Archived MTL News

12/5/2023 Our MTL group presented in the 2023 Career Event at Berry Miller Junior High School. We introduced how a mechanical engineering student would impact our world with STEM education and training.

11/22/2023 MTL's Thankgiving Dinner Party at a Hot Pot restaurant, appreciations are due to every lab member's great work in 2023.

11/3/2023 We are hornored to host Dr. Yi-Tung Chen from UNLV to visit MTL!

11/1/2024 Shuqi and Dr. Xu presented their research works in ASME IMECE2023 conference

9/22/2023 Dr. Xu's collaborative work with UofA team was published on Journal of Energy Resources Technology. Helical Fins for Concentrated Solar Receivers: Design Optimization and Entropy Analysis

9/1/2023 Welcome to MTL, Dr. Santosh Rauniyar!

7/11/2023 Mathew presented his collaborative work with Shawn Hatcher in ASME ES2023 conference.

5/24/2023 Congratulations to Shuqi Zhou! His first journal paper is published on Journal of Applied Physics! This work is about the impact of energy absorbing layer's materials on the jet formation in Lasr-Induced-Forward-Transfer (LIFT) printing.

https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0145737

3/1/2023 Congratulations to Mathew Farias! His first journal paper is published on Journal of Manufacturing Processes! This work is about the molecular dynamic simulation of atomic diffusion in Cantor alloys under two different laser scanning strategies.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1526612523001330

2/21/2023 Dr. Xu's review paper about bioprinting has been awarded the "Top Cited Article 2021-2022" on ChemBioEng Reviews

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cben.202000037

10-22-2022 Congratulations to Lichang by winning the second place of oral presentation in M.S. engineering group in Fall 2022 Graduate Research Symposium!

7-21-2022 Our group received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office SETO-22 Program as a subaward. The project is entitled as "Light Trapping, Enclosed Planar-Cavity Receiver for Heating Particles to Enable Low-Cost Energy Storage and Chemical Processes", and it is led by Dr. Zhiwen Ma at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).This project team will design, develop, and test a 100 kilowatt solar-thermal receiver that will deliver energy to particles at temperatures greater than 700°C. The project duration will be 3 years (2022 - 2025) with a total funding amount of $3,750,000.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/seto-fy21-concentrating-solar-thermal-power

7-19-2022 Dr. Xu received funding from NSF CBET TTP program! This project aims to explore the oscillating flow and heat transfer in porous media via experiments and numerical simulation, more detail can be found in the abstract on the NSF website:

https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2223392&HistoricalAwards=false

Thank you so much for the support from NSF! We look forward to colloaborating with Dr. Laura Shaefer from Rice University and Dr. Leitao Chen from Tennessee State University on this exciting project!

July 11-14, 2022 The organizing committee of ES2022 had a picture after the award banquet.

7-11-2022 Dr. Xu and Shawn both presented the research works funded by DOE project (DE-EE0009380) in ASME ES2022 conference.

3-28-2022 Congratulations to Shawn Hather! His conference paper has been accepted by ASME ES 2022. The topic is "Multiphysics Numerical Study of Solar Receiver Tube for Enhanced Thermal Efficiency and Durability in Concentrated Solar Power Tower Plan."

3-18-2022 Dr. Xu's paper "Experimental Study of Eutectic Molten Salts NaCl/KCl/ZnCl2 Heat Transfer Inside a Smooth Tube for High-Temperature Application" is published on Journal of Sola Energy Engineering (IF=2.384, 2020)

3-2-2022 Congratulations to Shawn Hatcher to win the Second Place Poster winner in 2022 Spring Graduate Research Symposium!

1-18-2022 Welcome Lichang Zhu, Carter Berry and Ajay Patel to join MTL!

12-10-2021 Congratulations to Khalil Mimis, Maya Hooks, Austin Tadlock and Rajan Khadka, they all graduate successfully from MSU in Fall 2021! We wish them the best in their future careers, you'll are the proud of MTL!

12-3-2021 Congratulations to Mathew Farias for a successful master thesis defense! His next step will come to MTL at Mississippi State University for mechanical engineering PhD program, this is a good collaboration between MTL and I-DREAM4D Consortium! 

11-23-2021 Congratulations to Shawn Hatcher, Erick Martinez, Maya Hooks, Payne Guilliams and Austin Tadlock! They won the outstanding students awards in MTL. Keep up the great momentum!

10-10-2021 Dr. Xu is awarded 100,000 core hours with XSEDE Startup application as PI. The estimated value of these awarded resources is $49,000. The proposal research topic is "Molecular Dynamics Studies of Laser Additive Alloying Produced Boron-mixed High Entropy Alloys in Extreme Environments"

9-30-2021 Dr. Xu is selected to receive funding from MSU Office of Research and Economic Development (ORED). This project is to develop an experimental approach to explore the multiphase heat transfer in bio-inspired porous media.

9-1-2021 The latest MTL group picture at MSU!!!

8-23-2021 Congratulations to Mathew! His conference paper has been accepted by ASME IMECE 2021. The topic is a Molecular Dynamic (MD) study about the atomic diffusion in Cantor high entrpy alloy.

8-17-2021 Dr. Xu is selected to receive funding from Mississippi NASA EPSCoR. The project will focus on the atomic interdiffusion in High Entropy Alloy (HEA) using Molecular Dynamics (MD).

7-13-2021 Dr. Xu's paper "Printing quality improvement for laser-induced forward transfer bioprinting: Numerical modeling and experimental validation" is published on Physics of Fluids (IF=3.521, 2020). This paper was also selected as the Featured Article, please find more details about this work on the media report.

7-7-2021 This is MTL's new home!!! 

6-26-2021 Dr. Xu‘s paper "A State‐of‐the‐Art Review of Laser‐Assisted Bioprinting and its Future Research Trends" is published on ChemBioEng Reviews (IF=3.83, 2019) (PDF)

6-24-2021 Dr. Xu is leading to organize a special issue on Journal of Thermal Sciences (IF=1.972), the topic is "Convergence of Carbon Neutral Transition via Energy Storage Technologies", the deadline to submit your manuscript is January 31th, 2022. More details can be found on the following website: https://www.springer.com/journal/11630/updates/19236260

6-17-2021 Dr. Xu presented the research work titled "Numerical Study of Bio-ink Transfer Process in Laser Induced Forward Transfer（LIFT）based Laser Asisted Bio 3D-Printing using an Initial Bubble Model " in ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference 2021.

6-1-2021 Congratulations to Mathew to successfully pass his master thesis proposal presentation!

5-28-2021 Dr. Xu and his colleagues are organizing a special issue on Processes (IF=2.753), the topic is "Transport and Energy Conversion at the Nanoscale and Molecular Scale", the deadline to submit your manuscript is Oct 30th, 2021. More details can be found on the following website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/processes/special_issues/Energy_Conversion_Nanoscale

5-20-2021 Dr. Xu's paper "Analysis of the operating conditions of pulse electric field–assisted EHD for sodium alginate printing using design of experiment approach" is published on International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (IF=2.633, 2019) (PDF)

4-22-2021 Congratulations to Payne Guilliams and Austin Tadlock! Both of them won the Undergraduate Research Award from the Bagley College of Engineering.

3-6-2021 Dr. Xu's paper "Numerical simulation of the melting and alloying processes of elemental titanium and boron powders using selective laser alloying" is published on Journal of Manufacturing Processes (IF=4.086, 2019) (PDF)

2-10-2021 Dr. Xu's paper "Numerical investigation and multi‐objective thermo‐economic optimization of a solar chimney power plant" is published on International Journal of Energy Research (IF=3.741, 2019) (PDF)

1-25-2021 Welcome Austin Tadlock to join MTL at Mississipp State University!

1-11-2021 Welcome Shawn Hatcher and Shuqi Zhou to join MTL at Mississippi State University!

12-15-2020 Congratulations to Rajan Khadka and Maya Hooks! Both of them won the Undergraduate Research Stipend Award from the Bagley College of Engineering.

11-12-2020 Dr. Xu receives funding support from DOE SETO 2020 - SIPS. This project will utilize additive manufacturing to 3-D print the solar absorber tube with internal/external structures for heat transfer enhancement and temperature leveling. 

https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/seto-2020-small-innovative-projects-solar-sips 

8-26-2020 Welcome Payne Guilliams to join MTL at Mississippi State University!

8-24-2020 Welcome Maya Hooks to join MTL at Mississippi State University!

8-20-2020 Welcome Rajan Khadka to join MTL at Mississippi State University!

8-16-2020 Dr. Xu joins the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Mississippi State University. If you are interested in joining MTL, please contact him via xu@me.msstate.edu or xugroup.mtl.recruiting@gmail.com

7-17-2020 Congratulations! Jie was interviewed by UTRGV Newsroom for his research on 3D Bioprinting!

www.utrgv.edu/newsroom/2020/07/17-utrgv-researchers-developing-strategy-to-improve-3d-bioprinting.htm 

4-6-2020 Congratulations!!! Jie's paper about numerical simulation of LIFT 3D bioprinting has been accepted by ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference.

3-28-2020 Congratulations! Erick received the PGRA and will attend the graduate school at UTRGV.

2-21-2020 Congratulation to Shaddi, who won the Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award of Mechanical Engineering in National E-Week Banquet!        

1-20-2020 Welcome Mathew Farias to join MTL! 

1-13-2020 Welcome Keandra Garza to join MTL! 

1-6-2020 Dr. Xu’s paper “Energy and exergy analysis of a novel multiple-effect vapor chamber distillation system for high-salinity wastewater treatment” published on Desalination and water treatment. 

12-14-2019 Aibek Bekkulov and Dr. Xu’s paper “Experimental study of condensation in a thermoacoustic cooler with various 3D printed regenerators using water vapor as the working fluid” published on ASME Journal of Energy Resource Technologies. 

12-4-2019 Jie Qu and Dr. Xu’s paper “Experimental study of evaporation and crystallization of brine droplets under different temperatures and humidity levels” published on International Communication of Heat and Mass Transfer. 

11-20-2019 Dr. Xu’s paper “Novel Silica Filled Deep Eutectic Solvent Based Nanofluids for Energy Transportation” published on ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 

9-6-2019 Dr. Xu’s paper “Experimental Study of a Lift-Type Wave Energy Converter Rotor in a Freewheeling Mode” published on Journal of Energy Resources Technology.

8-21-2019 Dr. Xu’s paper “Experimental and numerical investigation on effects of cathode flow field configurations in an air-breathing high-temperature PEMFC” published on International Journal of Hydrogen Energy.

7-19-2019 Congratulations! Shaddi and Erick won the Engaged Scholar Award from UTRGV.

7-17-2019 Jie Qu presented his research work at ASME 2019 Summer Heat Transfer Conference.

7-16-2019 Aibek and Dr. Xu’s conference paper “Experimental study of condensation in different 3D printed regenerators in a thermal-driven thermoacoustic cooler” won the Third Place Award of Best Paper in ASME 2019 13th International Conference on Energy Sustainability in Bellevue, WA.

5-21-2019 Dr. Xu’s paper “Selective Laser Melting of Mechanically Alloyed Metastable Al5Fe2 Powders” published on Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering.

5-9-2019 Dr. Xu’s paper “Numerical study on a water cooling system for prismatic LiFePO4 batteries at abused operating conditions” published on Applied Energy.

4-23-2019 Aibek Bekkulov successfully defended his Master Thesis!

3-20-2019 Welcome Erick to join MTL!

3-4-2019 Dr. Xu’s paper “A novel shape-stabilization strategy for phase change thermal energy storage” published on J. Mater. Chem. A.

2-1-2019 Dr. Xu’s paper “Roles of Oxygen Vacancies and pH Induced Size Changes on Photo- and Radioluminescence of Undoped and Eu3+-Doped La2Zr2O7 Nanoparticles” published on Journal of Luminescence.

1-16-2019 Welcome Shaddi to join MTL!

1-10-2019 Congratulations! Dexter and Julio won the Engaged Scholar Award from UTRGV.

1-8-2019 Dr. Xu’s paper “Parametric Study and Sensitivity Analysis of Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage System in Concentrated Solar Power Plants” published on ASME Journal of Solar Energy Engineering.

1-2-2019 Dr. Xu’s paper “Questions and current understanding about solar chimney power plant: A review” published on Energy Conversion and Management.

1-1-2019 Welcome back Jie Qu for one year visiting program supported by CSC!

12-12-2018 Congratulations! Dr. Xu won NVIDIA GPU grant, we will install the GPU soon in MTL.

11-14-2018 Welcome Ph.D. candidate Jie Lei, from Nanchang University to visit MTL!

11-15-2018 Aibek presented his research work in ASME IMECE 2018.

10-20-2019 Congratulations! Aibek Bekkulov the Graduate Student Travel Award for ASME IMECE 2018.

10-10-2018 Welcome Ph.D. candidate Wenlin Ye, from Nanchang University to visit MTL!

9-26-2018 Dr. Xu’s paper “An improved pseudopotential multi-relaxation-time Lattice Boltzmann model for binary droplets collision with large density ratio” published on Fluid Dynamics Research.

9-23-2018 4-15-2018 Dr. Xu received the travel award from Faculty Travel Support Program at UTRGV for ASME IMECE 2018.

9-20-2018 Dr. Xu’s paper “Stochastic modeling of asphaltenes deposition and prediction of its influence on friction pressure drop” published on Petroleum Science and Technology.

9-11-2018 Dr. Xu’s paper “Reduced-scale experimental model and numerical investigations to buoyance-driven natural ventilation in a large space building” published on Energy Conversion and Management.

9-4-2018 Dr. Xu was awarded as Outstanding Reviewer for Applied Energy (IF=7.9), Renewable Energy (IF=4.9), Energy (IF=4.968), International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer (IF=3.891), Energy Conversion and Management (IF=6.377), Journal of Cleaner Production (IF=5.651).

8-24-2018 Dr. Xu’s review paper “Application of phase change materials for thermal energy storage in concentrated solar thermal power plants: a review to recent developments” in Applied Energy was awarded as “2015-2016 Highly Cited Review Paper” in ICAE 2018 conference.

6-4-2017 Welcome Ph.D. candidate Jie Qu, from China University of Mining Technology, to visit MTL in the summer!

5-17-2018 Dr. Xu’s paper “Simulation of droplet impacting a square solid obstacle in microchannel with different wettability by using high density ratio pseudopotential multiple-relaxation-time (MRT) lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM)” published on Canadian Journal of Physics.

5-9-2018 Congratulations! Dexter won the fellowship for 2018 NSF LSAMP Summer Research Academy.

5-14-2018 Welcome Dexter and Julio to join MTL!

5-4-2018 Dean Dr. Ala Qubbaj visited Community Waste Water Treatment senior design team (Thomas, Mar, Jeremy and Robert)

4-15-2018 Dr. Xu received the travel award from Faculty Travel Support Program at UTRGV for ASME Power & Energy 2018 Conference.

3-18-2018 Dr. Xu’s paper “Multiple-Relaxation-Time Lattice Boltzmann Simulation of Flow and Heat Transfer in Porous Volumetric Solar Receivers” published on Journal of Energy Resource Technologies.

3-17-2018 Hermes’s second paper “Parametric study of cascade latent heat thermal energy storage (CLHTES) system in Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants” published on Journal of the Energy Institute.

2-7-2018 Dr. Xu’s paper “Numerical analysis of a multi-channel active cooling system for densely packed concentrating photovoltaic cells” published on Energy Conversion and Management.

1-1-2018 Congratulations! Luis won the Engaged Scholar Award from UTRGV.

12-11-2017 Andrew and his senior design team at the SDII final poster session!

12-7-2017 Congratulations to Hermes, he successfully defended his master thesis, excellent jobs!

12-2-2017 Dr. Xu’s paper “System-Level Analysis of a Novel Air-Cooled Condenser using Spray Freezing of Phase Change Materials” published on Applied Thermal Engineering.

11-5-2017 Andrew presented his research works on Thermoacoustic water generator at ASME IMECE 2017!

11-1-2017 Congratulations to Hermes! His first journal paper “Generalized diagrams of energy storage efficiency for latent heat thermal storage system in concentrated solar power plant” published on Applied Thermal Engineering.

9-1-2017 Welcome Dr. Shehua Huang, from Wuhan University to visit MTL!

8-30-2018 Dr. Xu’s book chapter “Solar Thermal‐Driven Desalination Pursuing Products of Pure Water and Salts and Leaving Minimum Impact to Environment” published on Desalination from IntechOpen.

7-27-2017 Dr. Xu’s paper “Thermal storage using sand saturated by thermal-conductive fluid and comparison with the use of concrete” published on Journal of Energy Storage.

6-30-2017 Congratulations to Thomas! He won the Second Place Award of student poster competition at ASME Power & Energy 2017 Conference.

6-8-2017 Dr. Xu’s paper “Review on Copper and Palladium Based Catalysts for Methanol Steam Reforming to Produce Hydrogen” published on Catalyst.

6-7-2017 Dr. Xu’s paper “CFD analysis of a novel modular manifold with multi-stage channels for uniform air distribution in a fuel cell stack” published on Applied Thermal Engineering.

5-12-2017 Congratulations! Hermes received the Graduate Student Travel Award for ASME Power & Energy 2017 Conference.

4-20-2017 Congratulations! Thomas, Luis and Ricardo received the Distinguished Scholar Award at the 2nd Engaged Scholar Symposium!

4-17-2017 Dr. Xu received the travel award from Faculty Travel Support Program at UTRGV for ASME Power & Energy 2017 Conference.

4-3-2017 Dr. Xu’s paper “Quantitative Evaluation of Passive Scalar Flow Mixing – A Review of Recent Developments” published on ChemBioEng Reviews.

3-17-2017 Special issue on International Journal of Photoenergy is calling papers: Innovative Applications of Advanced Solar Thermal Technologies Using Phase Change Materials, Dr. Xu is the leading guest editor for this special issue. Manuscripts are due on July 28, 2017.

3-7-2017 Hermes’s conference paper “Parametric study of cascade latent heat thermal storage system for concentrating solar power plants” has been accepted by ASME Power & Energy 2017.

1-20-2017 Welcome Luis to join MTL!

1-18-2017 Welcome Aibek to join MTL!

1-1-2017 Congratulations! Thomas got the Engaged Scholar Award from UTRGV.

12-17-2016 Celebrating the end of the first semester at UTRGV!

11-18-2016 Dr. Xu’s paper “Near-term analysis of a roll-out strategy to introduce fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen stations in Shenzhen China” published on Applied Energy 

10-21-2016 Welcome Thomas to join MTL!

10-17-2016 Welcome Andrew to join MTL!

10-01-2016 Welcome Hermes to join MTL!

9-1-2016 MTL established at UTRGV!