Lehigh students take top prize at extrusion design contest

Four graduate students in materials science and engineering have come away with the top award in the student design competition of the 2003 International Aluminum Extrusion Student Design Competition held recently by the Extrusion Technology (ET) Foundation.

Alexander Bandar, Heather Browne, Mario Epler and Frank Gift Jr. won the $3,000 prize for their design of an extruded aluminum wire harness that organizes, guides and protects wiring for residential and commercial use.

“The harness effectively isolates wires from each other so that electromagnetic interference is prevented,” said an article about the competition in the April 2003 issue of Light Metal Age magazine.

“Any potential for localized heating is avoided as the design prevents wires from being excessively deformed, as may happen when the wires are stapled to wood, as [happens] in common practice.”

The Lehigh students described their product as being “low in cost, environmentally stable, and easy to produce. Extrusion provides high-dimensional tolerances in complex shapes, which is integral to this design. No special tools or skills are required to incorporate it into design or construction. It can be fastened to wood using normal wood screws, can be incorporated into metal sheet using metal screws or nuts and bolts, or fastened to concrete or cinder block structures using masonry screws or nails.”

The students designed the harness to accommodate an array of hole sizes and shapes for electrical, phone, coaxial, and data/Ethernet cables.

The design competition attracted 37 entries from five schools.

The Lehigh students are advised by Wojciech Misiolek, director of the Institute for Metal Forming and associate professor of materials science and engineering.

Bandar and Browne do research in aluminum, Epler studies the forming of steel and bi-materials components, and Gift studies the machining of superalloys.