It’s a fairly niche product now, but a new study from Georgia Tech engineers suggests insulation made from hemp fibers could be a viable industry in the U.S., creating jobs, a manufacturing base, and greener homes and buildings at the same time.

Making the switch could slash the impact of one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions: Buildings account for roughly 1/5 of emissions globally. By some estimates, using hemp-based products would reduce the environmental impact of insulation by 90% or more. 

The Georgia Tech researchers’ work, reported this month in the Journal of Cleaner Production, is one of the first studies to evaluate the potential for scaling up U.S. production and availability of hemp-based insulation products.

Read about their findings on the College of Engineering website.

Georgia Tech strives to cultivate thought leaders, advance knowledge, and solve societal challenges by embracing various aspects of the research ecosystem. Through the HBCU/MSI Research Initiative, Georgia Tech seeks to capture data surrounding its research impact in the Georgia Tech-HBCU Research Collaboration Data Dashboard. The dashboard allows users to see information regarding joint funding, publications, hubs, and awards won by the HBCU CHIPS Network, which is co-led by Georgia Tech. 

“The data dashboard will represent a key resource for both Georgia Tech and HBCU researchers seeking to enhance research collaboration while substantiating Georgia Tech’s commitment as a valued partner,” said George White, senior director for strategic partnerships.

The Georgia Tech-HBCU Research Collaboration Data Dashboard will serve as a point of reference for faculty and staff in the various departments and colleges to identify opportunities of mutual benefits for collaboration and partnership.

To view the dashboard, visit https://hbcumsi.research.gatech.edu/data-dashboard

Calculating and visualizing a realistic trajectory of ink spreading through water has been a longstanding and enormous challenge for computer graphics and physics researchers.

When a drop of ink hits the water, it typically sinks forward, creating a tail before various ink streams branch off in different directions. The motion of the ink’s molecules upon mixing with water is seemingly random. This is because the motion is determined by the interaction of the water’s viscosity (thickness) and vorticity (how much it rotates at a given point).

“If the water is more viscous, there will be fewer branches. If the water is less viscous, it will have more branches,” said Zhiqi Li, a graduate computer science student.

Li is the lead author of Particle-Laden Fluid on Flow Maps, a best paper winner at the December 2024 ACM SIGGRAPH Asia conference. Assistant Professor Bo Zhu advises Li and is the co-author of six papers accepted to the conference.

Zhu said they must correctly calculate and simulate the interaction between viscosity and vorticity before they can accurately predict the ink trajectory.

“The ink branches generate based on the intricate interaction between the vorticities and the viscosity over time, which we simulated,” Zhu said. “Using a standard method to simulate the physics will cause most of the structures to fade quickly without being able to see any detailed hierarchies.”

Zhu added that researchers had yet to develop a method for this until he and his co-authors proposed a new way to solve the equation. Their breakthrough has unlocked the most accurate simulations of ink diffusion to date.

“Ink diffusion is one of the most visually striking examples of particle-laden flow,” Zhu said.

“We introduce a new viscosity model that solves for the interaction between vorticity and viscosity from a particle flow map perspective. This new simulation lets you map physical quantities from a certain time frame, allowing us to see particle trajectory.”

In computer simulations, flow is the digital visualization of a gas or liquid through a system. Users can simulate these liquids and gases through different scenarios and study pressure, velocity, and temperature.

A particle-laden flow depicts solid particles mixing within a continuous fluid phase, such as dust or water sediment. A flow map traces particle motion from the start point to the endpoint.

Duowen Chen, a computer science Ph.D. student also advised by Zhu and co-author of the paper, said previous efforts by researchers to simulate ink diffusion depended on guesswork. They either used limited traditional methods of calculations or artificial designs. 

“They add in a noise model or an artificial model to create vortical motions, but our method does not require adding any artificial vortical components,” Chen said. “We have a better viscosity force calculation and vortical preservation, and the two give a better ink simulation.”

Zhu also won a best paper award at the 2023 SIGGRAPH Asia conference for his work explaining how neural network maps created through artificial intelligence (AI) could close the gaps of difficult-to-solve equations. In his new paper, he said it was essential to find a way to simulate ink diffusion accurately independent of AI.

“If we don’t have to train a large-scale neural network, then the computation time will be much faster, and we can reduce the computation and memory costs,” Zhu said. “The particle flow map representation can preserve those particle structures better than the neural network version, and they are a widely used data structure in traditional physics-based simulation.”

Noura Howell and Joe Bozeman lead the “Microscale Thermal Tech for Sustainability” research initiative for the Institute for Matter and Systems at Georgia Tech. Their research in this role focuses on sustainable thermoregulation strategies for climate change resilience. Howell is an assistant professor of digital media in the Ivan Allen College of liberal Arts, and Bozeman is an assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

In this brief Q&A, Howell and Bozeman discuss their research focus, how it relates to Matter and System’s core research focuses, and the national impact of this initiative.

What is your field of expertise and at what point in your life did you first become interested in this area?

Howell's field of expertise is Human-Computer Interaction, particularly embodied interaction design research and design futuring. Embodied interaction design research is about designing interactions with technologies that involve more of humans' bodies beyond just eyes on a screen and hands on a mouse or keyboard. Thermal perception (feeling warmth and coolness) is an important part of human embodied experience, and designing technologies for thermal perception is an exciting area of design research. Design futuring, Howell's other sub-speciality, offers ways to envision, discuss, and debate future scenarios with technology. So, this proposal uses design futuring to explore alternative futures for thermal technologies for sustainability. 

Howell has been interested in sustainability ever since she was a kid growing up playing in the woods in Florida, picking wild citrus, watching the lizards, frogs, snakes, armadillos, and birds, helping the tortoises cross the road, and canoeing near gators. Howell has been interested in thermal interactions ever since she was a kid in elementary school on the hot Florida playground, touching a hot metal jungle gym bar, and noticing that it felt so hot that it felt cool. Much later, she learned about thermoreceptors in our skin and that this phenomenon is called paradoxical cold, when some cold receptors in our skin respond to high temperatures. 

Bozeman's field of expertise is in sustainable energy development, climate change adaptation/mitigation, and developing equitable solutions for socioecological, urban carbon management, and food-energy-water nexus challenges. Bozeman does life cycle assessment and energy systems modeling for sustainability with a special emphasis on the social receptivity of technological administration.

Bozeman first became interested in this area during his time working for the public sector as a sustainability officer and energy manager. In those roles, he oversaw and addressed many sociotechnical challenges regarding indoor comfort, air quality, and compliance with environmental protection laws. During this period, it became clear to him that more needed to be done in thermoregulation and the systems that facilitate it.

What questions or challenges sparked your current research?

Thermoregulation, or maintaining a healthy body temperature, is essential for survival. Meanwhile, the world is getting hotter, and humans must adapt. When people feel too hot, it can hinder their productivity, and extreme heat can lead to death. HVAC uses too much energy and struggles to accommodate the wide variety of thermal comfort preferences of building occupants, while many people work outdoors.

Our project tackles the challenge of sustainable thermoregulation.

Matter and systems refer to the transformational technological and societal systems that arise from the convergence of innovative materials, devices, and processes. Why is your initiative important to the development of the IMS research strategy?

This proposal combines thermal technology and microscale fabrication to innovate sustainable thermoregulation strategies for climate change resilience. This helps advance IMS research strategy in their interdisciplinary areas of microelectronic technologies, built environment technologies, and human-centric technologies. While this project is only a start, sustainable thermoregulation will require transformational technological and societal systems shifts arising from the convergence of innovative materials, devices, and processes, and so this project is a good fit for IMS, and we are very happy to be working on this project under the auspices of IMS.

What are the broader global and social benefits of the research you and your team conduct?

This proposal convenes transdisciplinary expertise across Georgia Tech and beyond to propose agenda-setting visions for future work to establish the significance of this research nexus on more sustainable ways to support people in maintaining a comfortable, healthy body temperature. This is an essential form of climate change resilience and adaptation. This proposal has the potential to impact science, technology, and society through bringing disparate disciplines together to establish a new research area of sustainable, microscale thermoregulation techniques for climate change adaptation. This research promises to conceptually advance the state-of-the-art via design futuring scenarios, future visions of just-around-the-corner possibilities in this new research area.

What are your plans for engaging a wider Georgia Tech faculty pool with the Institute for Matter and Systems research?

We will convene researchers across Georgia Tech and beyond to exchange expertise, brainstorm wild ideas, and synthesize ideas into design futuring scenarios. Stay tuned for interview and workshop opportunities.

George White, senior director of strategic partnerships, has been named a member of the inaugural National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC) Workforce Advisory Board (WFAB).

“The appointment to the Natcast Workforce Advisory Board is truly an honor and represents an opportunity for myself and my esteemed colleagues to help increase U.S. competitiveness in this most consequential sector,” said White.

Comprising U.S. leaders focused on growing the semiconductor workforce from the private sector, higher education, workforce development organizations, the Department of Commerce, and other federal agencies, the WFAB will support the efforts of the recently established NSTC Workforce Center of Excellence (WCoE). It will offer critical input on national and regional workforce development strategies to ensure WCoE initiatives are employer-driven, worker-centered, and responsive to real-time industry challenges.

Read the full release from Natcast

Georgia Institute of Technology is set to play a crucial role in a strategic effort funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) to help bolster America’s national security and global military leadership.  

The project, led by the Texas Institute for Electronics (TIE) at The University of Texas at Austin, represents a total investment of $1.4 billion. The $840 million award from DARPA, announced by TIE in 2024, aims to develop the next generation of high-performing semiconductor microsystems for the Department of Defense (DoD). 

“We are honored to collaborate with TIE and its broader team on this far reaching and strategic program to enable best in class 3D heterogeneous integration (3DHI) processes and technologies in the United States,” said Muhannad S. Bakir, the Dan Fielder Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the 3D Systems Packaging Research Center, who is heading the project for Georgia Tech. 

3DHI is a semiconductor manufacturing process that incorporates different materials and components into microsystems with precision assembly. The use of 3DHI allows for the creation of high-performance, compact, and energy-efficient systems. 

The investment is part of DARPA’s Next Generation Microelectronics Manufacturing (NGMM) Program comprised of 32 defense electronics and leading commercial semiconductor companies and 18 nationally recognized academic institutions.

Under the agreement, TIE will establish a national open access R&D and prototyping fabrication facility. The facility will enable the DoD to create higher performance, lower power, lightweight, and compact defense systems. The advancements are expected to have wide-ranging applications, including radar, satellite imaging, and unmanned aerial vehicles.  

Georgia Tech will provide a wide range of expertise in 3DHI including design, fabrication and assembly processes, and characterization to support the NGMM national open-access R&D and prototyping facility at TIE.  

Regents' Professor and Morris M. Bryan, Jr. Professor Suresh K. Sitaraman in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering will be a key contributor to Georgia Tech’s efforts on the project.

“We are delighted to be partnering with UT/TIE on the establishment of a 3D Heterogeneous Integration Microsystem prototyping  facility,” said Sitaraman. “In addition to advancing fundamental science, this project is a great opportunity for Georgia Tech to demonstrate and integrate our ground-breaking and innovative 3DHI research approaches and technology solutions into TIE’s prototyping facility, and understand the challenges involved when translating lab-scale research work to a large industry-strength fabrication facility.” 

ECE Professors Saibal Mukhopadhyay, Arijit Raychowdhury, Visvesh Sathe, and Shimeng Yu will be working alongside Bakir and Sitaraman. 

A significant portion of the research will be conducted at the Institute for Matter and Systems (IMS), which operates Georgia Tech’s state-of-the-art electronics and nanotechnology core facilities. 

Read the press release from TIE and view the project’s team and partners.  

From the physics of knitting to highlighting how batteries work, Georgia Tech photographers captured the impact and breadth of the Institute’s research enterprise. See our best shots and discover unseen gems in this collection.

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