Three MechSE students awarded NSF fellowships

Bruno Pavanelli de Azeredo and Elizabeth Moine Cler Jones both graduated from UIUC in Engineering Mechanics. Now, as MechSE graduate students in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, they were awarded fellows in the National Science Foundations’ Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). Mechanical Engineering student Eduardo Jesus Torrealba from Baylor University also received the honor of being a GRFP fellow and will be joining the mechanical engineering graduate program at Illinois in Fall 2011.

The National Science Foundations’ GRFP supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master and doctoral degrees at accredited US institutions. The students will receive three years of support, a $30,000 annual stipend, and $10,500 cost-of-education allowance. They are also provided international research and professional development opportunities and TeraGrid Supercomputer access.

Bruno Azeredo works with the Advanced Research Project Agency of the Department of Energy. His research project title “Harvesting low-heat using economical flexible stacked-nanostructure thermoelectric junctions,” works towards fabricating high-efficiency thermoelectric junctions with an energy-efficient technique in order to recover about 0.1TW of energy per year in the United States alone. Bruno also works on the project, “WAVE – Engaging young leaders for the advancement of citizenship” under contract with Children’s Aid (NGO) – Brazil and the Institute of International Education. Azeredo studies the conditions of living in Porto do Rosa, Brazil, and he identifies areas of concerns to help contribute to the development of educational programs for orphan children in Brazil.

Elizabeth Jones works to develop new silicon anodes with optimal micro- or nanostructure for improved reliability and performance. Traditional lithium-ion batteries using graphite-based anodes are useful in small, portable electronics, but have a limited charge capacity. Silicon is a promising new anode material with a theoretical charge capacity (4200 mAh/g) more than ten times that of graphite (372 mAh/g), but is limited by the huge volume expansion that results from lithiation. Upon cycling, the silicon experiences significant morphological changes that lead to poor capacity retention and reliability. Reliable performance relies on accurate characterization of the anode fracture properties. To accomplish this goal, her team uses digital image correlation (DIC) to measure in situ strains that develop during lithiation and delithiation of anode materials.