Sarah C.

Helland 1 Anonymous Lane Nowhere, Wa XXXXX March 3, 2012 SGP, University of Idaho 709 Deakin Avenue Moscow, ID 83843 Dear Student Grant Program Committee: I am applying for the student grant in order to pay for attending the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Student Professional Development Conference. As my final technical elective before graduating I am studying Advanced Mechanics of Materials (ME539) as a directed study with Dr. Edwin Odom of the Mechanical Engineering Department. Dr. Odom has asked me to attend the conference and present the research we have been engaged in at their presentation competition. Our research is exploring the work done by Dr. Ju on modifying Castiglianos method to apply to beams under all sorts of loads. Castiglianos method is a simple way of finding the deflections of and forces acting on a beam that has more support than the minimum needed to keep it in place when forces are applied. Dr. Jus work makes Castiglianos method generally applicable to all beams, instead of only applicable to certain beams that the student is not able to differentiate from inapplicable beams. However, Dr. Jus work is in danger of being lost. Instead of being widely disseminated and added to the teaching of Castiglianos method in standard intermediate mechanics of materials classes, there has been little notice of the method outside of Dr. Jus single paper on the topic and his classes. Since he has died, no one has worked on it at all. Dr. Odom and I wish to spread the knowledge of Dr. Jus work to those who need it most: mechanical engineering students. We will be generating a supplementary paper for Dr. Odoms ME341 class at this university, but in order to get the word out to other students I will be participating in the conference. Sincerely,

Sarah C. Helland

Generalized Castiglianos Method Presentation

To Give at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Regional Student Professional Development Conference

Narrative
Objective
I am applying to the student grant project to receive funding to attend the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Student Professional Development Conference and participate in their Old Guard Oral Contest [1]. I am studying Advanced Mechanics of Materials (ME539) as a directed study with Dr. Edwin Odom of the Mechanical Engineering Department. Dr. Odom has asked me to attend the conference and present a summary of the research we have been doing as part of the contest.

Background
Dr. Odom and I are studying the Generalized Castiglianos Method, as developed by Dr. Ju and outlined in his paper published in the Journal of the Franklin Institute in 1971 [2]. Dr. Jus work is based on Castiglianos method of calculating the forces acting in beams which have more than the minimum number of supports and calculating the deflection of the beam at a particular point [3]. This method allows you to get solutions for these forces even when working with generalized terms. Other methods require numerical values to solve the entire calculation. It is also particularly effective at analyzing beams that curve or that have different cross-sections along the beam. The trouble with Castiglianos method is that it does not work for all cases. On some beams, including very simple ones, the answers given do not reflect the actual values in the beam [4]. While which beams it works on can be learned, it would be preferable to have a method that works in all cases. For this purpose, Dr. Ju developed his Generalized Castiglianos Method. Dr. Jus variation on Castiglianos Method works for all beams and is much more effective [2]. However, Dr. Ju wrote only one paper on this method [2] and, although he taught it in some of his classes [4], his method was never disseminated widely. Dr. Odom and I are therefore trying to understand and clarify Dr. Jus method, based primarily on his paper and Dr. Odoms notes from his class. This has been difficult, due both to the way Dr. Ju did not go into a great deal of detail as to his derivation and all of his sources being older and hard to get to. We want to make Dr. Jus method more accessible to engineering students and keep it from being lost in time, so we want to share his method as widely as possible. As part of disseminating Dr. Jus method, we plan for me to present at the ASME Student Professional Development Conference (SPDC) [1]. This conference is designed to enable engineering students to expand their network of contacts and practice the skills that they need in the workplace that school has difficulty meeting. It includes presentation and poster competitions, as well as design competitions.

Importance
Personal
The student professional development conference is designed to aid students of engineering in networking with professional engineers. Giving a presentation at the conference is an opportunity for me to demonstrate my ability as an engineer to people who I aspire to work with. Also, this presentation and the research that has gone into it is practice in the skills I will need in graduate school.

University
While the conference does not affect the university directly, the research my presentation is based on will. Dr. Odom and I are writing an introduction to the subject to be included in future iterations of his Intermediate Mechanics of Materials class (ME341). This will allow future mechanical engineering students at the university to learn about this subject. Additionally, this material will be presented to the ASME students belonging to the local chapter thus allowing the current group of mechanical engineering students to learn it.

Discipline
The generalized Castigliano method is in danger of being lost. Without the work being done by Dr. Odom and me this method will be unknown to the next generation of engineers. For this reason, the work we are doing on the paper for his class and the presentation at the ASME conference is very important for the discipline of Mechanical Engineering.

Methods
No particular methods are applied in my work, as the funding will be used to pay for attendance to a conference.

Timeline
April 2: Register for SPDC April 2-18: Give presentation to local ASME April 19: Travel to SPDC April 20-21: Attend SPDC, Present April 22: Return from SPDC

Bibliography
[1] Student Professional Development Conference (SPDC). Internet: http://events.asme.org/SPDC/ [February 27, 2012] [2] F. D. Ju. On the Constraints for Castiglianos Theorem. Journal of the Franklin Institute, Vol. 292, p. 257, October 1971 [3] H. L. Langhaar. Energy Methods in Applied Mechanics. New York, NY: Wiley, 1962, pp. 133-46 [4] E.M. Odom. Generalized Castiglianos. Notes from F.D. Jus Advanced Mechanics of Materials class, 1975

Additional Information
Institutional Resources Available
The University library had all the books that we need to research Dr. Jus method. The ASME group has already received funding to pay for the ride to and from the conference, so I do not need funding for a bus ticket.

Other Sources of Funding

No funds will be needed beyond those from the Student Grant Program.

Plan to Disseminate to the University

I plan to give the presentation to the local ASME group in the weeks leading up to the conference. Additionally, a text version of the work Dr. Odom and I have done will be included in future years of ME341.

Regulatory Committee Approval

No such approval is necessary for this project.

Qualifications
As a senior in Mechanical Engineering, I have practice in presenting material to professors. As a math tutor with the university, I have experience presenting material to students. Together, Dr. Odom is confident that I have the skills needed to present our research to an audience of my peers in a clear way.