What's New?

New Aerospace Engineering Certificate

A new certificate program in aerospace engineering, offered by the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Sciences, is designed to provide undergraduate students with an understanding of fundamental principles of fluid mechanics and aerodynamics, dynamics and control, structures and materials, thermodynamics and propulsion, plus specific courses that address specific aerospace technologies for flight and space vehicles.

All engineering undergraduates are eligible to participate in the program and qualify for certification. Aerospace engineering is the discipline concerned with the conceptualization, design, analysis and performance of aerospace systems for commercial, military, and recreational applications. Seven courses are needed for the Aerospace Certificate, including five core courses and two electives.

New Fluid Mechanics Laboratory

Associate professor Zbigniew Kabala has upgraded the fluid mechanics lab to include a multi-purpose teaching flume, a series/parallel pump, cavitation demonstration capabilities and a pitot tube and manometer board that augments an existing Armfield Water Hydraulic bench. The new experimental capabilities of the system directly impact such courses as CE122L Fluid Mechanics, ME122L Fluid Mechanics, BME207 Transport Phenomena in Biological Systems and additional upper division mechanical engineering courses. The addition of the pump capabilities extends existing virtual fluid mechanical laboratory exercises that expose students to FlowLab and the CFD software Fluent.

New Course – EGR 119L – Mechatronics

The Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science has launched a new sophomore-level course designed to introduce non-electrical engineering majors to the basics of electrical circuit design, mechanical actuation and systems controls. Through extensive hands-on experimentation, students will learn to analyze and design straightforward circuit systems; understand transducers, signal processing and conversion; and to mathematically model electrical and mechanical systems. The course, designed by Assistant Professor of the Practice Michael Gustafson, will help students understand the basics of control systems and prepare them for upper division mechanical engineering courses.

New Teaching Lab Upgrades

The Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science department used undergraduate laboratory innovation and improvement funds to create a new student design suite and to upfit several teaching labs. The design suite includes work space for student teams, computers loaded with SolidWorks design software and Cosmos finite element analysis software, color printers and secure equipment storage for each team.

A new education-scale vapor power system for thermodynamics courses is enabling students to observe and contrast actual behavior in experiments in the Rankine Cycle power plant with theories learned in class. A rapid prototyping machine is providing even freshmen with the ability to design and create complex structures (such as Happy Meal Toys). And new fluid mechanics laboratory equipment is now shared with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.