When you buy a mobile phone, you might not think about how far it’s traveled to get to your pocket. You might think even less about the vibrational forces that acted upon it during its journey to you.
But in the Advanced Vibrations and Acoustics Lab (AVAL), founded and directed by mechanical engineering professor Pablo Tarazaga, researchers are poised to make important inroads into determining standards of just how much vibration an object can take, including objects like your phone.
Sriram Malladi continues to work in the lab as a postdoctoral researcher since earning his master’s degree and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech. He says he was drawn to researching vibrations because it’s one of the most ubiquitous forces in our daily lives — which means most of us forget about it.
But not in the lab where certifying the structural integrity of objects from cell phones to car parts to military equipment takes prominence. And with the help of alumni who work at the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren, the lab was loaned new equipment that enables further research capabilities.
Read the full story and see my photos via Virginia Tech Engineer, the Virginia Tech College of Engineering’s award-winning alumni magazine