Keynote Speakers
The Keynote & Plenary Speakers information of ICSMR
Prof. Ramesh K. Agarwal
Washington University in St. Louis, USA
Biography: Professor Ramesh K. Agarwal is the William Palm Professor of Engineering in the department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Washington University in St. Louis. From 1994 to 2001, he was the Sam Bloomfield Distinguished Professor and Executive Director of the National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University in Kansas. From 1978 to 1994, he was the Program Director and McDonnell Douglas Fellow at McDonnell Douglas Research Laboratories in St. Louis. Dr. Agarwal received Ph.D in Aeronautical Sciences from Stanford University in 1975, M.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1969 and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India in 1968. Over a period of forty years, Professor Agarwal has worked in various areas of Computational Science and Engineering - Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Computational Materials Science and Manufacturing, Computational Electromagnetics (CEM), Neuro-Computing, Control Theory and Systems, and Multidisciplinary Design and Optimization. He is the author and coauthor of over 500 journal and refereed conference publications. He has given many plenary, keynote and invited lectures at various national and international conferences worldwide in over fifty countries. Professor Agarwal continues to serve on many academic, government, and industrial advisory committees. Dr. Agarwal is a Fellow eighteen societies including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), American Physical Society (APS), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Royal Aeronautical Society, Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics (CSAA), Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) and American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). He has received many prestigious honors and national/international awards from various professional societies and organizations for his research contributions.
Title of Speech: Environmentally Responsible Sustainable ‘Green’ Composites
Abstract: Most advanced composites currently available are made using non-degradable polymeric resins such as epoxies, esters, polyurethane, etc., and high strength and/or high stiffness fibers such as graphite, aramids, and glass, designed for long term durability. While they have desirable mechanical, thermal and chemical properties, they have two major disadvantages. First, the materials used are not sustainable; the high performance fibers (except glass) and resins are almost entirely derived from petroleum, and secondly these composites are non-degradable under normal environmental conditions. In recent years, the growing environmental concerns have pushed research in the area of bio-degradable green composites since they do not require petroleum (source of greenhouse gas emissions) and land-fills at the end of their lives. In green polymer composites, one of the two chemicals from which they are synthesized can be produced sustainably reducing their carbon footprint. For example, polyurethanes (PU) can now be produced using polyols from soybean oil, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) from ethylene glycol, and polybutylene succinate (PBS) from succinic acid. Use of renewable plant-based lignocellulosic fibers has been a natural choice for reinforcing (or filling) polymers to make them greener. Plenty of examples can be found where plant-based fibers are used for reinforcing non-degradable thermoplastic polymers such as PP, high, medium, and low density polyethylene (HDPE, MDPE, LDPE), nylons, polyvinylchloride (PVC), and polyesters as well as thermoset resins such as epoxies and esters to produce greener composites. Due to their good mechanical properties, longer plant-based fibers, extracted from the stems or leaves of plants such as abaca, bamboo, flax, henequen, hemp, jute, kenaf, pineapple, ramie, sisal, etc., are being evaluated as low cost alternative reinforcements to commonly used glass fibers to make composites. These fibers are annually renewable, as compared to wood which takes 20–25 years to grow before it can be cut and used. Significant research efforts are currently being spent in developing a new class of fully biodegradable or compostable green composites by combining natural fibers with biodegradable resins. Most of the current technology is still in the research and development stage. This presentation will review some these developments and their current and potential applications.
Prof. Jianyong Ouyang
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Biography: Prof. Jianyong Ouyang received his PhD, master and bachelor degrees from the Institute for Molecular Science in Japan, the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Science, and the Tsinghua university in Beijing, respectively. His research interests include flexible electronics and energy materials and devices. He invented the first polymer-nanoparticle resistive memory, the first hybrid ionic/electronic thermoelectric converter, the first adhesive intrinsically conducting polymers and the first strain sensor for food processing monitoring in the world, observed the ductilization on polymers for the first time in the world, and continually reported world-record conductivities and thermoelectric properties of solution-processable intrinsically conductive polymers and world-record thermoelectric properties of ionic conductors.
Title of Speech: Conducting Polymers as Wearable Biopotential Electrodes for High-quality Healthcare Monitoring
Abstract: The healthcare cost has been increasing, because to visit a doctor is costly and time-consuming. The advent and advance of wearable technologies can greatly lower the healthcare cost. However, the signals provided by wearable devices often exhibit low quality, particularly during body movement. For example, biopotential signals including electrocardiography (ECG), electromyography (EMG) and electroencephalography (EEG) can provide vital signal for diagnosis. However, the conventional Ag/AgCl gel electrodes are not suitable for long-term monitoring due to the evaporation of the liquid phase of the gel electrolyte and skin irritation. Stretchable strain sensors have been investigated to monitor the body movement, but their signals can be very noisy during body movement because they cannot always form conformal contact to skin. Here, I will present some of our results on developing conformal dry electrodes for biopotential monitoring. These dry electrodes can always form conformal contact to skin, and thus they can give rise to high-quality biopotential signals even during body movement.