Senior Design, Wind Power, and a Greener Stevens!

In the engineering curriculum at Stevens, senior engineers must complete a senior design project.  Last year, my senior design project was to design a water treatment plant with two design alternatives: membrane filtration and granular filtration.  Our project was sponsored by Hazen and Sawyer, an environmental engineering firm.  Many projects have outside sponsors.  I worked with one other environmental engineer, and four civil engineers, who were responsible for the geotechnical design, swale design (water resources), site access design, and cost analysis.  Senior design projects span the entire year, from fall through spring.  Intermittent progress presentations are given to advisers, and a final report and presentation are given at the end of both the fall and spring semesters.  In the last week of April, Stevens holds Senior Design Day in the gym, where all engineering senior design groups create posters of their project for the rest of the school and sponsors (and possible employers) to see.  It's a pretty big deal... many of the design projects are manufacturable, and sometimes apply for patents of their design!

This year, of my sorority sisters (and fellow environmental engineer), Dawn Herring, was involved in a great, innovative, and green senior design project.  She, along with fellow environmental engineer Christine Couzo, and mechanical engineer Kate Vaupel, aimed to install a wind turbine on top of the Babio Center to generate wind power.  The trio determined that the average wind speed on top of the Babio Center was 11.2 miles per hour, which was sufficient for generation of wind power. 

The team researched the micro-turbine Whisper-200.  This unit has 3 blades, a 9-foot wingspan, is approximately 12 feet tall, and weighs only 87 pounds!  The team decided to use this micro-turbine to achieve their goal: they wanted to prove that a wind turbine on top of the Babio Center could produce 200 kilowatt hours per month (which is enough to power a small home).  The team would eventually like to see 20 of these micro-turbine units lined on top of the building to help generate energy for Stevens.  Below is a picture of the one Whisper-200 unit installed on the top of the Babio Center.

The team presented their design project on Monday, April 20th at Fairleigh Dickinson University for Green Day.  They will also be presenting at Senior Design Day, which is Wednesday April 29 in the Canavan Arena.  The team  received some press this past week when a press release was written about their project.  You can view the press release by clicking on the following link (Press Release). 

Stevens has been making strides toward greener practices.  Solar panels have been installed in the 8th street parking lot, and on the back slope toward the Davidson Laboratory.  Also, Stevens is involved in Recyclemania this semester.  A group of Business and Technology seniors organized Stevens involvement this year.  Recyclemania is a competition between schools to see which school can accumulate the most recycleables.  For the 2009 school year, 512 schools worldwide are involved.  The Stevens newspaper, The Stute, ran an article about Recyclemania.  You can view the article by clicking the following link (Recyclemania).  

Hopefully, Stevens continues to make progress toward being a more environmentally aware campus and university.  The new addition of the Green Engineering Minor is a wonderful example of how Stevens is incoorporating sustainable engineering and energy and green design alternatives into the engineering cirriculum.  Plus, many more student clubs and organizations have been emerging that are pushing for a greener Stevens, such as SAVE (Students Against Violating the Environment) and the Recycling Club. If you are a prospective student and want to be involved in these clubs when you attend, be sure to check them out at the Club Fair during orientation!

Comments

[eve online isk]

hell yes! Danny boy in Sanctuary!

[johan tekila]

Nice Mill you show, great to go green !
Nice article you posted . Congratulation to decide going green and clean. We also preserve nature and save money by using free cost wind energy and that was by the help provided in: http://www.windpowercost.org Thanks for your post.

[aion kinah]

Also, Stevens is involved in Recyclemania this semester. A group of Business and Technology seniors organized Stevens involvement this year.

[gerry thompson]

Having your own Wind Turbines at home is a very good way to conserve on your electrical expenses.

Just imagine the amount of money you can save when you have your own power generator providing you with free electricity! A windmill is a very good alternative especially with the economic situation nowadays. It is affordable to your budget and best of all its’ free. You can purchase or build your own wind generator at any hardware store or online site.

[Samanta SHilly]

Your blog is nicely green. Your home and the mill inside are sweet. Go green, go windpowercost.org

[Custom Logo Design]

I love your blog i usually visit blogs but found your's great.

[SWTOR credits]

Your Photos is very beautiful!