Zahra Noori Places 1st at WPI Competition

Zahra Noori Places 1st at WPI Competition

By Victoria Birk Hill April 13, 2021

We are pleased to announce that WPI PhD student, Zahra Noori, won first place at Graduate Research Innovation Exchange (GRIE) on April 6, 2021. GRIE is a poster celebration and competition at WPI that highlights the breadth, diversity, and quality of WPI’s graduate research. Sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the Dean of Graduate Studies, it is a two-part event consisting of an Open Poster Exhibition in March and Poster Finals and Awards in April.

This weeklong event is a festival of creativity and innovation. All graduate students and post doctoral fellows engaged in research or in course-or program-related capstone projects were encouraged to develop a 5 minute presentation and submit it for judge, peer, and faculty review. 63 students were select to compete in the finals.

Zahra Noori won First Place for her poster: “Experimental Study of Drying of Paper with Ultrasound Mechanism”. Drying of moist porous media, such as pulp and paper, is an energy-intensive process. Traditional drying technologies have disadvantages including high energy consumption, thermal degradation of the samples, and high capital cost. In the current study, a novel drying technology using ultrasound mechanism for paper drying is introduced. Specifically, the sample weight and surface temperature have been monitored during the experiments using piezoelectric transducers. The experimental results show a significant impact of the ultrasound on the surface temperature and the drying rate. This research is the foundation of the future studies for providing a fundamental understanding of ultrasound drying technique.