Second U.S. patent awarded to YSU

By Denise Dick

denise_dick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

For the second time in less than a year, Youngstown State University has earned a federal patent.

The patent is a solar wind deflector designed to help prevent solar panels from being blown off of flat rooftops.

Ganesh Kudav, a mechanical engineering professor, and Yogendra Panta, a former YSU mechanical engineering assistant professor, earned the patent.

“This is an extraordinary opportunity for us to show what’s done here in our STEM college,” university President Jim Tressel said.

YSU’s first patent, awarded last September, was for a method developed by physics professor Tom Oder to improve the performance of semiconductor devices.

“It’s an honor to be awarded a U.S. patent for solar wind deflectors,” Kudav said at a Monday news conference.

He thanked Panta, the students who worked with him and members of the administration and gave special thanks to Northern States Metals.

“Without their program, this project would not have been possible,” Kudav said.

The Youngstown company asked YSU to try to devise a system to prevent solar panels from blowing off of flat rooftops.

Solar panels on flat roofs are subject to wind drag and uplift, blowing them out of place and off of the roofs, the professor aid.

Ballasts are used to hold them down, but that adds weight to the roof — sometimes exceeding what’s allowed in building codes.

Kudav’s deflectors eliminate the need for ballasts. Placed along a roof’s periphery, they deflect the wind.

He said the deflectors are effective in winds up to 110 miles per hour.

Gregg Sturrus, interim dean of the College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, said Kudav involved students in the invention, having them test his ideas to improve the performance of solar panels.

Tressel said that at YSU, undergraduate students are able to participate in research.

“They leave here with great confidence,” he said.