Every year, large numbers of MIT students participate in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), seizing the chance to lend their skills to cutting-edge research. During summer 2014, five MIT students—Gloria Hyun, Rebecca Steinmeyer, Jean Bauer, Stephanie Guo, and Amelia Helmick— were supported in their research endeavors by Schlumberger, a Sustaining Member of MITEI.
While Helmick worked with Schlumberger on a separate materials-related project, the other four students had the chance to collaborate with each other—an exceptional research opportunity. Each tackled a different facet of a single task: how to monitor and maintain the down-hole structural integrity of oil wells. At an August 14 session at the Schlumberger offices, Hyun, Steinmeyer, Bauer, and Guo presented their findings.
Amelia Helmick ’15 of materials science and engineering worked independently in the lab on a project related to designing and understanding the properties of advanced materials for oil-field applications.
Jean Bauer ’17 of mechanical engineering (left) designed a mathematical model to describe and predict the electrical behavior of cement nanocomposites containing carbon nanotubes. Rebecca Steinmeyer ’17 of mechanical engineering worked in the arena of conceptual design. She devoted her energies to seeking an efficient and effective way to run electrical measurements of cement nanocomposites down-hole in a hypothetical oil well.
Not pictured: Stephanie Guo ’17 of mechanical engineering studied the use of carbon nanotubes as piezoresistive sensors in cement.
This article appears in the Autumn 2014 issue of Energy Futures.