By Beth Miller
When sitting in her first course on vibrations, taught by Philip Bayly, PhD, Sandra Sowah, then an undergraduate student in mechanical engineering, thought to herself that she would probably never use the concepts and equations being taught.
Now a mechanical engineer in California, she spends every day applying those same equations to piping vibration analysis of nuclear power plant systems and components.
Sowah works for Structural Integrity Associates Inc., a specialty engineering consulting firm in the San Francisco Bay area. She’s a member of the firm’s Vibrations and Instrumentations Group and specializes in analyzing piping vibrations and fluid mechanics phenomena for components in both boiling water reactors and pressurized water reactors.
“I’m just like a plumber, but an important difference is that I analyze water in pipes that go to through nuclear reactors using state-of-the-art analysis,” Sowah says.
To do that, she recalls what Bayly, chair of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science (MEMS) and the Lilyan and E. Lisle Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and other Engineering faculty taught her.
“Most specialty engineering firms like Structural Integrity still use fundamental engineering knowledge gained from college in complex and high-tech applications for engineering components, so you have to be on your game,” she says. “I’m applying something from almost every class I took at Wash U.: I still solve textbook engineering problems and equations like when I was in college, but now I get to extend the knowledge to real-world applications and get paid for it.”
Sowah came to the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis as part of the 3/2 engineering program from Grinnell College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in physics. At WUSTL, she earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s in aerospace engineering in 2007. She joined Structural Integrity Associates that same year.
Sowah, a licensed Professional Engineer (P.E.) in California, says she is grateful to Washington University for helping her take the first steps toward earning a P.E. license.
“Wash U. equipped me with the additional analytical tools needed for my industry,” she says. “The Fundamentals of Engineering Review course helped prepare me for the first level of the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, so I was able to get my P.E. license in two years. The P.E. license is very important in my industry.”
She also noted a course in mechanics of deformable bodies focused on finding stress and strain of components, as well as a technical writing engineering course, as great preparation for her job.
“What we do at Structural Integrity is look at stress and fracture in pipes, valves, pressure vessels and other nuclear power plant components,” she says. “For me, I really think that a Wash U. education equips you with the required analytical background and is exactly the type of engineering training needed for my industry.”
Sowah has stayed involved with the university by interviewing prospective undergraduate students in the Bay Area through WUSTL APAP and attending alumni events. In addition, she recently joined the MEMS Executive Advisory Board.
When she’s not working, Sowah is active in her church and works with migrants from the West African country of Sierra Leone who now live in the Bay Area.
“My main focus is education as a math tutor through my church, but I also try to help them get integrated into the community here,” says Sowah, a native of Ghana in West Africa. “Although they live in America, they often have few interactions with the American community. If I can get just one or two fellow Africans to change their American experience and interactions, it’s a step in the right direction.”