As you know from my previous entries, I am a proud alum of the Edison Engineering Development Program at Global Research and am always happy to support the program.

Last week I was flying back to Albany, NY from Dayton, Ohio (visiting our team at GE Aviation) and I was lucky enough to arrive at the airport just in time to see the Blue Angels, an aerobatic flight demonstration team flying FA-18 Hornets, practicing in the Dayton Airport’s airspace. They were preparing for a demonstration to be held at the Dayton Air Show this past weekend. After I wiped the smile off my face – I remembered that it was just about the right time of year for the Farnborough Air Show.

As it turns out, the Farnborough Air Show is currently taking place outside of London, England so I thought I would share a link that GE Reports story about GE Aviation’s presence at the event.

A lot of attention has been given to images that Airbus released about what an airplane of the future might look like. The images show a plane with the engine nacelle integrated with the fuselage and a U-shaped tail. Airbus also claims it will have to appeal to the eco-friendly consumer, with increased fuel efficiency, lower noise emissions, and cleaner fuel burn. But the most intriguing aspect of this “plane of the future” is the claim that the walls of the plane will turn transparent with a touch of a button. No more fighting for the window seat!

This event also coincides with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s first international flight from Seattle to Farnborough nonstop. You can see a video of the flight landing here:

I don’t think I’ll have a ton of time this week to share some of my thoughts every day on what is going on in Farnborough (although I wish I could!). But, if you would like to stay up to date check out my favorite blog www.flightglobal.com and GE Reports will also continue to post stories on GE Aviation news.  GE Aviation even has one of their aviation engineers live tweeting from Farnborough on the Twitter account @GETech_Infra – if you are interested in checking that out.

Let me know what you think the most exciting news coming out of Farnborough is in case I miss it!

After some weather delays… not that there is ever a cloud in the sky over Everett, WA … we’re proud to note that two General Electric GEnx-1B64 engines powered the recent Dreamliner test flight airframe!!! The engine saw almost four hours of flight time and represents a big step as Boeing progresses with test schedules for both engine-airframe combinations. The sixth (and final) test airframe will also be powered by GEnx-1B64 engines and is scheduled to fly in July. At the end of that test flight, the airframe-engine combination will have completed 670 hours of in-flight testing and 600 hours of ground testing to certify it for service in the first quarter of 2011.

Check out the video of take-off on YouTube…

But perhaps the most well-known instance of “lasers” in cinema are the lightsabers from the Star Wars saga. I put quotes around “lasers” because the way lightsabers behave in these movies is quite a bit different from the way lasers behave in real life. So I wanted to take a look at these fictional devices, how they supposedly work in the Star Wars universe, and compare that to how they might work in our own, real, universe.

Pinning down the canonical inner workings of a lightsaber is tricky, but from browsing through the sometimes contradictory information on StarWars.com, Wookieepedia, and HowStuffWorks.com, I managed to glean what I thought was a pretty good breakdown. In the Star Wars universe, lightsabers are typically custom-built by Jedi and Sith warriors, but all have several common elements. Each has a power source, a lightsaber crystal, one or more focusing crystals, and a stabilizing emitter system. The power source is typically a diatium power cell, often with a capacity of several megawatt-hours. The lightsaber crystal converts the power cell’s energy into a plasma that is then passed through and directed by the focusing crystals. Finally, the emitter system stabilizes the plasma into a blade shape using a mix of power modulation and magnetic field containment.

Did that make sense to anyone? No? Good, then I’m not alone. Science fiction is typically a blend of materials and physical laws that do exist, and those that don’t. Although real-life battery technology is coming along great, we are a long way off from creating handheld batteries with capacities like that the ones found in the lightsaber’s diatium power cell. Perhaps the key lies in discovering this fictional diatium material?

Also, crystals do have many useful optical and piezoelectric properties but I don’t know of one that could magically create plasma from electricity. However, I read that the crystals must be “attuned to the Force” by a Jedi or Sith in a meditation ritual that can take days. So maybe we should start there.

Where the explanations of lightsaber technology get really convoluted is when they start talking about how the blade is shaped and contained. Magnetic fields are currently used to contain plasmas, but they are generated by machinery that must also surround it – Generating such a magnetic envelope from a single, unidirectional source would likely require some new laws of physics. There are also no crystals that can “direct” a plasma.

In fact, a plasma “being directed” by a crystal lens doesn’t make any physical sense anyway. A plasma is really just an ionized gas – a gas in which the electrons have been stripped from their atomic nuclei. We see plasmas all the time. They make up and are emitted from every star, like our solar wind and solar flares. The interaction of the solar wind with Earth’s magnetic field produces the aurora, or northern lights, another form of plasma. Plasmas are also the stuff of every spark and lightning bolt.

Although my specialty isn’t in plasma physics, I can very generally say that plasmas can be created by bringing gases up to a high energy level. The higher the energy, the more atoms will be stripped of their electrons, and the better quality plasma we will have. It’s completely possible that one could create a plasma by producing a large enough voltage difference, a la lightning, or a powerful enough laser focus. However, enormous amounts of energy are required with either of these approaches, and it would be extremely difficult to control the plasma’s shape. An electrical arc can have wild shifts in direction, and it can hardly be controlled without being surrounded by magnets. A laser will go in a straight line, but of course it doesn’t stop. A laser-based lightsaber would require a block or a couple of mirrors floating in midair, moving in sync with the hilt – which is of course largely impossible. On top of that, they would certainly melt in the presence of such a plasma anyway. Further, all of this is saying nothing about what the actual quality of the plasma would be and how reliably or quickly it would cut through objects.

So it seems quite impossible to create a lightsaber, as seen in the Star Wars films, using existing technologies, materials, and physical laws. But given the enthusiasm of Star Wars superfans out there, I wouldn’t be surprised if people are trying. Anyway, since I’m more of a nerd than a plasma physicist, I’ll pose this question to my colleagues: How do you think a real-life lightsaber could work?

As Tiffany Westendorf pointed out a week or so ago, one of our colleagues, Russ DeMuth, has been getting some attention for the pallophotophone he put together that had allowed the Schenectady Museum to listen to some of the oldest known audio recordings.  Russ was featured in this GE Reports story and on the local NBC News!

This weekend, the Albany Times Union featured a profile on Russ in the “My Other Life” section that profiles his real job and compares that with his passion outside of work. Check it out!

I also am going to be doing a little interview with Russ to learn more about him and the work he has been doing at the Museum. They are able to listen to some of the oldest recordings of Edison and it is really very fascinating!  Right now I am in the airport as I wait for my flight to Munich for the Intersolar Conference.  I will try to update you on the conference when I return!

So we had a laser that could burn a pattern in the paper – or right through it, given the chance. The next thing needed was a system that could direct the beam at the proper speed in the pattern of the GE logo. In our micromachining lab, this is pretty simple to do.

First, we load the geometry of the GE logo into a software program. This program then controls two galvanometer scanners, with a mirror mounted on each. The beam hits the first mirror, which directs it left and right, and then hits the second mirror, which directs it up and down. Within one second, we were able to scribe a 2″ wide GE logo onto a piece of black paper.

After working with it for some time now, I still think it’s really cool. But what’s even cooler is that this is just one tool, out of thousands, that we use daily at the research center.  The photos below were taken by my friend and colleague, Vijay Paruchuru, who works in the optics lab at GE Global Research. In addition to his work in the lab (and as a volunteer during demonstrations at CES), Vijay is a part-time photographer.

http://lee.ifas.ufl.edu/FYN/FYNPubs/TheDangersofPlasticBags.pdf

I have volunteered with Job Shadow Day for the past 2 years as a group host because I believe the earlier students see these career paths the more likely they are to pursue an education in a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) field.  I had a ton of fun with my group from Ballston Spa while we identified fruits from an MR image, learned about propulsion systems, thought about things on a different scale with an overview of nanotechnology projects, and finished the morning with Smart Grid.

This year, we gave Flip Cameras to two of the groups (one being mine!!!) to film what they found interesting throughout the tours at Global Research. I included the videos here– which are pretty raw and don’t have any editing, so that you can see Global Research through the eyes of the students. Visit our Flickr account to view some of the photos from Job Shadow Day.

Check out the videos!

EEDP Leader in Bangalore, Prabha Chatterji:
“This has been one of the proudest responsibilities for me to shoulder”:

Recent EEDP graduate, Paromita Bhattacharya:
“After completing this program, anything and every challenge at GE you will be ready to handle.”:

Recent EEDP graduate, Aanchal Saini:
“When I tell my friends, I say it very proudly, ‘I work at GE’ and they always say, ‘Oh, wow!’”

Recent EEDP graduate Anurag Agarwal:
“It is a very promising program, which excites me still!”

I joined the EEDP program in February of 2009 and, since joining, have had the opportunity to work on a number of interesting projects over the course of my first year in the program.

I have a background in materials science – particularly the metallurgy and characterization of intermetallic alloys. I began working between two different labs – the High Temperature Alloy Processing Lab (HiTAPL) and the Micro and Nano Analysis Lab (MNAL). Within HiTAPL, I created a model for the behavior of magnetocaloric materials that will be used to help understand the fundamental structure, properties, and perfomance relationships. I also helped develop better processing techniques for high-performance permanent magnet materials that are critical components in advanced electric machines and drive systems. Within MNAL I focused on transmission electron microscope (TEM) characterization of superalloys for applications within the coal gasification and nuclear energy industries. The characterization work ultimately provided insight into past material performance and future design considerations.

I recently began two new rotations, one in the Risk and Value Management Technology Lab (RVMTL) and the other within the auspices of the Ceramics and Metallurgy Technologies (CMT) organization. The RVMTL rotation involves quantifying credit risk for contractual service agreements (CSAs) for the Aviation business, which will be used to help manage their CSA decision-making process. The goal of the CMT rotation is to complete a risk analysis around the supply and demand of three GE-strategic elements and assess whether we should be concerned about supply constraints in the near- to medium-term. These projects are just kicking off and I am excited to be a part of them as they take shape!

The EEDP program has given me the opportunity to make impactful contributions to a number of disparate projects, an opportunity I would not otherwise have had, had I been hired into one specific lab at the Research Center. It has been a great introduction to the extremely diverse set of work at a world-class research facility, with new opportunities arising daily!

To kick that off, I wanted to share with you a short video segment that was put together by Career TV. They came and visited Global Research last year, profiled the program, and followed around my friend and fellow Edison, Christian Wagner. I wanted to share this with you since it does a great job of explaining what the role of an Edison at Global Research really is like and I thought it might be interesting. Plus, Christian finds it embarrassing, so there is even more motivation!  Check out the video here.

Over the past year and a half I have worked on projects for GE Aviation, Healthcare, and Energy. I have learned a vast spectrum of technologies that aid in the design of everything from computed tomography scintillators to aircraft engine blades. I have had the opportunity to work with some of the best people in their field and found a few mentors along the way. I have also successfully completed A Course, the first section of Advanced Courses in Engineering (ACE) and will begin B Course in February. I will be blogging about the Edison program, introducing you to some of the current Edison Engineers and their rotations, as well as highlighting some of the technology in my field. I hope to keep you all coming back for more – and if I am not – tell me what to do better!

Outside, I’ve gotten involved with some additional musicians and have continued to have fun on the bass. Also, in January, I went down to New Orleans on a mission trip to help with the reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina. Believe it or not, there is still much damage in that area. It was heartbreaking to see. The group I was with gutted 7 houses (stripping them down to the bare studs) so the owners could get started on rebuilding that much faster and with a little more hope. It was a life-changing event, and I would encourage everyone to just go and do something like that, help wherever there is a need. It’s one thing to donate money – but it’s quite another to actually pick up a tool and do the work that needs doing.

Stepping off the soapbox and into the lab, I’m happy to report that I’ve finished my Master’s degree! Most of my working time until now has been applied to writing and releasing my Master’s Thesis on the stress corrosion cracking (SCC) behavior of Alloy 800, a commercial Fe-Ni-Cr alloy. Stress corrosion cracking, to summarize, is an effect of the interactions between the environment, the material, and the loading condition in which a crack may grow to near-catastrophic lengths without giving any external signs of its presence. My study, in a nutshell, examined an ASTM standard test for corrosion resistance and compared the results with the SCC tests we’ve done in our lab for decades. We did this to see if you could really say that the results of the ASTM test imply anything about SCC for Alloy 800 in a high purity, superheated water environment. I found that this was not the case.

During that study I used a transmission electron microscope (TEM), doing everything from the sample prep to diffraction analysis. The picture above at the top is an example of what you would see during TEM imaging. The TEM is one of the most difficult of the characterization techniques, mainly because sample prep is very painstaking. But TEM is also the most powerful – you can get quantitative chemical and structural information in one package, mainly because you are actually able to ’see’ properties of the metal crystal lattice directly. It’s wild. Really, it feels like I became a materials scientist in the space of 4 months!

Of course, since I started with an Aeronautical – Mechanical background this new field of ‘expertise’ in Materials Science has also raised a lot of questions within myself in terms of what I want to do in the field of science and research, and with my career (especially now that I’ve completed all the requirements of the Edison program). There’s just so much I could get into – it’s an exciting time, but daunting as well. I’m upbeat about it though – it’s better to have many choices than few, and the number of open roads ahead has turned out to be the most significant benefit of the Program for me.

I have finally chosen a path, specializing in advanced machining processes with the Material Systems technologies group. I’m looking forward to the future and providing updates on my new role.

I owe Jesse Schechter and Nancy Martin, the Edison Leaders, a huge debt of gratitude for their tireless work in guiding me, and all the Edisons, through such a great program. I would also like to thank all the wonderful classmates in the program and the fantastic assignment leaders – Martin Morra, Tony Dean, Joel Haynes, and Bin Wei – whose investments in time and trust have been invaluable to my growth as a technologist. Thank you all.

The paper concerned the mechanical response of Pulse Detonation tubes during repeated detonations and during deflagration-to-detonation transition, which is something that Adam posted about recently. The best result to tell was that we learned the distribution of stress in the PDE tubes during transition to detonation (DDT). This was something that’s been calculated before but few studies actually showed this experimentally. The picture above is the strain response along several locations along a PDE tube. What’s so rewarding is the ability to make these discoveries like this and have a paper to my credit that will hopefully benefit the PDE research community.

The Edison Summit was a two and a half-day event that brought together over 140 edisons from GE Energy, Aviation, Consumer & Industrial, Healthcare, Transportation, and the Global Research Center in Bangalore, India. We had lectures and panel discussions on growth along a technical career path, the role of technology in society, building your image, and several others. It was incredibly fulfilling to meet so many peers who all shared that passion for technology and showed it in so many different ways. I also ran into a few RPI Alumni as well!

As I mentioned, my B-course project finished as well. At the Research Center, the B-course is a four month-long technical project that adds value to GE in some way. We each get a handful of money to spend for whatever materials or time we need to charge against. We start by pitching our ideas to a panel of technical advisors including the EEDP program manager and Nancy Martin, Manager of Technology Leadership Development for GE. If the project is approved, we go on to conduct whatever research is necessary and give monthly updates in the format of quarterly reviews. My project involved an environmentally-friendly manufacturing process for GE Aviation. It was a great experience in how research gets completed at the project-level, balancing business needs with financial goals and performing real research at the same time.

Finally, I moved out of the PDE program and moved into the Corrosion and Electrochemistry Lab, where I’m doing research into the corrosion properties of alloys GE uses in equipment used for coal gasification. I’m also combining this work with my research for RPI as part of earning my MS in Materials Engineering. This experience so far has involved lots of hands-on learning in metallurgy including metallography sample prep, carbide extraction, and ASTM standards-based tests.

That’s the latest…for now!

EEDP’s (a.k.a., Edisons) start out with engineering Bachelor degrees and take on at least 3 rotations in different labs throughout the Research Center, while taking GE’s Advanced Courses in Engineering and attending Graduate school to pursue a Master’s in an engineering field of their choosing. Edisons at GRC in Niskayuna have the choice of attending Georgia Tech via distance learning or Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute part-time. There’s no limit to the variety of experience you can get from the Edison program, especially at GRC because you have your pick of practically any technology GE is working on!

My first rotation lasted for a year, and it was actually a project that I had worked on as a Summer Intern prior to starting on the Edison program. This project was with the Process Systems Lab in the Inspection & Manufacturing Technologies organization. I worked on a manufacturing technology for machining superalloy compressor blades for aircraft engines much faster than previously possible. The work I did, mostly lab testing and process capability studies, helped it to become accepted by one of GE Aviation’s manufacturing plants. My next rotation was in the Combustion Laboratory of the Energy and Propulsion Technologies organization, where I performed CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) modeling of a prototype gas turbine combustor for a Department of Energy project.

Right now I’m wrapping up my third rotation in the Pulse Detonation Engines (PDE) Advanced Technology Program, and have worked with Adam Rasheed along with several other incredibly talented and knowledgeable team members. My focus has been on applications of PDEs, and actually I got my start assisting Adam on some of his experiments for the joint project with NASA he’s mentioned in his Blog. There’s been a bunch of other research that I’m not allowed to talk about, which in itself is cool! I’ve been involved since September ‘05.

At the end of this month I will be moving to a very different technology: Coal Gasification. That will be my last rotation, during which I’ll be doing materials research which will help me complete my requirements for an MS in Materials Engineering, which I’ve been studying since September at RPI. In the meantime, I’ve gone through the Advanced Courses in Engineering, commonly known around here as A-Course and B-Course. The A-Course is a series of five modules packed with engineering knowledge focused on a specific GE Business. During each module, we complete group engineering projects, complete an individual research paper on a technical topic of our choosing (related to the current module), and present results at reviews at the end of each module. I completed this last year. The B-Course, which I’m doing now, is a business project that each individual class member creates, pitches to GE leadership, and executes during the months from April to September. Later on I’ll write about what I’m doing, but for now I’m headed off to prepare for a class at Crotonville, which is GE’s leadership development center. Stay tuned!