Dr. Sreeprasad Sreenivasan joins the lab as Research Scientist. Welcome!

Congratulations to Ting Zheng on passing PhD qualifying examination.

Rakesh Iyer and Zhan Zhang join the lab as PhD students. Welcome!

Welcome to Saeed Farahani, visiting PhD student from Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran, who will be spending 9 months to conduct his PhD research in polymer injection sheet metal forming.

Congratulations to Kousaalya Bakthavatchalam (PhD Student) and Jack Tabb (SPRI summer 2015 Intern from GSSM high school) for winning 3rd prize for their poster entitled “Unique UV Based Curing Technology to Create Crack-free Polymer Derived SiOC Ceramics” at the Ceramic, Composite and Optical Materials Center (CCOMC) fall 2015 conference held at AMRL, Clemson University.

Vishnu Priya Ramineni joins the lab. Welcome! She is jointly advised by Dr. Huijuan Zhao from Mechanical Engineering

Congratulations to Dr. Srikanth Pilla for successfully leading a team of researchers in winning $5.81 Million grant ($2.25 Million from Department of Energy and the rest from private industry) to develop an ultra-lightweight door expected to help automakers in their race to meet federal fuel economy standards. The Co-PIs include Gang Li , Melur Ramasubramanian and Paul Venhovens from Clemson and Shridhar Yarlagadda and his team from Center for Composite Materials at the University of Delaware.

Highlighted: DOE Vehicle Technologies Office; Clemson; Greenville News; Anderson Independent Mail; GSA Business; Composites World; Greenville Journal; Composites Manufacturing Magazine; Charleston Business Journal; JEC Composites Magazine; Plastics Today; Design News; Pickens Sentinel; Altair Enlighten; K & K

The Pilla Lab’s EUREKA! program participation was featured on Calhoun Honors College EUREKA! site. Dr. Pilla’s first EUREKA! student, Kelly Krumm, won 1st prize at the International SPE Automotive Composites Conference in Detroit, MI while the second EUREKA! student, Nathaniel Brown, is continuing his research as a Creative Inquiry student. (EUREKA)

Welcome to Xuezhi Wang, visiting PhD student from Xi’an Jiaotong University, China, who will be spending two years to conduct his PhD research in polymer derived ceramics.

Welcome to Lady Joana Rodriguez, visiting researcher from Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Manizales, Colombia who will be spending little over a month to conduct part of her PhD research in biobased materials.

Dr. Pilla gave an INVITED talk on “Sustainability in the Automotive Industry: Engineered Approaches using Renewable Materials and Green Manufacturing” at the 5th International Forum on Sustainable Manufacturing-Value Creation Through Sustainable Manufacturing held at University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY.

The book chapter “Mechanical performance of poly(propylene carbonate)-based blends and composites” authored by Kousaalya Bakthavatchalam, Bopaiah Ittira Bidappa and Sourabh Rai is now published in Biocomposites: Design and Mechanical Performance, Elsevier.

Welcome to the Creative Inquiry students, Nathaniel Brown and Jonathan Vogel, freshmen in the College of Engineering and Science.

Congratulations to Kousaalya Bakthavatchalam, Xiaoyan Yu and Art Cartwright on passing PhD qualifying examination.

Congratulations to Ting Zheng for receiving the ‘Cooper-Standard’ Fellowship award for the year 2015-16.

Pilla Research Lab welcomes EUREKA interns: Nathaniel Brown and Eric Murbach, incoming freshmen from Clemson Honors College.

Pilla Research Lab welcomes SPRI interns: Mario Krussig, Jack Tabb and Nathan Dubrouillet from South Carolina Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics.

Art David Cartwright joins the lab. Welcome!

Pilla Research Lab will be busy this summer participating in several outreach programs and hosting diverse set of K-12 students: SPRI Interns (11 and 12th grade students from GSSM, SC) in June/July; EUREKA honors research intern (incoming ‘honors’ freshmen) in July and Summer Scholars (rising 7-12 grade students) in July/August.

Moldex3D (CoreTech Systems Co.) gifted $1.625 Million worth of software to Pilla Research Lab to advance the lab’s experimental manufacturing innovations (Clemson Announcement; Moldex3D Announcement)

The rendered proteins based epoxy biocomposite toy cars made by Xiaoyan Yu and Ting Zheng have been presented at the ACREC review meeting. See the tweet below from The National Renderers Association:

#green #recyclable biocomposite proof of concept for #cars #sustainable #ag #socool So much innovation! pic.twitter.com/KVg8fteaUA

— National Renderers (@Renderers) April 1, 2015

The first research paper of our group entitled “Effects of Incremental Depth and Tool Rotation on Failure Modes and Microstructural Properties in Single Point Incremental Forming of Polymers” co-authored by Xiaoyan has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Materials Processing Technology.

Pilla group co-hosted The South Carolina Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics to demonstrate the importance of lightweighting in automotive engineering via the lab’s unique supercritical fluid assisted injection molding technology.

Dr. Pilla gave an INVITED talk on “A Journey Into Sustainability – From Wood to Nanocellulose” at the Cross Border Commercial Innovations in Forestry Conference, Clemson Canada Center, Clemson, SC. (Link)

Congratulations to PhD student Hakan Kazan on passing his qualifiers.

Ting Zheng joins the lab. Welcome!

The first class of ‘Injection Molding Certificate Program‘, an outreach program offered to working personnel, has graduated. A group of 11 employees from BMW have attended the program making it a grand success.

Sai Aditya Pradeep joins the lab. Welcome!

Dr. Pilla gave an INVITED talk on “Sustainability in the Automotive Industry: Engineered Approaches using Renewable Materials and Green Manufacturing” at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC.

Dr. Pilla gave an INVITED talk on “Life Cycle Assessment of Textiles in the Automotive Industry” at the International Society of Industrial Fabric Manufacturers fall conference held at Doubletree South Park, Charlotte, NC.

Our Animal Protein based thermoset composites research is featured in RENDER – The International Magazine of Rendering, in their Oct 2014 issue.

Pilla Research Lab is first in US with integrated MuCell molding. Click here for the press release (PDF).

Anup, Bopaiah and Kelly WON awards for their poster presentation at the Society of Plastics Engineers-Automotive Composites Conference and Exhibition held in Novi, MI (9-11, Sept 14).

Undergraduate Category-FIRST Place
Title: Next Generation Sustainable Biocomposites for Automotive Applications
Students: Kelly Krumm (EUREKA honors student) and Bopaiah Ittira Biddappa (AuE)

Graduate Category-THIRD Place
Title: Value Creation from Waste Products: Development of Areca/Coir-reinforced Epoxidized Pine-Oil Laminated Composites as Advanced Automotive Materials
Students: Anup Shastry (AuE) and Bopaiah Ittira Biddappa (AuE)

Anup and Bopaiah presented posters at the Society of Plastics Engineers-Automotive Composites Conference and Exhibition held in Novi, MI (9-11, Sept 14).

Xiaoyan Yu and Kousaalya Bakthavatchalam join the lab. Welcome!

Jithin Joy, visiting student from M.G. University, India, joins the lab. Welcome!

Kelly Krumm, EUREKA summer honors research intern, joins the lab. Welcome!

Dr. Pilla gave an INVITED talk on “Engineered Technologies for Safe, Affordable and Efficient Mobility” at Michelin R&D Center, Greenville, SC.

Johannes Falb, visiting student from the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany, joins the lab. Welcome!

Sashank Ravi joins the lab. Welcome!

Dr. Pilla’s invited article “Supercritical Fluid Assisted Injection Molding-A New Paradigm for Process-friendly Fabrication of Bioplastics” is published in the May/June issue of the Bioplastics Magazine.

Dr. Pilla gave an INVITED talk on “Biobased, Biodegradable and Biorenewable PLA/PHBV/PPC Ternary Polymer Blends” at the 13th International Symposium on Bioplastics, Biocomposites and Biorefining held at Guelph, Canada.

Hakan Kazan joins the lab. Welcome!

Dr. Pilla gave a presentation on “Investigating the Effect of Supercritical CO2 on the Simulated Recycling of Polypropylene” at the 2014 SPE-ANTEC conference held at Las Vegas, NV.

Dr. Pilla gave an INVITED talk on “Life Cycle Assessment of Textiles in the Automotive Industry” at the AATCC “Automotive Textiles: Driven by Technology” conference held at BMW Zentrum Center, Greer, SC.

Dr. Pilla’s paper entitled “Investigating the Effect of Supercritical CO2 on the Simulated Recycling of Polypropylene” is accepted for publication and presentation at Society of Plastics Engineers’ ANTEC 2014.

Bopaiah Biddappa, Sohil Shah and Sushanth Vasuki join the lab. Welcome!

Anup Shastry, Lirui Wang and Sourabh Rai join the lab. Welcome!

Dr. Pilla’s invited article “Biodegradable Green Foam: The Building Material of the Future” is published in the July/Aug issue of the Bioplastics Magazine.

Dr. Pilla joined Clemson University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Automotive Engineering and CU-ICAR.