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 DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
Graduate Students (3) and Post-Doctoral Researchers (4)
The Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Delaware has just received a major grant from the Federal Transit Administration to research, build and deploy a fuel cell powered transit vehicle. Our immediate goal is to hire several qualified individuals (as research assistants for M.S. or Ph.D. degrees, as well as post-docs) for this exciting opportunity. Fuel cells are a promising technology for automotive propulsion. They have the potential to reduce our dependence on petroleum imports and also improve our environmental quality of life. In our department we have embarked on several aspects of fuel cell research such as gas transport in PEM fuel cells, water management in PEM fuel cells, design of metal foam filled direct methanol fuel cells, durability studies, and analytical and computational modeling. We have developed in-house capability to manufacture, and test and evaluate various fuel cell designs. We have secured funding from federal and industrial sources for our research and our research team is poised for rapid growth. We also have the added benefit that the state of Delaware has several major fuel cell companies (WL Gore, Dupont, and Air Liquide) located in close proximity to our campus with good opportunities for interaction. The new FTA grant offers us a unique opportunity for immediate growth. For this research, build and deploy project, we have formed a consortium with EPRI, Ballard, Daimler Chrysler and the Delaware Transit Corporation. The scope of the project is broad and encompasses activities such as fundamental research in PEM fuel cells, fuel cell system design, on-board fuel storage system design, vehicle configuration, refueling infrastructure, electric drive and control, reliability testing, emissions, etc. Interested individuals may contact Prof. Ajay K. Prasad (prasad@me.udel.edu) or Prof. Suresh G. Advani (advani@me.udel.edu). |
Dr. Ajay Prasad
Dr. Suresh Advani
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