News

Founded by the students themselves, the new Power and Energy Society at UNC Charlotte is an interdisciplinary group working to further education and understanding of the energy industry.

In an effort to improve economy, durability and smoothness of highway pavements, a new design procedure is being implemented nationwide. This procedure, outlined in the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (M-EPDG), represents the work of leading researchers over the past two decades.

Responding to the need for highly trained leaders in Charlotte’s growing energy industry, UNC Charlotte has added an energy concentration to its nationally ranked part-time Master of Business Administration program. The new concentration began in fall 2013.

Capturing carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere is crucial to reducing greenhouse gases. A challenge that arises once the CO2 is captured is how to store it safely. Dr. Shen-En Chen and his students are developing porous, calcium-rich concrete mixtures that can not only absorb the gas, but actually render it inert.

The William States Lee College of Engineering presented its 2013 Excellence in Teaching Awards to Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science faculty members Dr. Tony Schmitz for undergraduate teaching, and Dr. Scott Kelly for graduate teaching.

With experiments ranging from the principles of basic electromagnetism to the integration of renewable power systems into the grid, the AREVA Power Systems Teaching Laboratory in the UNC Charlotte Energy Production and Infrastructure Center (EPIC) building provides students hands-on learning tools that teach the many properties of electric generation and use.

The students designed and built several engineering innovations into “UrbanEden,” UNC Charlotte’s Solar Decathlon house. The integration of these innovations made each more efficient, which caught the notice and praise of the judges, who named UrbanEden one of the best engineered houses in the international competition.

Determining the most efficient ways to operate buildings, the Sustainably Integrated Buildings and Sites (SIBS) program is helping businesses reduce energy consumption, which saves them money and at the same time decreases greenhouse gas emissions. SIBS is a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRC) program.

Designing, building and testing data systems for a balloon that flew into the stratosphere brought challenges of operating in the environments of both space and of earth.

Dr. Johan Enslin, former chief technology officer at Petra Solar, has been named director of the Energy Production and Infrastructure Center (EPIC) at UNC Charlotte. EPIC, headquartered in a new $76-million building nearing completion on the Charlotte Research Institute campus, will train a new generation of engineers and conduct research in new energy technologies.