MSU professor quietly creates one of nation’s largest databases for wind turbine materials energy research

John Mandell and Dan Samborsky have built one of the nation’s largest open-access databases on wind turbine materials using this lab at Montana State University.

In a little lab on the campus of Montana State University, John Mandell, Dan Samborsky, and scores of students, have been breaking things to advance the field of wind energy.

"These machines keep grinding away around the clock," said Mandell as he flipped on the lab’s lights.

Inside a windowless room, three machines seemed to tremble with effort. Each machine had two steel fists, roughly the size and shape of coffee cans. Held between these fists was a wafer of fiberglass and resin. Some of the machines pulled on a wafer, others pushed. Each pulse was a single cycle headed toward a final goal of destruction.

By Tracy Ellig, MSU News Service

Full Story: http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=3918