Functional materials/surfaces, bioabsorbable materials, and natural minerals
Formulation, separation, processing, characterization, and application
Surface Innovations, the journal
The 1st issue of 2016 of the Surface Innovations journal is available. This issue contains five additional invited papers on recent developments in polymer surface modification, dedicated to Dr. Kash Mittal – the first five papers were included in the 4th issue of 2015.
The issue also includes the editorial to this issue that not only summarizes the content of this issue but also reveals recent and important developments in the Surface Innovations journal.
Materials & Design
A new paper on ballistic armor has been accepted for publication in the Materials & Design journal. The paper entitled: Novel Ballistic Ramie Fabric Composite Competing with Kevlar™ Fabric in Multilayered Armor, was prepared by collaborators from the Institute of Military in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is co-authored by Prof. Drelich.
Abstract: It was reported recently that the most important function of a polymeric backing plate in multilayered ballistic armor system (MBAS) is capturing the post-impact debris coming from fragmented front ceramic tile. Following this discovery, conventional Kevlar™ fabric was replaced in this study with a 30 vol% ramie fabric – reinforced epoxy composite and underwent ballistic tests with 7.62 mm ammunition. Multiple tests with a clay witness (simulating a personal body) revealed a 10-20% smaller depth of indentation made by penetrating projectiles in MBAS equipped with a novel ramie – epoxy composite backing plate as compared to Kevlar™ fabric. The massive capturing of ceramic fragments was observed for both the Kevlar™ fabric and ramie – epoxy composite, although the novel composite dissipated 3 times more energy during the process. Impedance-matching analysis corroborates the ballistic performance results. The 95% cost reduction indicates a substantial economic advantage of the ramie – epoxy composite over Kevlar™.
TMS Administrative Committee
Prof. Drelich was nominated and invited to the TMS Content Development and Dissemination Committee that is part of the TMS Administrative Board committees. The purpose of the Content Development and Dissemination Committee is to collaboratively guide and support TMS initiatives and programs related to the development of content and its delivery via any form of media. Additionally, the committee seeks to grow content-related revenue opportunities and to protect and build the TMS brand as a provider of content to the science and engineering community.
He was also nominated to the TMS Professional Development Committee, which although initiated activities in 2015, should be approved by the TMS Board of Directors during upcoming annual TMS meeting in Nashville – next week. This new committee will coordinate developments of courses, workshops, mentoring sessions and webinars for the TMS members.
Nina Ferenc
Nina Ferenc is a freshman student attending Westfield High School in Virginia. At the beginning of 2016, she came up with a science fair project that was designed based on our research on biodegradable zinc stents. She was intrigued by the corrosion and dissolution of zinc in a body, with a local aqueous environment that could have a pH value different than a typical biological environment of pH=7.35. Designing a simple experiment, she studied the effect of water pH on corrosion rate of zinc. By recording mass losses of zinc after 26 days, she confirmed the accelerated degradation of zinc in water with a lemon juice (acidic solution) as compared to water without additives or water with baking soda (alkaline solution). She then concluded/hypothesized that a drop in pH value of the zinc stent environment would increase its degradation. There are much broader implications of this project and could be linked to identification of the range of pH values that macrophages may need to generate at the surface of a zinc implant in order to degrade the implant at an accelerated rate.
We congratulate Nina on winning second place in the biomedical engineering category for the science fair across the whole Westfield High School! This is a really great accomplishment for a freshman student and we wish Nina continued success and excitement in science projects to come.
Jarek Drelich
Prof. Drelich has been invited to serve on the Editorial Board of the Eureka: Physics & Engineering journal. This is a new open-access international peer-reviewed journal devoted to science and engineering.
ICE Publishing
We are very happy to report that our papers published in two journals of ICE Publishing are among top cited contributions of 2015. In Surface Innovations, the very top paper is that entitled “Guidelines to measurements of reproducible contact angles using a sessile-drop technique” and prepared by Dr. Drelich. The paper entitled “Physics and applications of superhydrophobic and superhydrophilic surfaces and coatings” by J. Drelich and A. Marmur is the third most-cited publication in the same journal in 2015. Also the third most cited publication listed in the Emerging Materials Research journal is ours: “New approaches in evaluating metallic candidates for bioabsorbable stents” by P.K. Bowen et al.
Kevin Baker
Dr. Kevin Baker, Director of Orthopedic Research at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak visited Michigan Tech and gave interesting seminar entitled “Towards the In Situ Regeneration of Musculoskeletal Tissues” to both Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering departments. Kevin completed his MS degree under Prof. Drelich supervision in 2005 and then completed his PhD program at Wayne State University in 2011 when already working for Beaumont Hospital. It was a great opportunity to learn the progress Kevin made in contributing to building a strong orthopedics research program at Beaumont Hospital in the last 10 years.
This was also great opportunity to meet his family, wife Erin and two of his three boys: Everett and Miles.
We hope that this visit provided enough foundation for collaboration between SURFI team and Beaumont Hospital in the area of orthopedic implants.
Jarek Drelich
Prof. Drelich has been invited by Graphy Publications to serve on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Metallurgical & Materials Engineering. This is an international peer reviewed journal devoted to materials, which covers all the major field of metallurgical & materials engineering.
Surface Innovations, the journal
The 4th issue of 2015 of the Surface Innovations journal is available. This issue contains five invited papers on recent developments in polymer surface modification and is dedicated to Dr. Kash Mittal.
After Commencement with Patrick
Patrick, now Dr. Bowen, has completed his four-year PhD program at Michigan Tech and is going to challenge his skills in industry. He will work for Deringer-Ney Inc. in Bloomfield, Connecticut as the Senior Research Metallurgist.
We are thankful to Patrick for his numerous scientific and engineering contributions to our program on bioadsorbable metal stents. He was the pillar of this program for five years, since he started to work on senior design project, before he committed his talent to the graduate program. Patrick published several papers, many of which appeared in high-impact journals, and either advised or assisted many other students. He also contributed strongly to the NSF – supported program on rehydroxylation of ceramic artifacts and Michigan State – supported project on antimicrobial vermiculite. Patrick has mastered many characterization methods including SEM, AFM, TEM, XRD, and others, and proposed several scientific ideas and engineering innovations.
We hope that Patrick will continue his involvement with our team in years to come and we expect that this fruitful collaboration will conclude with new joint publications.
