General News

Competing with more than 40 other projects, the team of Andrew Gould, Thiec Rahlan and Joshua Smith won the top award at the Spring 2013 Senior Design Exposition for their Integrated Transformer Monitoring System project. Sponsored by Schweitzer Engineering Labs, the project involved the design, construction and testing of a transformer monitoring system centered around an existing transformer monitor, real-time automation control system and a dissolved gas analyzer.

In its second year, the 49er Rocket team has soared to new heights in a number of ways, even though a final launch engine failure at a recent event led to a crash and burn. That’s rockets, and that’s how you learn from rockets

Students can take courses in a classroom in Charlotte or on a computer in Istanbul. The degree can be completed fast-track in 12 months or more slowly over a number of years. The flexibility is great, but no matter which options students may select to meet their life situation, all lead to an exceptional master’s degree program in engineering management.

A new fire research and teaching laboratory in Smith Hall on the UNC Charlotte campus is helping the Fire Safety Engineering Technology program expand its undergraduate teaching facilities and increase its research capabilities for graduate-level studies and research.

The operation of large cranes performing heavy lifts is potentially dangerous, which is why new OSHA safety regulations are in place. The regulations are important and complex, and Lee College of Engineering Assistant Professor Chung-Suk Cho and his students are developing new training materials to help ensure crane safety is performed correctly.

In the optimization of a super car, UNC Charlotte motorsports researchers are using super computers and some super brain power to set up a complete computational fluid dynamics modeling and analysis program for an American Le Mans Series racer.

For their capstone project, a team of students from the Lee College of Engineering’s Leadership Academy designed, raised money for and built a sports training facility for special needs students to use in practicing for the Special Olympics.

With only the sun powering its new technologies, UNC Charlotte’s UrbanEden will be an innovative, sustainable, efficient and eco-friendly house that is at the same time attractive and comfortable. Part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon competition, UrbanEden is a joint project of UNC Charlotte’s colleges of engineering, architecture and business.

Having helped establish UNC Charlotte as a research university for the past 25 years, Dr. Ray Tsu, the “Superlattice Man”, is retiring. Not one to stop working or contributing completely, though, Dr. Tsu will begin three years of phased retirement in spring 2013, after which he says he still plans to provide consulting for university research.

Computers have come to the electric grid, and the Duke Energy Smart Grid laboratory at The William States Lee College of Engineering is educating the engineers who will be running this improved grid and performing research to achieve top efficiency in the new digital world.