Graduate Programs

Mechanical engineering is one of the largest, broadest, and oldest engineering disciplines.  Mechanical engineers use the principles of energy, materials, and mechanics to design, analyze, optimize and manufacture machines and devices of all types and scales.  They create the processes and systems that drive technology and industry.  Aerospace engineering is a highly specialized, yet widely diverse field.  Aerospace engineers develop innovations and technologies for use in aviation, defense systems, and space exploration.

Multi-disciplinary Approach

Flexibility exists within our curriculum for multi-disciplinary research and a significant number of courses can be taken outside of MAE. The curriculum is designed to accommodate non-traditional students with undergraduate degrees in other scientific or engineering fields.  It is expected that all applicants will have completed a calculus-based physics course and college mathematics through differential equations.

Research

Research in the solid mechanics area includes studies in: collision/injury mechanics, complex nonlinear simulation restraint optimization, morphing structures, polymer electromechanical devices (PEMs), mechanics of soft materials, neuromuscular biomechanics, movement disorders, musculoskeletal modeling and simulation. Research in dynamical systems and control covers a wide range of problems of practical interest including vibration control, rotor dynamics, magnetic bearings, mechatronics, fluid control, and the use of periodicity to enhance the achievable performance of controlled systems. Research in thermofluids includes topics from micro-scale and non-Fourier heat transfer, combustion (including supersonic), reduced-order chemical kinetics, thermoacoustics, aerogels, low-speed unsteady aerodynamic flows, atmospheric re-entry flows, supersonic mixing, flows in liquid centrifuges, flow in centrifugal pumps, turbomachinery flows, hydrodynamic stability, multi free-surface flows, non-Newtonian fluid mechanics, flow/structure interactions, and free and forced convection. More about MAE research.

Facilities

The department’s mechanical and aerospace research facilities include a rotating machinery and controls laboratory; several subsonic wind tunnel laboratories; a supersonic combustion laboratory; a supersonic wind tunnel laboratory; the center for applied biomechanics; the bio-inspired engineering and research lab, the aerospace research lab; a nano-scale mechanics and materials characterization laboratory; a bio thermofluids laboratory; a nano-scale energy transfer laboratory; a control systems laboratory; and an aerogel laboratory.  Several of these laboratories are unique among all universities in the world. More about MAE facilites.