Three University of Wisconsin engineering professors are receiving research funding from the Air Force through the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, UW officials announced Nov. 23.
The AFOSR provides the funding to support research in science and engineering relevant to the technological advancements that will best support the Air Force, according to associate professor of engineering physics Matt Allen who was one of the professors awarded the grant.
According to a statement from UW, the total amount of awarded grant money adds up to approximately $1 million.
Allen said the AFOSR wants to support students who may go on to work for the Air Force or who may pursue relevant research. The funding will allow him to pay for two graduate students’ tuition and research assistant salaries so they can further pursue their research, Allen said.
“Most of all, it’s nice just to know that I can afford to pay the students, and we can afford to do our work and doing our projects,” Allen said.
Associate professor of chemical and biological engineering Brian Pfleger added the program is tailored to support young professors and the Air Force mission. Thus, the AFOSR selects areas of research they feel are important and underrepresented.
According to Allen, his portion of the grant provides $364,000 for three years of his research. However, the funding may be subject to change depending on the budgets for each research project and the budgets of the Air Force.
Allen’s research focuses on using computer models to simulate how parts of an aircraft react to high speeds and high temperatures, which cause planes to buckle and expand. The vibrations may also create breaks in an aircraft.
“What we’re doing is coming up with methods that would let them use a more general model,” Allen said of the computer models. “Then, they can design planes that have more general behavior so they can push the airplane to new regions.”
The Air Force funding is Pfleger’s first award, and he added he will use the funds to support a graduate student’s three years of research with a thesis project.
Pfleger said the research will focus on cyanobacteria, which takes sunlight and carbon dioxide to make more valuable compounds, such as fuel. He said the research can be useful for the Air Force missions’ fuel for planes and automobiles.
“This is the first step for something that could be very, very important 10 or 15 years in the future,” Pfleger said. “The student who’s doing the research is very, very excited.”
The third professor supported by the program funding, associate professor of electrical and biological engineering Nader Behdad, is studying metamaterials in synthetic structures, which according to a statement released by UW could be used in radar systems and satellites.
Allen added the research supported through the funding is beneficial for UW both in the short-term and the long-term, as students are supported to do research that could later be adopted by industries and universities.
“It expands the research we can do and the likelihood that we can do research in the future,” Allen said. “Eventually these things could be part of a graduate class to learn the latest and greatest methods on how to model aerospace structure.”
