DETROIT-On Feb.19, two Wayne State University faculty will visit the Pentagon to receive an international award from Alan R. Shaffer, Principal Deputy Director of Defense Research and Engineering for the Department of Defense.

Dr. Lawrence Favro and Dr. Xiaoyan Han

The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP), a long-standing international organization concerned with collaboration on defense science and technology matters, including national security and defense, will honor 53 scientists and engineers including Lawrence "Skip" Favro, professor emeritus of physics in the WSU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Xiaoyan Han, professor of electrical and computer engineering in the WSU College of Engineering. Favro and Han are the only university professors to be honored by TTCP.

Favro and Han are being honored for their sonic thermography technology used for inspecting large areas and complex shapes in a short amount of time to reveal fatigue cracks. This technology can find and quantify defects in metals and composite materials, and is also used for process control applications in automotive and aerospace industries.

"We are pleased and honored to have two of our faculty receive this prestigious award," said Hilary Ratner, vice president for research at WSU. "Drs. Favro and Han have made significant advances in sonic thermography that can detect closed hairline cracks in an economically and environmentally friendly way. The technique is useful in aircraft inspections, and new analytical tools and techniques that they are developing show great promise."

Member countries of the TTCP include Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. TTCP acquaints and supplements participating nations with each other's defense research and development (R&D) programs so that each may be adjusted and planned in cognizance of the efforts of the other nations. This ultimately provides them shared knowledge, resources and the best technical information available to advise their governments and military forces on all matters related to defense R&D.

Wayne State University is one of the nation's pre-eminent public research universities in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit http://www.research.wayne.edu.