CETA Faculty Receive Homeland Security Grant

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has awarded a one-year grant to two CETA faculty, Dr. Tom Filburn, associate professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, and Dr. Nikolay Nazaryan, instructor of Mathematics. The grant, for $125,000, will support development of a new, lighter and more portable X-ray machine with greater intensity X-rays than current models create. This machine will enhance examination of cargo containers at border and maritime security checkpoints.

Filburn and Nazaryan’s design involves various modifications to current X-ray machine models that will allow for a more uniform spherical distribution of the X-rays. Their design will allow for the production of higher-energy-intensity beams that will provide more detailed information about cargo or other material as compared with conventional machines, but it will create much more heat than conventional X-ray machines, and so part of their work involves the development of a new method to cool the machine. Their cooling method requires a cooling jacket around the X-ray source metal that allow the generation of X-rays through the thin metal of the jacket. If Filburn and Nazaryan, assisted by a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering, can prove that their design does remove the heat load it generates, they will seek a follow-up grant with which to produce the machine.

CETA congratulates Drs. Filburn and Nazaryan and looks forward to reporting on their work.