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The
Department has approximately 10,000 square feet of laboratory space for
the following laboratories: Robotics and Automation, Controls and Mechatronics,
Instrumentation and Data Acquisition, Manufacturing, Precision Measurement,
Thermo/Fluids, Design, Student Projects, Student Research, and four faculty research labs. The laboratories are used to
support undergraduate instruction, student research, student design projects,
and faculty research.
 The
Department has as part of its faculty a full-time Director of Mechanical
Engineering Laboratories. The Laboratory Director has overall responsibility
for the development and maintenance of Department laboratories as well
as teaching responsibilities in some laboratory sections. The Laboratory
Director is essential for maintaining high quality and functional laboratories.
This individual reports to the Mechanical Engineering Department Head.
The
Department is particularly proud of its design, manufacturing, and student
projects areas. Theses labs reflect the Department’s desire to
emphasize these topics in the curriculum. For example, there are several
design and build activities in the curriculum to teach engineering design
and design for manufacturability. The students now have dedicated areas
to design, manufacture, assemble, and test their projects. Of special
note is the acquisition of a state-of-the-art manufacturing center ($65,000)
that will greatly expand the breath of manufacturing education and engineering
design possibilities. |
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Mechanical
Engineering facilities
The Mechanical Engineering Department offers students
a wide variety of well-equipped laboratories. There are three kinds
of laboratories: teaching, design, and research; though all of them
are more or less used for mixed purposes as discussed below. A strong
point of this program is the opportunity for all students to have first-hand
experience using mechanical engineering equipment.
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Manufacturing Lab (room 133): This facility
introduces students to lathes, milling machines, injection modeling,
numerically controlled machining, and many other manufacturing
processes during the sophomore course ME 210 Manufacturing and
Design. The students apply this knowledge in the construction
of their projects for ME 497/8 Senior Design Project I/II. It
is a unique facility in that wide array of equipment is specifically
for student use; there is a separate machine shop designated
for use by the technicians.
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Senior Projects Lab (room 134): This room
serves as an assembly and work area for large senior projects,
such as the Formula SAE car. There are also two welding stations
located in this room. The adjoining room 134A provides additional
work area for smaller projects and storage space.
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Biomechanics Lab (room 236):
This lab serves the research needs of Dr. Steven Nesbit. The
room contains an eight-camera image system and software for
studying human motion that was partially funded by a 2003 grant
of $213,610 from the National Science Foundation. This system
gives the ability to comprehensively quantify the complex kinematics
and kinetics necessary to produce a motion.
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Mechanical Design Lab (room
135): This room contains 18 networked DELL workstations including
one for an instructor with screen projection. Design software
packages include CAD, CAM, and CAE such as Inventor, ADAMS,
AutoCAD, LabView and Virtual Gibbs. Analysis packages include
ANSYS, Fluent FlowLab, Engineering Equation Solver, Matlab,
MathCad and Mathematica. Supporting software includes word processors,
spreadsheets, and internet access. Located next to the Manufacturing
Lab, the integration of computer based design and analysis with
manufacturing is emphasized.
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Control Systems Lab (room 234):
This laboratory serves ME 479 Dynamics Systems, Controls, and
Mechatronics Laboratory. Six benches are each equipped with
a rotational servomechanicsm, computer, programmable logic controller,
digital storage oscilloscope, multimeter, power supply, pulse-width
modulated amplifier, function generator, and an electronics
work station on which both analog and digital circuits are built.
The system allows for the analysis and evaluation of control
algorithms.
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Instrumentation Lab (room 236):
This laboratory serves ME 331 Data Acquisition and Electrical
Systems. Six benches are each equipped with a computer containing
a data acquisition board controlled with LabVIEW software, a
digital storage oscilloscope, multimeter, power supply, frequency
counter/timer, and function generator. Further capabilities
of the laboratory include pressure and temperature calibration,
strain gage application, and fractional horsepower motor testing
with an eddy current dynamometer.
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Thermal/Fluids Lab (room 136):
This laboratory serves ME 475 Thermal/Fluid Laboratory. Major
equipment includes a subsonic wind tunnel, boundary layer wind
tunnel, refrigeration loop, steam turbine/generator, viscometer,
calorimeter, and hot film anemometer. Pressure, temperature,
and flow measurement equipment are also available.
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