Lecture Series

Lecture 50: Recent Developments inTunneling Technology

Date & Time: Thursday June 14, 2012 – 7:30 PM

Attention : The lecture building / room has changed.

Location: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Campus Center Building (CC), Student Cafeteria Lounge (Get Directions, Campus Map )

Speaker: Jamal Rostami, PhD, PE

Synopsis:

This lecture will review various tunneling methods and will discuss the recent developments in the field of tunneling and related machinery. It will discuss applications of tunnels and underground excavation, various methods for tunneling, and will offer a brief review of the tunneling machines and achieved milestones in their size and performance. The lecture will discuss the sequential excavation methods used for many of the road tunnels around the world, mechanized tunneling in rock and soil, and will present brief video clip of some of the complex tunneling machines.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Rostami has over 24 years of experience in design, management, research, and teaching in the field of underground and surface mining, tunneling, and underground construction. He has obtained his BSc, in mining engineering from Univ. of Tehran (UT) and MS and PhD in Mining Engineering from Colorado School of Mines (CSM). He has worked as faculty at both UT and CSM and has been at Penn State University since July 2007. Dr. Rostami is a registered Professional Engineering (PE) in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. He has published over 100 papers, 3 book chapters, and many technical reports.

He has made many presentations in professional conferences and has served on several technical review panels/committees for different projects and research/professional organizations. Dr Rostami is a member Structure and Governance Strategic committee of Society of Mining Engineers (SME) and has served in many unit-committees in various capacities from member to chair. He is the past-chair of Mining Engineering Committee and a chair-elect of PE committee. He has offered several short courses on “Mechanical excavation and mining” and “Shaft design and construction”. He has also worked as a full time consulting engineer on various projects in the field of mining and tunneling. His area of specialty is rock mechanics, ground support, rock excavation/ fragmentation, mechanical excavation, mechanized mining, space mining, and tunneling and underground construction. He is also a member of, ARMA, ISEE, IRSME, IRRMS, ASCE, and TRB AFF-60 committee.

Fee (including dinner): $5 Students, $15 Public

RSVP: Please click here to RSVP for dinner.

 

Lecture 49: Gravity and Dynamics of Motion in Orbit

Date & Time: Thursday May 10, 2012 – 7:30 PM

Location: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Humanity Building (HU), Conference Room 009 (Get Directions, Campus Map )

Speaker: Mohsen Mosleh

Synopsis:

This lecture will entertain topics in “classical mechanics” which discusses the set of physical laws describing the motion of bodies under the action of applied forces. These physical laws provide extremely accurate results as long as the objects being considered are not macro-scale and the speeds involved do not approach the speed of light.

The selected topics in this lecture are gravity and its role on the dynamics of objects in orbit. The gravitational field is one the key fundamental interactions of nature which gives weight to the objects with mass and causes dispersed matter to coalesce, and coalesced matter to remain intact. It is also the driving force for objects under central-force motion in an orbit. The dynamics of motion in orbit with the Lagrangian perspective will be discussed. Examples of planetary orbits and their characteristics in the solar system will be presented.

About the Speaker:

Mohsen Mosleh is a Professor of mechanical engineering at Howard University in Washington DC and Past President of Iranian Academic and Professionals (IAAP). His professional appointments and services include Visiting Scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Visiting Scientist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Guest Scientist at the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST), Advisory Board of the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Maine, Board of Directors of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) of Washington DC section, Graduate Program Director at Howard University, Manager of MIT/Harvard-industry consortium on durability of total joint replacements at the Massachusetts institute of Technology (MIT).

He has been a reviewer for Maine Space Grant Consortium, Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (SFFP), National Science Foundation’s programs, American Society of Engineering Education and numerous scientific journals. He has also served as member of Technical Committee of professional conferences and meetings such as International Symposiums on Nano-manufacturing and Chair of ASME-STLE Conference sessions.

Dr. Mosleh received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from MIT. He earned his BS and MS degrees in mechanical Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology. He has widely published peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals and proceedings. His research interests and activities include surface engineering, nanofluids, and nanocomposites. His teaching focus is on Classical Mechanics and Advanced Dynamics, Engineering Design, and Product Development. He has received numerous awards including Rabinowicz tribology award, ASME outstanding teaching award, distinguished faculty author award and Editor’s Choice paper award from TLT magazine.

Fee (including dinner): $5 Students, $15 Public

RSVP: Please click here to RSVP for dinner.

Majid Fotuhi

Lecture 48: Global Water Challenges and Sustainable Solutions

Date & Time: Thursday April 12, 2012 – 7:30 PM

Location: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Humanity Building (HU), Conference Room 009 ( Get Directions, Campus Map )

Speakers of this month: Drs Ben & Zohreh Movahed

Synopsis:

Water is life! After air, water is the most precious resource on earth. Without adequate and safe drinking water and proper sanitation, the whole society’s livelihood will be jeopardized. This presentation provides a brief overview of some of the local, national and global challenges related to water; presents many questions about the “current” practices related to water usage and discusses possible strategies towards sustainable solutions, including advanced water treatment and desalination as potential tools in the tool box. The audience will learn the value of water to life and the fact that, in the future, the most competitive world issue will be the availability of water, more than oil! The World Bank estimates that 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water and about 50 percent of the world’s hospital beds are populated by people who have contracted water-borne diseases. The audience will also become familiar with some of the local and national challenges including: aging Infrastructure, consequences of large water main breaks (e.g., River Road Water Main Break); presence of micro pollutants in water supplies, concerns about the perception of “unacceptable” tap water quality resulting in excessive use of bottled water, the controversial idea of using of alternative non-potable sources for flushing toilets, and many more intriguing challenges.

About Ben Movahed, P.E., BCEE

Ben Movahed

Ben (Behanm) is the President of WATEK Engineering Corporation in Silver Spring, Maryland. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from University of Houston and a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from University of Maryland.
He is a registered professional engineer in eight states, a board certified Environmental Engineer and has over 26 years of experience in evaluation and design of water treatment facilities. Ben is internationally involved and is specialized in reverse osmosis desalination and membrane filtration technologies. Ben is the Past President and current board member of the American Membrane Technology Association (AMTA) and Past Chair of the AWWA water quality committee (CS). He has received numerous awards from various water industry organizations and teaches short courses on membrane and desalination technologies to water plant operators and guest speaker for the Johns Hopkins University graduate student classes.
Ben has managed the design and construction of over 150 projects utilizing various types of water treatment technologies from very small (10,000 gallons per day) to some of the world’s largest facilities with capacities over 100 million gallons per day.

About Zohreh Y. Movahed, Ph.D. P.E.

Dr. Zohreh Movahed

Dr. Zohreh Movahed has a B.S., in Chemical Engineering, and M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering. She is a registered Professional Engineering in the State of Maryland. She has extensive water and wastewater related work experience working for private and public entities. For the past 20 years, She has been working at Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) and Currently she is in charge of the WSSC’s Regulatory Services Group Leader.
She has also been a part time instructor for the Johns Hopkins University for the past 14 years. She has received numerous awards for her outstanding performance and achievements.
Behnam and Zohreh are both dedicated to the field of water. Their professional mission is to protect and enhance quality of life by helping to address various water and wastewater related challenges.

Fee (including dinner): $5 Students, $15 Public

RSVP: Please click here to RSVP for dinner.