Preparing a model for collaborators from outside the University.

Author: Jackson Marsh | Major: Mechanical Engineering | Semester: Fall 2023

My name is Jackson Marsh, and for the second semester of my senior year, Spring 2024, I continued my research in the Nano Energy and Data-Driven Discovery (NED3) laboratory with Dr. Han Hu of the Mechanical Engineering department. This semester I wrapped up all of my work with acoustic emissions sensing from the past two and a half years. As part of this I worked with project partners at ZIN Technology to prepare my acoustic sensing device for testing at Johnson Space Center. I also worked to finish up my Honors Thesis and expand upon experiments that I had conducted in the past.

First, my main work this semester was working on the experiments that I had previously conducted. As I was wrapping up my Honors Thesis, I realized that my work with acoustic emissions had led me down many different paths. Looking back, the path that had been least explored experimentally was my initial path. This initial work was with the acoustics of bubbles in water. I had set up an experiment where I used a syringe pump to produce a bubble. Acoustic instruments then measured the frequency of the bubble. While doing this initially, I had noticed issues with synchronization and started down a path of working heavily with data acquisition. The work on data acquisitions eventually led me to the work later discussed, but it led me away from my work on the bubbles. This was clear when I went back and started to analyze the data again and there were only two relevant sets. When running the experiments, I had used only different tube sizes resulting in two different bubbles. I wanted more bubbles to show a larger trend over bubble sizes, so I set the experiment back up. However, this brought about flaws in my research from years ago, as I did not have an exact repeatable setup. When the experiments again, I used a different container, and therefore my sensors were at different distances from the bubble. Because of this, although I ran experiments with five new bubble sizes, I was only able to get data with a high enough amplitude from one of the bubble sizes. This was disappointing but did give me enough data to show a bit better of a trend. Retrospectively, I would have investigated more on how to better reproduce my initial tests. However, with all that was going on, I simply took the data and continued on.

During the semester, project collaborators from ZIN Technology visited the lab to talk about a larger project, of which my research was part. During this visit, I was able to practice explaining my work and was able to problem solve with people who had been in the industry for years. It was a very cool experience being able to bring expertise and teach industry professionals about my work. The short period of time that I was able to spend interacting with the collaborators was very impactful because it gave me insights into what my next step in my professional career could look like. It also gave me confidence in myself about work that I conduct and its possible impacts.

This semester taught me two important lessons that while my research career is currently over, I know that I can use when starting my career in the coming months. First, it is important to document everything and investigate nonconformities. Secondly, I can communicate with people with more experience and pedigree, and my knowledge is important because even the most experienced may not have experience with what I have.