Renovations to Materials Science and Engineering Undergraduate Labs
Thanks to significant financial support from the School of Engineering (SoE) and the Department of Chemical, Materials, and Biomolecular Engineering (CMBE), the Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) undergraduate laboratories underwent $140,000 worth of renovations in 2012. As a result, the capabilities of the MSE undergraduate labs have been augmented by new equipment including a Struers Duravision 20 universal hardness tester, Nanoscience Inc. Nanosurf atomic force microscope, Admet benchtop fatigue tester, and Thermofisher Scientific 1500°C tube furnace. With the help of the SoE Tiger Team, the labs were thoroughly cleaned and now display posters that apprise students, faculty, and visitors alike of the research efforts of the MSE department.
The MSE undergraduate program offers three one-credit and one three-credit hands-on laboratory courses, and the new equipment supplements the department’s ability to use these courses to provide a state-of-the-art materials education to MSE undergraduate students. Mr. Adam Wentworth (MSE Lab Manager – UConn MSE B.S., 2009, and MSE M.S., 2011) and Ms. Alexandra Merkouriou (MSE sophomore) have already developed new lab modules on the synthesis, characterization, and measurement of properties of high-temperature superconducting yttrium barium copper oxide ceramics for the introductory MSE lab course, MSE 2053, and the materials characterization class, MSE 4003, which both make extensive use of the new equipment. Says MSE Program Director S. Pamir Alpay, “these additional facilities will significantly enhance MSE’s capability to support a wide range of senior capstone design projects. The laboratories and equipment will also be made available to students from all departments within the School of Engineering who are working on senior design projects.”
Published: July 16, 2012
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