SAE World Congress

Last week, I got to travel to Detroit, Michigan to attend the 2008 SAE World Congress, where I presented my first publication on Further Development of an Electronic Particulate Matter Sensor and Application to Diesel Engine Transients with my advisor, Dr. Matt Hall. He invented, and together we are developing, a sensor for diesel engine exhaust to measure the soot content. The goal of the work is to enable better control of engines for more efficient and cleaner operation.
The Congress was in two parts. There was a large exhibition, with many dozens of vendors representing a broad swath of the automotive industry, from south asian parts suppliers to BMW touting its newest hydrogen and diesel engines and Honda showing its latest engine magic, handily wrapped into even the very modest, very long-lived, and very cool Super Cub. (Honda engineers are always fun to talk to, in my experience, both in the conference rooms and on the exhibition floor.)
Then upstairs were the technical sessions, where the papers were being presented. This is where I spent the majority of my time. There were a 30-40 sessions, at least, each with about 15 papers to present on a specific theme. My session, organized in part by Dr. Hall, was the Combustion Analysis and Flow Diagnostics session (PFL203 for those who care). The session was split between Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, and wouldn't you know, but I was the first presenter, just after lunch on Tuesday. That was probably a good thing, because it meant that I didn't have too much time to get nervous. I can't really relax and enjoy things when I'm uptight about having to present.
A funny little thing happened on the way to the Congress, which I will share at my own expense and for your enjoyment if you promise not to laugh too hard. (Note the "nerd" and "self-awareness" tags on this article.) I packed for myself in usual fashion, at the last minute and with minimal, but in my estimation sufficient, consideration about what to wear, happy to have remembered sufficient socks and to match belt color to shoes. I even packed two ties of tasteful and moderate but fashionable design. I resisted the urge to wear a bow-tie in honor of my father. I put as much or more thought into packing my back pack with sufficient reading material for the flights and down-time. You understand my priorities, right? So I march out Tuesday morning, headed for the Cobo Center, and I'm about 10 minutes into my walk when it occurs to me that my sport coat is navy blue and not black as I had supposed in the dimmer light of the closet. Not a problem except for the black pants I'm wearing. I've learned to trust that little nagging I get in my subconscious, so I dialed Hannah, and after chatting about my impression of the city, blah blah blah, I tried to subtly share the humor of discovering my mismatch with her. She however, instead of chuckling with me and encouraging me to plod ahead since I'd be with a bunch of other mismatched nerds anyway and who cares (right?), got deathly silent and said, "You're wearing what?!" "Uh, my black pants..." "Your faded black pants that are not at all dressy??!! With a navy sport coat???!!!" "Um, I gotta go."

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Well, here's the truth. I marched on to the Cobo Center because I was afraid of missing breakfast (I missed it), and registered and scouted out where my presentation room was. Then, full of inner conflict and needing to resolve some self-confidence issues, hopped on the People Mover back to the hotel room and, feeling like and idiot for the initial gaffe and as much an idiot for going back, changed into some appropriate slacks and made my way back. Penance was duly performed, and now I was free to be my best.
(OK, pick yourselves up off the floor from laughing and read the rest of the story...)
It's a good thing that I practiced my presentation twice before giving it, because in front of 70-80 people who all knew a lot more about this than I do, I was pretty intimidated, and it was hard to think straight. I pretty much just stuck to the script I had practiced and managed to come in exactly on time. There were several good questions and a couple that I had to punt to Dr. Hall. I sat down feeling immense relief.
Seven presentations later (Phew!) as we were walking to the coat room, I asked Dr. Hall how he thought I did. "That was good. You did really well. Exceeded my expectations; not that they were low. Good job." I picked my jaw up off the floor and thanked him. (Once. It was a considerable effort not to dissolve into a blithering idiot.) He is not one to idly dole out praise, and he has been free to tell it like it is before, so I took it as a genuine compliment. 'Nuff said.
That night there was a big dinner party hosted by the Southwest Research Institute, where I met several Texas Exes, including Alok Warey, my predecessor in Dr. Hall's lab who worked on the sensor before me. The next morning, I roamed the exhibition hall, and loaded up on pamphlets and trinkets for the kids. That afternoon, there were 8 more presentations, and then we left for the airport.
One last funny story about the trip to the airport, and then I promise I'll sign off. (I know this is getting long.) So we hop in this taxi cab and immediately I realize we're in for quite a ride. For one the taxi is barely holding itself together and needs new shocks, new A/C, and a good bit of interior decoration... But the driver was the real piece of work. He asked what we were at the conference for and immediately connected with us on "the sensors" and proceeded to tell us all about his experiences at mechanics school. And then art school, which he attends while he can. And all about the inside view of the art industry and how to and how not to make it. And then he wanted to show us his work and whipped out his cell phone and flipped through the photos he'd taken of his wood turning work, all while weaving in and out of traffic, dodging the famous 13-axle Michigan semi-trailers. At one point, he handed the phone back to me to scroll through his pictures. It turns out I'm the talkative one between my advisor and me (ever hear the joke about the extroverted engineer?), and I know a little bit about woodworking, so I hung onto the phone and tried to make conversation about this and that exotic wood, etc. in an attempt to allow him to keep his eyes on the road. Alas, out came a second cell phone with pictures of some well-carved gradfather clocks. I gave up and started praying...
We actually reached the airport in record time (phew!) and tipped him generously for the ride, thankful to have arrived alive. I won't even talk about the guy I sat next to on the airplane... Ah the adventure!
Thanks for reading.

The Smog Dilemma (EPA acts, sort of)

I read an article in the New York Times today that prompted a good bit of thought. The essence of the article is that the U.S. EPA is lowering (tightening, that is) the Federal ground level ozone standards for air quality. This is, in fact, a good thing in general. I happen to work in a field that deals with air quality, and diesel engines (a central part of my research topic) are a prime source of NOX, which combines with unburned hydrocarbons (gas vapor, paint fumes, swamp gas, etc.) on hot sunny days to form ground level ozone. Wait a minute, you say, I thought we were tryingto protect the ozone layer, I thought ozone was good!? Well, it turns out that way up high, miles in the sky, ozone serves a very important function of blocking UV light, so we want to not emit chemicals that destroy the ozone up high. But ozone is actually a powerful oxidizer which irritates and inflames lung tissue. It sends tens thousands of people to the ER, causes missed work and school, corrodes plastic, darkens wood, etc.
So first comes the rant. According to the article, EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, a Bush appointee, did a classic Bush move and ignored the advice of his top scientific advisers and lowered the allowable 8-hour average concentration half way to their recommended level (from the current 84 parts per billion to 75ppb instead of 60-70ppb). This may seem like fine parsing, but the impacts could be big. The bottom line is this: when a municipality consistently experiences air quality below the federal standard, they are required by law to form a plan to clean things up or they lose money for highway building projects. If there's no air quality trigger, then nothing happens. Lowering the standard will effectively cause more cities to start cleaning up their air, much to the benefit of city dwellers everywhere. What irks me about the decision is that it is yet another in a long train of snubs by the Bush Administration of scientific advice regarding the environment. Shall we add to the list decisions regarding forestry, greenhouse gases, Arctic drilling, CO2 emissions caps, etc.
So here's the dilemma: as a devoted biker, what's to do on an "ozone action day"? On such days, the conditions are right for forming lots of ground level ozone. Not driving can make a difference in air quality. Seems like a good time to hop on a bike, no? The trouble is, that commuting on a bike puts one right at the source of pollution: near automobile tailpipes. It also turns out that one tends to breathe deeply when riding a bike. Normally this is a benefit, but not when the air is full of ozone. If everyone got out of their cars and onto bikes, then we might make a difference, but if only I and a few other crazies did so, then we'd be punishing ourselves for a good deed, and I'm not so into environmental martyrdom. Maybe the trick is to ride early in the day before the smog forms. Or maybe we should all write letters to our congressmen...
Thanks for reading.

How Cool is That?!

Today was one of those days that I live for at school. Full of excitement and adventure and really cool things. The coolest thing of all (if you grok the engineering mind) was that I got to use a Scanning Electron Microscope to examine some of the diesel soot particles exhaled by my dear Thumper. You can see the zoom-in in the series of photos below. The magnifications go from 200x to 10,000x. For reference there is a little bar that shows a distance scale. 1µm is a thousandth of a millimeter. For reference, one of your hairs is about 50µm across. The fibers you see in the pictures are glass fibers that make up the filter paper I trapped the soot in. We're zooming progressively in on the particle slightly left of center in the first image.




Incidentally, the smaller soot particles less than 2µm across (the individual clumps in the last image) are perfect for delivering carcinogenic compounds deep into your lungs. When they clump together like the one shown above, then your nose filters it out, but if they remain small (and hard to see, which is good for visibility but bad for lungs) they pass right on down and deposit all sorts of wonderful benzene and other toxics straight into you most sensitive tissues. This is actually a special concern for bike commuters, who tend to breathe deeply right next to the exhaust pipes of trucks and buses. For that reason I try to ride on road where the diesels don't go...
I guess that sort of explains part of why I'm doing what I am in graduate school. Hope you thought this was a neat as I did.

Answers to the Ultimate Question

...because the weather was beautiful: clear, sunny, cool; I had spent way too long in the cave, I mean lab, breathing diesel fumes with Thumper; and finally, in a stroke of wonderful coincidence, I passed a line of 42 cars waiting for the stop sign at Shoal Creek and 45th.

Now, what was the question???

While we're talking about why we like to be outside so much, check out this pic of our happy family enjoying the great outdoors last weekend. Hannah commented on this on her blog...