Technical Description. This grant will enable the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) to acquire a Scanning Laser Doppler Vibrometer (SLDV) for research and educational use. The SLDV enables noncontact (remote) measurement and mapping of the dynamic deflections of a wide-range of structures and systems. By employing laser technology and a computer software driven data acquisition system, the instrument can measure velocities at very low levels (< microns/second) over a wide frequency range (from a fraction of Hz up to 24 MHz) on structures ranging in size from millimeters to tens of meters at remote measurement distances of 8 centimeters to 100 meters. It will be used by researchers and students to catalyze a wide range of cutting edge research projects spanning biomedical, mechanical and civil engineering. These include: improved techniques for monitoring and damage detection in civil infrastructure, including bridges and offshore drilling and production platforms; validating large-scale computational simulations of vehicular system dynamics; developing a better fundamental understanding of and improved medical diagnostic techniques for vascular, pulmonary and musculoskeletal diseases; aiding in the development of improved engineered tissues and improved early detection of cancer; and developing and characterizing novel miniaturized actuators and biomedical implants.
Significance & Impact. Acquiring the SLDV will advance research at UIC on numerous multidisciplinary fronts important to society, spanning from civil infrastructure and transportation system safety to medical diagnoses, tissue engineering and biomedical implants. The proposed research using the SLDV will leverage its unique combination of qualities: precision, portability, noninvasiveness, and capability for making noncontact measurements. These features enable its use in many critical applications and make it an ideal gold standard for calibration and validation of other less expensive and alternative sensor array techniques being pioneered by the assembled multidisciplinary research team. Wide use of the SLDV, including hands-on training, in undergraduate and graduate instructional courses, will help make these students better engineers, preparing them for challenges they will face with real world problems and enabling them to compete globally in their respective technical fields. UIC is one of the ten most diverse institutions in the nation, and the senior personnel on this project have some of the strongest records of engaging underrepresented groups in their laboratory research that include K-12, undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate levels.
