The Power of Research
DU Professor Maciej Kumosa
Maciej Kumosa, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at DU, researched power-line insulators and succeeded in making them more reliable and durable. His findings have the potential to impact nearly everyone who uses a light switch.
Here's how Kumosa's research has helped his fellow human beings, his University and his students:
- Fewer lines breaking means fewer dangerous downed power lines and fewer power outages that disrupt millions of homes and businesses.
- His insulator research has been published in several of the journals of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. His research was also published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A in England. (It's the same organization that published Sir Isaac Newton's research on gravity and the first papers on DNA.)
- Throughout his groundbreaking research, Kumosa engaged graduate students to help. Those same students, after graduating with DU PhDs, went to work at NASA, the National Renewable Energy Lab, Exxon Mobil, Intel Corp., and the Oak Ridge and Los Alamos National Laboratories. Some of those students even became professors at other major U.S. universities.
What he researched
So what did Kumosa discover that made the world a safer place, bolstered DU's international reputation and launched the careers of his grad students?
He figured out many of the reasons why insulators on power lines fail. Kumosa learned that the insulators, which hold 10-ton power lines off the ground, needed to be made with much better materials. He also found the insulators needed to be constructed to be more flexible and withstand the weather better. He recommended they be made with better polymers and glass fibers so the insulators don't corrode from within. In short, it was a drastic rethinking of the insulator's design.
Old power line insulators were prone to failure. DU Professor Maciej Kumosa researched the insulators and recommended several design changes that improved the insulators' reliability and durability.
He was first approached by the Western Area Power Administration in 1992 after composite insulators on one of their 345-kilovolt power lines near Craig, Colo., failed 14 times in one year. In 1996, he also explained insulator failures on a 500-kilovolt power line for Pacific Gas & Electric.
Now, after taking on the high-voltage insulator problem, solving it and seeing his solution endorsed by the world's authorities on science and electrical engineering, Kumosa was selected for the John Evans Award—the highest honor a DU faculty member can receive.
During his time at DU, he also has helped design a new combustion chamber for the next-generation space shuttle as part of another research project for the Air Force and NASA.
What's next for the energetic professor? Nanotechnology. And if his past informs his future, he'll be changing that world, too.
Published on May 28, 2007