A REU site program is established involving 8 students in research activities of the faculty. The program is designed to ncrease the awareness of qualified undergraduate students in engineering of the opportunities afforded by research and graduate study. A vigorous seminar program will include outside speakers, the faculty, and graduate students is planned. A forum will be held to permit REU undergraduate students to present the results of their research to the faculty and graduate students. Typical student research projects include: (1) robotic vision system, (2) constraint translation for design automation software, (3) nonuniform flow interaction with structures, (4) fluid mechanics of stranded cables, (5) vibration test methods and dynamic system modelling, (6) crack propagation in viscoelastic materials, (7) interaction between nucleation sites in boiling, (8) mapping three-dimensional temperature fields, (9) cold storage in refrigerators and freezers, (10) low thrust propulsion for planetary vehicles, and (11) focus-centered Laplace method for orbital determination.
