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MECHANICAL
ENGINEERING:
Future
Forward
by Erik
Antonsson
Spring
2002
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Mechanical
engineering is the branch of engineering that is generally concerned
with understanding forces and motion and their application to
solving problems of interest to society. The field traditionally
includes aspects of thermodynamics, fluid and solid mechanics,
mechanisms, materials, and energy conversion and transfer, and
involves the application of physics, mathematics, chemistry and,
increasingly, biology and computer science. Importantly, the field
also emphasizes the process of formulation, design, optimization,
manufacture, and control of new systems and devices.
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Image
of an intersonic shear crack moving at a speed higher than
the speed of shear waves and creating a shear sonic boom.
From the research of Ares J. Rosakis, Professor of Aeronautics
and Mechanical Engineering.
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For
most of the 20th century, mechanical engineering meant fluid and
solid mechanics, thermodynamics and design. However, technical
developments in the last decade have established the importance
of interdisciplinary engineering and science, presaging the emergence
of new technical disciplines within mechanical engineering. These
new areas build on an understanding of the fundamental behavior
of physical systems; moreover, the focus of this work is at the
interface between traditional disciplines. Examples of the new
disciplines include several overlapping mechanical engineering
areas: micro/nano electro-mechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS); simulation
and synthesis; integrated complex, distributed systems; and biological
engineering. These new disciplines represent the crucial directions
for Mechanical Engineering (ME) at Caltech.
Micro/nano
systems have enormous promise to introduce sensing, actuation,
controls, and computation into a wide range of situations. Everything
from control of flow and combustion in gas turbines, local climate
control in buildings, to advanced surveillance systems is being
contemplated. The road to realization of this promise will be
long and challenging and requires the application of all of the
traditional mechanical engineering disciplines to this new field.
Many research efforts are underway at Caltech, from developing
novel micro-thrusters and sensors for micro-spacecraft, developing
novel active materials for micro-actuators, to constructing advanced
modeling methodologies that bridge the length-scales from atomistic
to continuum.
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The
digital propulsion "rocket chip" was developed
at Caltech in collaboration with TRW and the Aerospace Corporation
as enabling technology for micro-spacecraft. The micro-thruster
array consists of a three-layer sandwich of silicon and
glass, and is shown here mounted in a standard 24-pin ceramic
dual-inline electronics package. This prototype contains
15 individual thrusters in the central 3 by 5 array. The
visible bond wires are connected to resistors in each thruster
that initiate combustion of the lead styphnate fuel. Each
thruster cell produces 0.1 milli-newton-seconds of impulse,
and about 100 watts of mechanical power. A successful suborbital
test flight of these MEMS devices has been conducted.
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Simulation
and synthesis of novel engineering designs is an exciting area
of research at Caltech. In the early 1960s, engineering design
methodology underwent a renaissance. Methods began to be developed
to guide engineers through a process to produce high-quality designs.
In the mid-1980s, these methods began to evolve from their informal
(guideline-like) origins to more formal, i.e., computable, methods.
Recently, the foundations of methods to automatically synthesize
new designs have begun to be developed. Synthesis is a difficult
task; the creation of new designs is often thought of as a fundamentally
human act. Emerging research has demonstrated that aspects of
synthesis can be formalized and the foundations now exist to actively
pursue highly automated synthesis techniques.
Integrated,
complex distributed systems are all around us. Almost no engineered
devices exist and operate in isolation. Automobiles and aircraft
are part of a larger transportation system; manufacturing equipment
is part of a larger production system; medical sensors are part
of a larger health-care system. The modeling, simulation, and
design of engineered devices must be done in the context of the
increasingly highly interconnected distributed systems of which
they are a part.
The
recent explosion in the field of biology makes clear the urgent
need for the development of the discipline of biological engineering
to leverage the scientific advances for the benefit of society.
Accordingly, Caltech's Bioengineering Option has strong participation
from Mechanical Engineering. Our view is
that just as chemical engineering has built on the scientific
advances in chemistry to develop useful products and systems,
bioengineering will build on the advances in molecular and neural
biology. These new directions will take us far into the future—and
the ME faculty are poised to help lead the way.
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Microscopic
patterns of the ferroelectric material barium titanate.
This photograph was taken by Eric Burcsu, a Caltech graduate
student jointly supervised by K. Bhattacharya, Professor
of Applied Mechanics and Mechanical Engineering, and G.
Ravichandran, Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering.
This material and related ferroelectric materials have an
interesting property known as electrostriction: they change
shape when an electric voltage is applied to them. Therefore,
they are used as actuators that drive various micro-devices.
Bhattacharya and colleagues predicted and demonstrated a
new mode of electrostriction based on manipulating these
patterns; the resulting electrostriction is at least 10
times larger that what was previously known.
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In
recognition of increasing student interest, the faculty has instituted
an undergraduate
option in Mechanical Engineering to begin in the 2002/03
academic year. The aim is to prepare students for research and
professional practice in this era of rapidly advancing interdisciplinary
technology. The program builds on the core curriculum to combine
individual depth of experience and competence in a particular
chosen mechanical engineering specialty, with a strong background
in the basic and engineering sciences. It maintains a balance
between lectures, laboratory, and design experience, and will
emphasize the problem-formulation and solving skills that are
essential to any engineering discipline. The program will also
strive to develop in students self-reliance, creativity, leadership,
professional ethics, and the capacity for continuing professional
and intellectual growth.
Mechanical
engineers are found in a wide range of application areas including
automotive, aerospace, materials processing and development; power
production, consumer products, robotics and automation; semiconductor
processing; and instrumentation. Mechanical Engineering can be
the starting point for careers in bioengineering, environmental
engineering, finance, and business management.
The
year 2002 marks the 95th anniversary of the establishment of Mechanical
Engineering at Caltech and 2007 will mark the Centennial of the
Mechanical Engineering program at Caltech. We are now initiating
plans for this important event. Historical vignettes, photographs,
and publications will be enthusiastically welcomed to help illuminate
the distinguished history and contributions of the program. ENG
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A
dynamic thin-film deposition. Use of time-varying process
conditions may enable deposition of films with novel properties
or lead to lower-cost processes. From research on engineering
microstructural complexity in ferroelectric devices by David
G. Goodwin, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied
Physics.
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Erik
K. Antonsson, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, is the Executive
Officer of the ME Option. His research interests include formal
methods for engineering design, formal design synthesis, representing
and manipulating imprecision in preliminary engineering design,
rapid assessment of early designs (RAED), structured design synthesis
of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), and digital micropropulsion
microthrusters. His research work is supported by the NSF, DARPA,
and industry. He has published over 100 scholarly papers in the
engineering design research literature and holds four U.S. Patents.
He is a Fellow of the American Association of Mechanical Engineers
(ASME), a co-winner of the 2001 TRW Distinguished Patent Award,
the recipient of the 1995 Feynman Prize and a 1986 NSF Presidential
Young Investigator Award. He served as an editor for the ASME Journal
of Mechanical Design and is currently on the editorial board of
two international journals: Fuzzy Sets and Systems and Research
in Engineering Design.
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