The process never ceases to amaze Zach Healey. During his internship with Elemental Composites, one of the fiber systems Healey works with is coir, or coconut husk fiber. He takes a large roll of the material, layers it with polypropylene sheets, and places the assembly into a compression mold. The “huge thing,” as he calls it, is then subjected to high pressure and temperature to form a durable composite.
“It comes out as itty bitty thin, and it’s way stronger,” said Healey, a rising senior mechanical engineering major. “It’s just really cool to see something that I can tear apart with my hands turn into an actual panel that I can’t break.”
Healey and Kaitlyn Campbell, a recent biomedical engineering graduate, have spent the last year working as undergraduate research assistants for Elemental Composites, a start-up that specializes in fabricating non-woven intermediates for composite industries. The company was founded by Tickle College of Engineering alumnus Vinit Chaudhary (BS/ME ’20, MS/ME ’22).
Chaudhary was able to hire Campbell and Healey through the Spark Scholars program, which provides internships that connect early-stage tech companies with undergraduate students from TCE. Part of each student’s pay is funded through the UT Center for Materials Processing (CMP).
“With CMP supporting, we can onboard a few interns, bring them in the company, and have them work on product development and material testing in a very cost-effective way for us,” Chaudhary said. “Getting the help of engineering interns to do what the company would do at much more capital is very key for an early-stage startup company.”
Laboratory of learning
Campbell and Healey have been able to work with natural fibers like hemp, coir, and banana and see them become finished products like pickleball paddles and car door panels.
“It’s been great to learn a lot of different mechanical properties and the processes of making materials,” said Campbell, who has enrolled in graduate school at UT. “I really don’t get to learn that in my field of biomedical engineering, so it’s nice to do a deep dive into materials and have that experience.”
Healey has appreciated the chance to gain some practical experience to supplement what he is learning through his coursework at UT.
“The mechanical testing and characterization of the panels really ties into the classes that I’m taking,” he said. “There’s an entire class on mechanical characterization that I saw the theory and the equations behind, and then I went into the lab, and I actually tested these panels and got actual values that I can use for a problem in class.”
Along with the value of the work she’s doing on her own, Campbell has enjoyed interacting with others at the lab and being introduced to new things.
“It’s exposed me to a lot of different fields in engineering because I am working with other graduate students who are working on 20 different projects,” she said. “I get to see all of their processes and I’m asking questions and I’m learning. That’s why I decided to go to graduate school, because this is something I want to do.”
Materials for sustainability
Healey will remain at Elemental Composites as an intern for his senior year at UT. Because of the Sparks Scholar program, he’s gained insight not only into material characterization, but what it takes to run a startup company.
“Things change, and it’s not always consistent,” Healey said. “Plus, I feel like if I was working at a big established company, I would be focused on one area. But here at Elemental, I get the chance to do a lot of different things and expand my skillset.”
Campbell will be doing her graduate research with UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair in Advanced Composites Manufacturing Professor Uday Vaidya. Her career aspiration is to research materials used in medical devices. The projects she worked on during her internship sparked her curiosity.
“It makes me think of what I can do with natural fibers next to help with the sustainability part of it,” she said. “What can we use with leftover materials for different applications. That is very interesting to me.”
Contact
Rhiannon Potkey (865-974-0683, rpotkey@utk.edu)