June 23, 2016 Today we continued and completed three more tests using the tribofilm. Unfortunately our group meeting was cancelled so we were unable to hear from the other groups about how there progress is going. However, this will just make next Thursday that more exciting. Tomorrow, we hope to continue our testing so that…
Getting Accurate Data
June 22, 2016 Today, due to the lost data we started our data collection over and began running tests at 5 minute intervals for the control group. After setting up the microscope yesterday, we were finally able to pinpoint exactly where to put the stylus so that we can go over the wear scar every…
Struggling with Data
June 21, 2016 Today, we ran into issues with getting and using our data. First, our flash drive that has all the profilometer data broke and for now we are unable to access the data, but hope to fix the flash drive so that we can recover the data or else we will have to…
Testing and Data Preparation
June 20, 2016 Today, we continued testing under the same conditions as Thursday, but this time we used the ZrO2 nanoparticles as a 1% concentration in our sample. This way, we will be able to compare these results to the controlled sample which did not have any nanoparticles. We also worked to extract the data…
SAE Young Engineers Conference
Saturday, June 18, 2016 Today all of the REU students went to an SAE conference at the GM Milford Proving Grounds. At this conference there was three panel speakers discussing the future of autonomous vehicles and their benefits to society. After the three presentations, we were all given a free lunch and a chance to…
Chrysler Wind Tunnel
Friday, June 17, 2016 Today we were not able to work in the lab as we went to the Chrysler headquarters to take a tour of their wind tunnel. Before we started the tour they gave us a brief lesson on what was aerodynamics and how it has been applied to automobiles for years. We…
Base Fluid Testing
Thursday, June 16,2016 During this portion of the week we strictly focused on the testing of our PAO 4 base fluid. The results from these tests are a way to aid us in comparing our nanoparticle testing to that of tests without nanoparticles. We were only able to get two tests done as our day…
Midterm Presentation Day
June 15, 2016 Today was our midterm presentation day. It was a great opportunity to get to to see what the other groups were working on as well as prepare for when we have to present our work later in this research internship. We learned a lot about good presentation skills and are excited for…
Testing and Report Writing
June 14, 2016 Today we continued to test our materials and changed some of the variables in our testing. We decided to test for longer to determine how the length of time affects the tribofilm development. We also worked on plotting the data using matlab, and we compared to the graphs that we had received…
Finally Found Tribofilm
June 13, 2016 Today we continued with our data collection and tried to place some of it in our power point slides for the group presentations that we will complete this Wednesday. Then we figured out the ratio that we would need to follow to get the oil to be 1% ZrO2 nano particles. After…
Matching Shirts and Running Tests
June 10, 2016 Today we were able to finish writing the code for collecting our data through matlab from the surfanalyzer. We were then able to move the data points over to excel so we could plot the graph and through this we were able to get an image of the ball. In the afternoon…
“Mastering” Matlab
June 9, 2016 Today, we picked up the part that we designed from the machine shop and then edited it because it was not entirely built to our specifications. We also attended the group meeting where we discussed how each of the REU projects were going as well as the Chrysler Pacifica event. Later that…
Summer 2016 REU Program 