Sandra Metzler and Maura O’Neill on Sarah Oppenheimer: S-337473

Go behind the scenes (and science) of Sarah Oppenheimer’s Artist Residency Award project with her on-campus partners from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering: professor Sandra Metzler and graduate student Maura O’Neill.

There are many situations where the worlds of art and engineering overlap. This is particularly true in Sarah Oppenheimer’s work currently on view, S-337473, where engineering analyses were used to evaluate its dynamic, rotational installation. Metzler and O’Neill will discuss S-337473’s sophisticated structural features and their close collaboration with the artist—from their initial discussions about establishing a robust design for the work to the mechanisms they invented to counter any misalignment of its parts during assembly and use.

Sandra A. Metzler, D.Sc., P.E.
A faculty member in Ohio State’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Metzler’s teaching and research focus on mechanical and biomedical design, as well as intelligent systems. She also has an active consulting practice in the area of forensic engineering analysis and testifies in federal and state courts throughout the country.

Maura R. O’Neill, BS
Currently a second-year graduate student at Ohio State, O’Neill is working with Metzler on Oppenheimer’s S-337473 in pursuit of her Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. For this project, she’s employed finite element analysis software to evaluate the incremental static loads on the new work and developed a parametric system to maintain equilibrium in the assembled structure.