Graduate Student Lectures (GSL)

The Graduate Student Lectures are an opportunity for graduate students in the Architectural Engineering department to share their research with their peers and the community. It also serves as a valuable tool for the graduate students by giving them experience in speaking in the public forum, a tool that will prove most valuable when they defend their thesis.

The first series of these lectures were held during the 2004 spring semester. There was one lecture approximately every month, for a total of four lectures. All the speakers were volunteers and all the lectures were catered. Each lecture took place on a weekday and was scheduled around classes. The following table represents the list of speakers and the date and topic of their presentation. If you would like a more detailed description of a lecture you may scroll to the bottom of the page or follow the link on the speakers name.

The lectures were well received by both students and faculty. As a primary target audience, most students had many good things to say about the lectures. All of the student comments received by email are included below. In the future, we hope that this lecture series will continue to serve the graduate research community here at Penn State.

I have enjoyed and benefited greatly from the GSL lectures. The interdisciplinary character of the lectures allowed me to gauge my research in a broader sense. I got various feedback on my presentation, ranging from content to style and using this feedback, I believe, I have improved both my research and presentation skills. When I had academic interview presentations later, I used this experience, and performed better. Moreover, learning about the research of other students was also a great benefit. Although we are in the same department, the graduate students in different options do not share their research due to time constraints. The GSL let us get together at convenient times and discuss our research in a professional but friendly environment. I hope these lectures continue in the future.

I find this series of lectures very useful. My personal opinion is that we should keep doing this in the future, involving more students with different backgrounds and research topics. This will help us not only to broad our knowledge and interest in one particular field, but also to have more interaction among different fields of science. That will help us to become better engineers for sure. The only consideration I have so far is to make presentations in u such way to make more people interested in it, and to choose appropriate level to present topics, and still be able to keep it on level of general interest.

Definitely, the decision is to continue with these lectures in the following semesters.

I believe this event is very informative and helpful for all grads and others. It should be kept going for next academic year.

GSL provided an opportunity for grads to exchange their research interests and obtain comments and suggestion from each other.

Another benefit of having this event is that it allows student practice their presentation skills interactively with the publics. Those who are TAs or need to go for conference can build up skills presenting their topics via this activity.

I would suggest that, in the future, speakers could rehearse with each other before the presentation, so that there could be a chance to evaluate the topic contents and presenting techniques. Also, after the presentation speakers should collect the feedback from audience for future improvement (a predistributed feed back form before the presentation starts should work).

I strongly support to have this activity keep rolling in our AE department.

I really enjoyed the GSLs that I attended this past year. I think that they were all very interesting, and that it provides grad-students with the opportunity to practice presentation skills as well as showcase their research. I think it is a very wonderful thing and that it would be a shame to not have them next academic year.

I think GSL is a good format for us to communication with each other, to learn research of other graduate students, to get suggestion form other faculties except your adviser, and to practice your presentation skill. I had two suggestions:

First, I feel its better that every presenter could provide a short introduction before the lecture, that we could understand better of the content.

Second, I feel one hour of lunch and lecture seems a little bit rush. Since sometimes there may not enough time left for discussion. Maybe one and a half hour would be better.

I think the GSL lectures are a good idea and they should be continued. They not only give undergraduate students ideas and encouragement to pursue a Masters/Ph.D., they also give the participating grad students an opportunity to get some practice and constructive criticism from faculty and peers. Presenting a project is often a difficult thing to do, whether in school or the corporate world and practicing and observing benefits all who attend. I look forward to more lectures next semester!

The GSLs were a great opportunity to learn about the research that my fellow graduate students are doing. Oftentimes, us grad students work in a vacuum, with very little idea of what else is going on in the department. The GSLs were a great opportunity for many of us to come together and discuss each other's work. It would have been great if these lectures were available my first year... as it may have helped and/or influenced my choice of a research project.

The GSLs were also very well run. Dr. Srebric insured that they were only an hour long, and there was great food to eat. The three lectures I attended were very well attended by both students and faculty.

I have graduated, but I hope that the GSLs will continue next year for the benefit of both current and incoming students.

I love the idea of students presenting their work. It lets other students learn about what is being done by their colleagues and by the AE department. It enriches our knowledge, opens doors for possible collaboration, its a great tool for promoting our self and AE department on outside job/academic opportunities.

Personally I think GSL is a really good idea since it gives at least some opportunity to get acquainted with the research of other grad students. As far as I am concerned, unfortunately, I could not gain much from the lecture series. My undergrad degree was in EE and I came to AE only for lighting - I don't have any preparation for other AE options. But mine is a unique case and I believe other students didn't face the same problem.

It would be too bad if the lecture series doesn't continue in future for the lack of our enthusiasm.

Thank you for coordinating the series of GSL. It was a great idea and I believe everyone benefited from them. I found them to be the best way to learn about current research performed by people in the department, and I would not have known about some of the projects otherwise. It was also a great opportunity for the student's to gain experience presenting technical material. I hope the lectures are continued next year!

I thought the GSL series was great! As grad. students, we have to attend about 10 lectures a year. In order to satisfy this requirement, I have attended lectures given from departments that have nothing in common with my studies except the word "engineering". The opportunity to hear about the research that my peers are doing in my field is something that definitely should be continued. In addition, the GSL gives grad. students the chance to practice and hone their presentation skills before they present at conferences or thesis defense committees. I very much hope this lecture series will be continued.

I have been to several of the graduate student lectures and found them to be very interesting. Not only did I get to learn about other research areas within the department, I was able to get some good presentation ideas. I certainly hope that these lectures will continue because I know that not all of the areas of research within the department have been presented and much more interaction between graduate students and faculty is helpful. I also think that the speaker gains valuable presentation experience and feedback to improve upon. I am looking forward to the next round of lectures and participation in the GSL program.

Thank you for initiating such a beneficial program for the graduate students.

I think that the first GSL series was successful. It gave very good chance to me and other three graduate students, who present their research topics and results in front of our friends, to build up their presentation skill and get useful feedback from their colleagues.

I hope this GSL series continues in every semester including MS or MEng students.

Thank you for organizing the GSLs for last semester. Yes, I think the GSL should be continoued if possible. Many of the presentations were very good and it's also a very good chance for us to know what the other guys in the department are doing.

However, if the lectures are going to be continued, I think maybe students in more options can be involved. In this series, for example, no elec. or CM student present. Considering especially the number of CM graduate students in this department, it's kind of uncommon.

Due to the emerging interest in the assessment, preservation and rehabilitation of vaulted masonry structures, engineers are in need of dependable analysis techniques. Because the main elements of these structures (arches, vaults and buttresses) usually exist in complex three-dimensional assemblies that render the load paths unclear, three-dimensional finite element modeling techniques are being explored. This study presents the comparison of experimental results from modal experiments and results from three-dimensional finite element analyses conducted on one of the choir vaults of the National Cathedral in Washington, DC and the vaults of two medieval European cathedrals. The goal of the research is to gather accurate simulations of the structural behavior of these complex structures for future rehabilitation and preservation purposes as well as providing answers to architectural history debates.

Stratified chilled water storage is a load management technology widely used in large chilled water systems. Loss of capacity in stratified tanks is due primarily to the effects of mixing during the formation of the thermocline at the beginning of a charge or discharge process. Procedures for the design of full-scale stratified tanks are not well defined because prior studies have focused on laboratory and prototype-scale systems that, evidently, do not accurately reflect the behavior of full-size systems.

The objective of this research was to develop a first order correlation between the design parameters of full-scale stratified chilled water storage tanks with single pipe diffusers and expected thermal performance.

The methodology of the study was to develop the desired correlation by formal analysis of parametric computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of full-scale inlet flows supported and validated by field data from full-scale tanks. Methods of factorial experimental design theory were used to develop the test plan and analyze results. Regression models developed from parametric simulations were compared with CFD model results.

In this lecture we will present a new program (developed at the AE department at PSU) for combined air-flow and energy-flow simulation in buildings. Building energy-flow simulation programs are tools used for analysis of building energy consumption and evaluation of architectural design. Indoor air-flow simulation programs calculate parameters such as velocity, temperature, and contaminants distribution in a space that are needed for thermal comfort and indoor air quality evaluations. To conduct a detailed analysis of mechanical system performances, these two program should be used together. Therefore, in this lecture we will present the most important facts related to the development, evaluation and application of new coupled air-flow and energy-flow simulation programs.

Since early 1980s, all-air variable air volume system has been significantly contributed to reducing energy consumption in building sector. However, this popular system has also exhibited several critical deficiencies such as inadequate ventilation and part-load humidity control problems.

Finally, in late 1990s, the dedicated outdoor air system (DOAS) integrated with ceiling radiant cooling panels (CRCP) was proposed to overcome most problems caused by conventional all-air systems. The key concept of the DOAS/CRCP system is decoupling of sensible and latent load function which has been performed by a single air handling unit. Once these functions are decoupled, it is possible to employ more dedicated and function-specialized systems for each purpose in an energy efficient manner.

Recently, the U.S. HVAC industry has begun to adopt the DOAS/CRCP technology since its significant energy saving and IAQ benefits were identified. However, engineers are still forced to design the DOAS/CRCP system on the basis of their limited experience and conservative estimates. To overcome this remaining barrier, simple and systematic DOAS/CRCP system design procedures which can be easily used by the HVAC designers and contractors are prepared. This will be a useful tool for the engineers who are considering DOAS/CRCP systems as an alternative for their projects.