Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) have named their top 20 most influential academics, and the list includes 3 Purdue ME faculty: Martin Jun, Yung Shin, and John Sutherland.

Standard refrigerators use vapor compression to cool down your food. But in space, there is no gravity to keep vapors and liquids secure. Purdue researchers have worked with NASA, Air Squared, and Whirlpool to create a prototype fridge that works in zero gravity, preserving food for potential long-term space flights.

Designing and building a race car from scratch is a huge accomplishment. Changing from a 2-wheel-drive design to 4-wheel-drive requires even more perseverance. Doing so remotely, during a pandemic? That's a freaking miracle. Purdue Baja Racing not only pulled this off, but finished as a top ten team in the 2021 Baja SAE competition.

Andrea Vacca has just published a new textbook, Hydraulic Fluid Power: Fundamentals, Applications, and Circuit Design. Vacca is the director of Maha Fluid Power Research Center, the largest academic hydraulics lab in the country.

What if a fabric could conduct heat like metal, but still be flexible enough to be worn on the body? A Purdue ME team have discovered that a commercial polymer fabric called Dyneema, used for bulletproof vests, has remarkable heat-conducting properties, on par with stainless steel. This could lead to wearable electronics that successfully cool both the device and the wearer's skin.

This past semester, the College of Engineering offered associate professors the chance to introduce themselves and their work. Get to know Ilias Bilionis, Marcial Gonzalez, and Kejie Zhao in these engaging presentations.

Congratulations to all our Purdue ME graduates! Here are some photos from the Spring 2021 Commencement ceremonies.

Making fresh water out of seawater usually requires huge amounts of energy. The most widespread process for desalination is called reverse osmosis, which works by flowing seawater over a membrane at high pressure to remove the minerals. Now, David Warsinger's team has developed a variant of the process called “batch reverse osmosis,” which promises better energy efficiency, longer-lasting equipment and the ability to process water of much higher salinity. It could end up a difference-maker in water security around the world.

Purdue Formula SAE is a student design team that designs and builds a race car every year, competing against hundreds of other universities from around the world. Purdue has placed 2nd place in the Knowledge Events portion of the competition, where the team presents information about the car's design, business plan, and cost.

You've seen the Hoberman sphere: a toy with multiple joints and arms that expands into a sphere when you pull on it. Purdue University engineers have successfully created the first 2D nanoscale version of this structure using synthetic DNA molecules, furthering the potential of "DNA origami" as a manufacturing tool.