Fall Semester Newsletter

Christina M PerryNews

Dear Bechtel Innovation Design Center Community,  We hope this newsletter finds you well. In this edition, we are excited to share some significant updates and changes that have taken place in our system, as well as some upcoming events that you will not want to miss.  The Transition to Brightspace  One of the most notable recent changes in the Bechtel …

End of Semester Newsletter

Christina M PerryNews

New Operations Manager Dan Bollock We are extremely excited to announce that we have hired a second Operations Manager to begin the transition to support extended hours. I would like to introduce Dan Bollock who has joined our team at the Center. Dan received his BSME from Purdue many years ago. He comes to us from the Wood Research Laboratory …

Multi stable Heat Exchanger 2.0

Matthew SwabeyLaser Engraving and Cutting, Student Project

Sean, an undergraduate student working on a personal research project to acquire and apply new knowledge, is supervised by John, a peer mentor at the center. He pursued this topic primarily for the chance to conduct research. Using laser cutting, he created a heat exchanger out of the metal sheet. The product mainly consists of the fins of AC motors …

Collection Chamber

Matthew SwabeyCAD/CAM, Machining, Student Project

Senior aerospace engineering major Vebjorn Moskvil is engaged in a personal project for academic purposes. To finish his research, he is utilizing a Haas VF4 machine, and he is machining aluminum to construct the chamber for a fuel tank experiment. It will be used to dump fuel into an experiment chamber that will be launched by Blue Origin in the …

Landing Gear

Matthew SwabeyMachining, Student Project

Matthew, Brandon, and Dhruv are making a prototype landing leg for a rocket launch structure that will be carried aloft by a balloon. Their work with the Purdue Orbital Club is quite thin. They use aluminum as the material for the Haas VF4 machine to machine their product.

Multi-stable Heat Exchanger

Matthew SwabeyLaser Engraving and Cutting, Student Project

James Freeman, a Center peer mentor, is helping a student manufacture multi-stable beams. The student is researching how different styles of fins affect the heat exchange in HVAC systems. The research is being conducted at Herrick Labs on the Multistable heat exchanger fins for HVAC systems. The student used the FabLight laser to cut aluminum 6061 and is planning to …

Cooling Plate Prototype

Matthew SwabeyCAD/CAM, Machining

Atulram, a peer mentor at the center is creating a cooling plate for Purdue Electric Racing that is still in the prototype stage for the car’s electric battery. He is making the cooling plate in order to keep the battery from getting too hot. Aluminum was used to construct the prototype.

Milling A Purdue P

Matthew SwabeyMachining

Cole Cicora a peer mentor at the center is employing the HAAS VF2 available here to mill a Purdue P. He uses the 1/2 Maximet then the 1/8 Maximet & finally the 1/8 Engraving Cutter for his project.

Combustion chamber for a micro gas turbine

Matthew SwabeyMachining

This is the combustion chamber for a micro gas turbine engine. It’s made out of 304 stainless steel. This part consists of an external and internal chamber that has primary, secondary, and dilution holes. It will be rolled and then welded together to make the complete combustor.

What is Fusion 360?

Christina M PerryNews

Fusion 360 is an Autodesk product. Autodesk is a provider of CAD environments, namely, Fusion 360. One of the unique features of Fusion 360 is that it is an integrated CAD and CAM environment, meaning that they both are held in the same place. Another unique thing about Fusion 360 is that it is cloud-based, meaning that if you are …