spite of Barrack Obama’s dismantling of the US hydrogen research infrastructure in 2009. Steven Chu, the lead of the Department of Energy at the time famously said “four miracles are needed for the hydrogen economy… … » More …

Read this before asking me for a reference letter

The best coach I had for reference letters was P.K. Northcutt II, the head of IT at the University of Idaho College of Engineering. I asked P.K. for a reference letter once and almost had an early-life crisis (it was needed). P.K. is not a professor, engineer, or someone in any position of rank or power. Despite that he was able to write — while teaching me how to write — phenomenal reference letters. At the very least, reviewers had to be impressed by my awareness to select exceptionally good letter writers.

So you want me to write you a reference letter? Start here:

I only … » More …

The Grand Challenges of Restructuring Engineering Departments

I recently posted about a new concept for the NSF Restructuring Engineering Departments (RED) program that extended CSU’s approach and mapped the core threads to spiral memes (SD). One of the results of this was the ability to work with the WSU Grand Challenge research themes. In this post I’ll specify what this mapping could look like in a hypothetical WSU Mechanical Engineering Curriculum. Note that this is not intended to serve as an actual ME curriculum and is simply intended to stimulate conversation.

Ideally the transformation works with our existing curriculum to the greatest extent possible. The current ME course listing is here. … » More …