Advanced materials and structures in extreme environments
Professor Arun Shukla’s team literally blows things up to learn how to better keep them together.
Using shock tubes, a 2,000-gallon underwater pressure tank and high-speed cameras capable of capturing thousands of frames per second, they can slow down time to study how materials will act under extreme temperatures, pH, heat transfer rates, and pressure.
Other engineers are exploring the effect that extreme environments have on carbon composite materials by studying them at the molecular level, as new materials are replacing steel and aluminum in applications such as aircraft and undersea robots. They are researching new composite materials, that are lighter and easier to maintain than traditional metals, but have a higher tolerance for damage.
Technology for NASA’s Next-Generation Telescope - University of Rhode Island Professor Sungho Kim is developing technology that could be part of NASA’s next-generation telescope that will allow the space agency to observe and study phenomena that occurred 13.7 billion years ago. 
Engineering Professors, Business Receive $75,000 Grant from RI Commerce Corp. - KINGSTON, R.I. – URI Engineering professors Richard Vaccaro and Musa Jouneh received a $75,000 innovation grant from RI Commerce Corporation for engineering development work with a startup company, Kinesia. The grant, which runs from January to August 2024, will pay for the creation of a prototype for an aid to human rehabilitation from orthopedic and […]
COE Welcomes New Faculty - Mehrshad Amini, Assistant Professor, CVE/OCE Dr. Mehrshad Amini will join the University of Rhode Island in Fall 2023 as an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Ocean Engineering. He completed his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Pennsylvania State University in 2021. […]
Professor Arun Shukla Awarded ASME Drucker Medal - By Hugh Markey For the past 42 years, Prof. Arun Shukla has been a part of the URI mechanical, industrial, and systems engineering department, supervising over a hundred graduate students, conducting research, and making substantial contributions to the engineering community. Those efforts were recently recognized with the awarding of the Daniel C. Drucker Medal, given […]
Faculty
People are just now discovering all the benefits of these materials in terms of cost savings and their performance in extreme environments. Our research is helping to advance the field.
Arun Shukla