Olivet’s Peddinghaus Team will have the opportunity to work on challenging material testing and product redesign initiatives geared to improve Peddinghaus products that will in turn be sold worldwide. Primary interaction will occur at the Peddinghaus world headquarters right here in Bradley where they manufacturer their diverse line of large scale material working products.
 

	Nucor Corporation
Faculty Lead: Joe Schroeder Location: Bourbonnais, Ill. Concentration Focus: Mechanical and Electrical Sponsor Engineer: Matt Luymes Matt.Luymes@nucor.com

With a production capacity that exceeds 26 million tons, Nucor is the largest producer of steel in the United States and is the world’s foremost steel recycler. Nucor’s Bourbonnais facility is a producer of Rebar, Merchant Bar Quality: rounds, flats and angles. They are certified to the ISO9001 standard and produce various sizes of bars in various grades and chemistries. 

There will be two project teams for Nucor. The first will work on a design for unmanned slag removal in their large furnace machinery. This will increase safety and throughput. The second team will design new process controls for their 180,000 pound industrial melt operation to increase production rates and improve quality.  

	WebbWorks
Faculty Lead: Ken Johnson Location: N. Thailand and Olivet Campus Concentration Focus: Mechanical Sponsor Engineer: Wes Gerbig wesgerbig@gmail.com

At WebbWorks, not only do they make innovative products, but they are using this progressive mentality to help better the lives of those around them with a missions focus. 

The WebbWorks Project Team will work closely with their key engineers under the guidance of Wes Gerbig ’01 to help WebbWorks develop their Quality Management System, with elements of process design, database design and quality control. This project will also provide students with invaluable international engineering experience as they will be working with a team on the other side of the world in Northern Thailand where WebbWorks is headquartered.

While this project will provide dynamic and useful engineering experience, the missions component is clear. In Northern Thailand, there are vast amounts of poverty and brokenness. WebbWorks focus is to help provide ways to relieve some of this through fair wage employment and implementing the ideas of quality life choices and decisions.  

	NI Industries
Faculty Lead: Ken Johnson Location: Rock Island, Ill. and Olivet Campus Concentration Focus: Mechanical, Electrical and Computer Sponsor Engineer: John Sheridan jsheridan@solidica.com

This project will support the development and optimization of a new 600 ton hydraulic press used in the fabrication of novel lightweight titanium aluminide armor for the United States military.

The project team will work with NI Industries and Solidica engineers to establish design rules for the fabrication of shaped, or curved
armor tiles made using the titanium aluminide process. The team will conduct extensive metallurgical tests on the material and correlate microscopic density properties to mold geometries to establish design rules to be used in production.

	Bimba Manufacturing Company
Faculty Lead: Joe Makarewicz Location: University Park, Ill. and Olivet Campus Concentration Focus: Mechanical, Computer and Electrical Sponsor Engineer: Kevin Douglas douglask@bimba.com

and motion control technology. Specializing in providing cutting-edge solutions to engineering challenges, Bimba strives to deliver superior customer satisfaction through outstanding service, quality, and value. They offer an extensive range of pneumatic, hydraulic, and electric actuators, air preparation, and motion control products. 

This Senior Project team will work with Bimba engineers to minimize binding in Original Line cylinders (RG/Bearing interface, rolling
operation, etc.) These cylinders are one of the most important products for Bimba and the team will need to possibly design test
apparatus to conduct physical testing to characterize binding mechanisms. The team will also develop an FEA model of the cylinder
to conduct FEA analysis to also seek to identify the binding mode. If time permits, the team will also develop a possible cylinder
redesign to reduce future binding frequency.

  

	Tyson Engineering
Faculty Lead: Kevin Brewer Location: Kankakee, Ill. Concentration Focus: Geological Sponsor Engineer: Neil Piggush npiggush@tysoneng.com

 

Tyson Engineering provides a wide array of industrial and municipal engineering services in the Kankakee region. This project will focus on conducting research related to site-based soil modification techniques to convert poor soil regions to highly engineering and
efficient rain garden material. Specifically, this geological engineering focused team will assess the soil modification required to convert non-optimal soil types, such as clay or sand, into effective rain garden material bases. These materials can then be used to provide enhanced water retention and filtration for improved agricultural growth and aquifer quality.

The output of this project will be to provide new standards recommendations that will be considered for adoption by a wide range of
municipalities and to provide a recommendation guide for soil modifications useful for developing nations to improve agricultural
harvest volumes. Recommendations will include soil modification ratios, methods, and optimal plant species to ensure an effective
environmental system.