Dan Inman
Dan Inman, the George Goodson Chaired professor of Mechanical Engineering, was an invited speaker at the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Science and Technology this week.
He was part of a panel discussion on “Cutting Edge Energy Technologies: Energy from Movement, Magna and Much More.”
The purpose of the discussion was to illustrate to committee members, staff, and the public a variety of leading energy technologies funded by the Department of Energy and other federal government agencies. Technologies discussed ranged from early research to commercial technologies used today.
Inman is the director of the Center for Intelligent Material Systems and Structures at Virginia Tech. This center focuses on the design and modeling of actuators and damping devices, as well as infrastructure health monitoring and diagnostics using structures and active materials.
Most recently, Inman and Shashank Priya, associate director of CIMSS, learned that the National Science Foundation will be supporting their proposal to create a new center at Virginia Tech, the Center for Energy Harvesting Materials and Systems.
The National Science Foundation awarded $525,000 to Virginia Tech beginning August 1, 2010 for a period of one year and $275,000 to University of Texas at Dallas for one year, both with expected renewal of equal amounts for a total of 15 years.
“We would like to express our sincere thanks to the institute and also to the companies that helped us pursue this opportunity. We were fortunate to have SAIC, ITT, Texas MicroPower, UTRC and Delta as industry champions at a very early stage of development, which strengthened the quality of research being conducted at CEHMS,” Priya said.
“Our research programs in the area of energy harvesting are continuously growing.” Inman added. “The quality of faculty and students at both Virginia Tech and the University of Texas who are working in the area is very impressive. We are therefore confident that we will provide our members with an excellent return on investment and exceed expectations on many fronts.”