How Was Thomas Mensah Childhood?

Answer 1

Dr. Mensah spent his formative years in Ghana and attended Adisadel College, an elite boys school in Cape Coast. Such elite schools in Ghana were very competitive and served as the training ground for future leaders in Engineering, Science, and Medicine. As one of the five sons of Mr. J. K. Mensah, a business man who bought and shipped cocoa to chocolate factories in France, Tom, at an early age, exhibited intelligence far beyond his age. His dad read newspapers to him while he sat on his lap and by age four he was reading newspapers in English. Tom's neighbor spoke French, and at the age of eight Tom was speaking French with European executives who visited his father for business meetings. He went onto win the National Competition in French two times and came to the attention the French government. Tom excelled in math and science and was awarded a scholarship to study chemical engineering at the University of Science and Technology Kumasi Ghana.

Some teachers who influenced Tom throughout his studies include Professor Francis Allottey, who taught Mathematics and Software Engineering and was the first black person to receive a Ph.D. in Physics at Princeton University; and Dr. Francis Aquah, Professor of Chemical Engineering, who taught transport phenomena and unit operations in the department.

After graduating at the top of his class with honors, Tom went on to win a French Government Fellowship to do graduate studies in Chemical Engineering at the University of Science and Technology (USTL) in Montpellier, France.

Tom's mentors and thesis advisors include Dr. Henri Gibert from Ecole National Superieur de Genie chimique (Leading Chemical Engineering School in France) at Toulouse. Tom received his Ph.D. in 1978.

Dr. Mensah also received a certificate in Modeling and Simulation of Chemical Processes at MIT in 1977, under Professor Larry Evans, 2007 President of AIChE. Dr. Mensah recruited additional mentors with his connections at MIT including Dr. Ken Smith, Provost at MIT, and Dr. Brian Thibault, MIT graduate and VP at Air Products and Chemicals.

After finishing his graduate work in France, Dr. Mensah joined the Chemicals Group at Air Products and Chemicals, as a Research Engineer, in the Polyvinyl Alcohol Process Improvement Division. In the lab, he developed simulations for the mixing process, where a highly viscous polymer, PVAC, was injected with a catalyst with viscosity around 1 centipoise. Mixing takes place in a thin film reactor which he simulated using the moving blade concept. The reacting mixture flows on to a moving belt where it cures into a white slab of Polyvinyl Alcohol. The slab is subsequently cut into pellets before drying. Poor mixing produces sections of uncured polyvinyl acetate and catalyst disrupting the cutting process leading to plant shut downs. After visiting the plant in Paducah, Kentucky, Dr. Mensah set out to duplicate the mixing process in the lab.

In his second year at Air Products he entered his findings in the annual competitive worldwide research forum and won a spot in this prestigious program. His presentation, judged by company-wide executives, won the second place award. In his lab simulations, he had developed an innovative approach by capturing on video the high speed mixing process using transparent wall mixers. He injected blue dyes in the polymer to simulate the catalyst during the reaction. Dr. Mensah detected that mixing was achieved through primarily Strauss secondary flows developed at the leading edge of the mixer blades. The center of the vortices in the secondary flows could trap poorly mixed reactants which were subsequently pushed on to the moving belt, leading to inconsistencies in the PVOH slab as well as plant problems and stoppages downstream.

Dr. Mensah solved this major industrial problem at the Polyvinyl Alcohol manufacturing plant at Paducah, Kentucky by changing blade configuration and notch depth, leading to a total redesign of the high speed thin film industrial mixers. He increased notch depth in the blades to enhance the mixing process. These changes led to increased plant efficiencies with no further process stoppages. The findings were published in the Chemical Engineering Communication Journal in 1985.

In the early eighties, Corning Glass Works was seeking an engineer to help increase manufacturing rates of their fiber optics plant. Dr. Mensah was hired to investigate this problem at their prestigious Sullivan Park Research Center in Corning, New York, where fiber optics was invented.

Dr. Mensah made history when he developed a system that increased manufacturing speeds from 2 meters a second to 20 meters a second, receiving an important patent that placed Corning Glass Works and the US in a leading role in fiber optics manufacturing. He received the Corning Glass Works Individual Outstanding Contributor Award for his innovations in fiber optics manufacturing process, including a $10,000 cash prize. A series of patents followed before he moved to AT&T Bell Laboratories where he continued his cutting edge research, this time, on the use of fiber optics to guide smart missiles, FOG-M. He received three additional patents on this technology.