TENTH ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM ON FRONTIERS OF ENGINEERING
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C.
www.nap.edu
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
500 Fifth Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001
NOTICE: This publication has been reviewed according to procedures approved by a National Academy of Engineering report review process. Publication of signed work signifies that it is judged a competent and useful contribution worthy of public consideration, but it does not imply endorsement of conclusions or recommendations by the NAE. The interpretations and conclusions in such publications are those of the authors and do not purport to represent the views of the council, officers, or staff of the National Academy of Engineering.
Funding for the activity that led to this publication was provided by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Department of Defense–DDR&E-Research, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Eastman Kodak Company, Microsoft Corporation, Cummins, Inc., ATOFINA Chemicals, Inc., Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., Dr. Ruth M. Davis, and other individual donors.
International Standard Book Number 0-309-09547-6 (Book)
International Standard Book Number 0-309-54784-9 (PDF)
Additional copies of this report are available from The
National Academies Press,
500 Fifth Street, N.W., Lockbox 285, Washington, DC 20001; (800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313 (in the Washington metropolitan area); Internet, http://www.nap.edu.
Printed in the United States of America.
Copyright © 2005 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. Wm. A. Wulf is president of the National Academy of Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts and Dr. Wm. A. Wulf are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the National Research Council.
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
PABLO G. DEBENEDETTI (Chair), Class of 1950 Professor,
Department of Chemical Engineering, Princeton University
KRISTI S. ANSETH, Tisone Professor
of Chemical and Biological Engineering,
Associate Professor
of Surgery, and
HHMI Assistant Investigator,
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder
DAVID BARAFF, Senior Animation Scientist,
Pixar Animation Studios
DIANN E. BREI, Associate Professor,
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan
GRANT S. HEFFELFINGER, Deputy Director,
Materials and Process Sciences Center, Sandia National Laboratories
CHRIS KYRIAKAKIS, Associate Professor,
Department of Electrical Engineering, and Research Area
Director,
Sensory Interfaces, University of Southern California
MARY KAE LOCKWOOD, Aerospace Engineer,
NASA Langley Research Center
DIMITRIOS MAROUDAS, Professor,
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts
JOHN W. WEATHERLY, Ice Geophysicist,
U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory
Staff
JANET R. HUNZIKER, Program Officer
JENNIFER M. HARDESTY, Senior Project Assistant
Preface
In 1995, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) initiated the Frontiers of Engineering Program, which brings together every year about 100 of the nation’s future engineering leaders to learn about cutting-edge research and technical work in different fields of engineering. On September 9–11, 2004, NAE held its tenth U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium at the Beckman Center of the National Academies in Irvine, California. Speakers were asked to prepare extended summaries of their presentations, which are reprinted in this volume. The intent of this book, and of the volumes that preceded it in the series, is to convey the revolutionary quality of this unique meeting and to highlight some exciting developments in engineering today.
GOALS OF THE FRONTIERS OF ENGINEERING PROGRAM
The practice of engineering is changing. Engineers must not only be able to thrive in an environment of rapid technological change and globalization, but they must also be able to work in interdisciplinary teams. The frontiers of engineering are at the intersections of engineering disciplines, and researchers and practitioners must be aware of developments and challenges in areas other than their own.
At the three-day Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, 100 of this country’s best and brightest engineers, ages 30 to 45, have an opportunity to learn from their peers about work being done on the leading edges of engineering. It is hoped that the exchange of information on current developments in many fields of engineering will lead to insights that may be applicable in specific disciplines. In addition, the symposium gives engineers from a variety of institutions in
academia, industry, and government, and from many different engineering disciplines, a chance to make contacts with and learn from individuals whom they would not meet in the usual round of professional meetings. This networking may lead to collaborative work and facilitate the transfer of new techniques and approaches across fields.
The number of participants at each meeting is limited to 100 to maximize opportunities for interactions and exchanges among the attendees, who are chosen through a competitive nomination and selection process. The choice of topics and speakers for each meeting is made by an organizing committee composed of engineers in the same 30- to 45-year-old cohort as the participants. Each year different topics are covered, and, with a few exceptions, different individuals participate.
The speakers at the Frontiers of Engineering Symposium must address a unique challenge—to communicate the excitement of their work to a technically sophisticated, but nonspecialist audience. To achieve the objectives of the meeting, speakers are asked to provide a brief overview of their fields and to address several aspects of their topics: a description of the frontiers in the field, the experiments, prototypes, and design studies that have been completed or are in progress, new tools and methodologies, limitations on advances and controversies, and the theoretical, commercial, societal, and long-term significance of the work.
THE 2004 SYMPOSIUM
The four broad topics for the 2004 meeting were engineering for extreme environments, designer materials, multiscale modeling, and engineering and entertainment. In the Engineering for Extreme Environments session, speakers addressed the challenges of designing devices and developing technologies for polar climates, deep oceans, high-current rivers, nuclear power plants, and the lunar and Martian surfaces. Talks covered the deployment of robots on the Antarctic plateau for long- or short-term observation; state-of-the-art modeling and simulation techniques used in constructing the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, a nuclear-waste processing plant, and the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement Structure; the landing of robotic systems on the surface of Mars; and the challenges of accessing the lunar poles for human exploration missions. In the Designer Materials session, speakers described the elegant and rationale design of highly functional materials with particular qualities. Three specific topics were addressed: thin-film active materials, which are defined by dimensions on the order of microns and present unique physical coupling phenomena; hybridized materials with performance-tailored functions; and small-diameter tissue-engineered vascular grafts, which could improve the quality of life for people with vascular disease by preventing thrombosis and improving graft mechanical properties. The Multiscale Modeling session was a departure from past Frontiers sessions in
that it focused on an engineering tool rather than a particular engineering field. However, because multiscale modeling and simulation are used in many areas of science and engineering research, the presentations were of interest to everyone. The four speakers focused on different aspects of multiscale modeling, including the coupling of modeling and simulation methods across time and length scales for specific applications, such as the processing of engineering materials (e.g., semiconductors, metals, and polymers); biological applications; the health sciences; and climatology. The final session, Engineering and Entertainment, focused on three areas—picture, sound, and actors. The presentations covered new computer-graphics techniques that make the visual elements of film practically indistinguishable from reality, technologies for spatial sound reproduction and the prospects for individualized binaural sound, and socially intelligent personal-service robots that can not only entertain but can also participate in people’s daily lives.
NAE is deeply grateful to the following organizations for their support of the Tenth Annual Symposium on Frontiers of Engineering: Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, U.S. Department of Defense-DDR&E Research, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Eastman Kodak, Microsoft Corporation, ATOFINA Chemicals, Inc., Cummins, Inc., Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., and Dr. Ruth M. Davis and other individual donors. NAE would also like to thank the members of the Symposium Organizing Committee chaired by Professor Pablo Debenedetti, for planning and organizing the event (see p. iv).
Contents
|
|
|||
Introduction |
||||
Cool Robots: Scalable Mobile Robots for Instrument Network Deployment in Polar Climates |
||||
The Role of Modeling and Simulation in Extreme Engineering Projects |
||||
The Challenges of Landing on Mars |
||||
Accessing the Lunar Poles for Human Exploration Missions |
||||
|
|
|||
Introduction |
Thin-Film Active Materials |
||||
The Future of Engineering Materials: Multifunction for Performance-Tailored Structures |
||||
Biomimetic Strategies in Vascular Tissue Engineering |
||||
|
|
|||
Introduction |
||||
Equation-Free Modeling For Complex Systems |
||||
Modeling the Stuff of the Material World: Do We Need All of the Atoms? |
||||
Balancing Scales in Biological Models |
||||
Small-Scale Processes and Large-Scale Simulations of the Climate System |
||||
|
|
|||
Introduction |
||||
Capturing and Simulating Physically Accurate Illumination in Computer Graphics |
Spatial Audio Reproduction: Toward Individualized Binaural Sound |
||||
Designing Socially Intelligent Robots |
||||
|
|
|||