Mechanical Engineering
Welcome to the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering & Computational Sciences. Our department provides a vigorous, broad experience for students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Our education and research programs span the breadth of mechanical engineering, ranging in size scale from the nanometer to the kilometer.
Our undergraduate program supports a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering degree and an ABET acredited degree, the Bachelor of Science in Engineering - Mechanical Specialty. Through either of these programs our undergraduate students are instilled with the technical tools, ethical foundation, vision and sense of inquiry that will allow them to be team players in the formulation and realization of society's most significant interdisciplinary advances. Graduates of the mechanical option have a wide range of opportunities, ranging from working on rocket fuel propulsion systems to design of advanced medical instrumentation devices.
The education we offer is intended to provide a strong foundation in engineering science and design accompanied by disciplinary focus in mechanical engineering topics such as mechanics, fluid and thermal systems, robotics, machine design, and computer-aided engineering. The course load is demanding, and students typically take 16-18 hours of class each semester. There is also a one-time, summer field session where students learn practical skills such as machining. The rigor of this education, though, allows students to build a solid foundation and then push it to cutting edge of mechanical engineering research and practice. The culmination of the undergraduate experience is a year-long capstone senior design project where interdisciplinary groups of students are engaged on project work for an external client.
The graduate program offers M.S. (both thesis and non-thesis) and Ph.D. degrees. Our department is organized into four research thrust areas:
· Biomechanics
· Robotics, Automation, and Design
· Solid Mechanics and Materials
· Thermal/Fluid Systems
Our research programs dictate that we have strong ties and collaboration with many departments on campus such as chemical and biological engineering, metallurgical and materials engineering, engineering physics, and applied mathematics.
