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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Mir M. Atiqullah

Effect of Defects on Mechanical Properties of Composites: Undergraduate Research on Materials Mir M. Atiqullah Department of Mechanical Engineering Technology Southern Polytechnic State University 1100 South Marietta Parkway, Marietta GA 30060 matiqull@spsu.eduAbstractUndergraduate research in engineering and technology is gaining popularity as an added opportunity oflearning and a gateway to advanced studies. Many students find undergraduate research as a tryout forpotential graduate studies, as well as a way to establish relationship with research faculty

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

2006 and 2007 guidelines called for no I-beams) and the wood measured4’ x 4’, instead of 3’x 3’. The reasoning behind the change in the amount of material was to forcestudents to be more creative. It was observed that students had extra material and were not optimizing itsuse. The 2006 results are the control group for the results presented here. This project was alsoemployed during the 2006 Engineering Summer Camp in order to have a different type of control group.High Schools students, with no formal course in Strength of Materials, were given basic information interms of moment of inertia, bending and mechanical properties. They had no restriction in terms of theshape and were given a 3’ x 3’. They had not been exposed to common type of

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Roy T.R. McGrann

2 4 2 2 4 2 3 ME 271. Engineering Mechanics 4 1 2 2 2 ME 311. Mechanics of Deformable Bodies 4 1 1 2 2 ME 302. Engineering Analysis 4 2 4 ME 331. Thermodynamics 4 1 2 1 1 2 2 2 1 ME 273. Science of Engineering Materials 4 2 4 2 ME 481. Computer-Aided Engineering 4 1 4 3 3 1 1 4 ME 303. Computational Methods 4

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

A.E. Schuster; J.A. Sanchez; C.W. Swan; J.L. Durant; D.M. Matson

at Tufts University. He has traveled to El Salvador several times with student teams. His research interests include fate and transport of contaminants in water, characterization or near-highway air pollution, and water treatment.Douglas Matson, Tufts University Dr. Matson is an Associate Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Tufts University. He has traveled to Ecuador and Tibet with student teams. His research interests are in manufacturing, materials science and selection of appropriate technology for sustainable engineering projects. 6

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Shih-Liang Wang

Free Body Diagrams of Gear Trains Shih-Liang (Sid) Wang Department of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering North Carolina A&T State University Greensboro, North Carolina 27411AbstractMany senior students in the author’s machine elements course have difficulties in drawing aFBD (Free Body Diagram) correctly, which is the first step in force and stress analysis of amechanical system. One of the challenges to those students is that even though the principles todraw a FBD are the same for every mechanical system (A FBD is a sketch of a mechanicalsystem cut free of its surroundings to shows all the

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Kanchan Sharma; Isaac G. Macwan; Linfeng Zhang; Lawrence Hmurcik; Xingguo Xiong

reason behind this increasing popularity is, the MEMSaccelerometers are much smaller, lighter, more reliable and are produced for a fraction of the cost of theconventional bulky accelerometers. Several new innovations in micromachining have been combined tomake a commercially available accelerometer for low g (gravity acceleration) applications. One of thesuccessful innovations is straight beam comb accelerometer. The straight beam is anchored at four points.While this sensor is stiff and robust, it is also sensitive to mechanical stress imparted to the die from thepackage and die amount. The recent innovation of Analog devices Inc. ADXL50 is folded beam combaccelerometer [4]. The folded beam structure is anchored only at two points. The wrap

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Wenzhang Luo; Fan Chen; Junling Hu

Tsinghua Universityand a MS in Civil Engineering from China Academy of Building Research. He has 8 yearswork experience in Civil Engineering field.Mr. Fan Chen is a professor of National Center for Quality Supervision and Test of BuildingEngineering, Beijing, China. He is the vice chairman of National Center for QualitySupervision and of Test of Building Engineering and the editor of Technical code for testingof building foundation piles.Dr. Hu is an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at University of Bridgeport. Shereceived her Ph.D from the University of Missouri-Rolla in 2005. Dr. Hu’s research areainclude computational fluid dynamics, heat transfer, welding, laser material processing, andthermal management of electronic devices and

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Cory Gionet; Ashraf Ghaly

An Unorthodox Dissection of Structures with Sophisticated Features By Cory Gionet, Student, gionetc@union.edu Mechanical Engineering Department, Union College, Schenectady, NY 12308 Advisor Ashraf Ghaly, Professor, ghalya@union.edu Engineering Division, Union College, Schenectady, NY 12308AbstractThe design of sophisticated structures involves careful consideration of many technical and non-technicalfactors that influence their functionality. Buildings and constructed facilities do not only have engineeringand architectural

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Qing Li

engineering schools, only less than half of the students entering colleges as engineeringmajors actually graduate with an engineering degree (Astin & Astin, 1992; Besterfielf-Scare, et. al., 1997;French, et. al., 2005). As the number of engineering graduates declines, recruiting and retaining employees withthe necessary engineering skills has become one of the most pressing challenges to many mechanical andelectrical engineering companies in America (KPMG Report, 2006). In order to attract, retain and train morequalified engineering graduates for the industry, there emerges an urgent call for the reform of engineeringeducation.As proposed by the National Academic Press report (NAP, 1995), the reform of engineering education demandsactions in

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Carol Siri Johnson

Association for Testing Materials was formedand began developing standards for steel quality. The setting of standards had been underway by variousagencies and professional groups but no single entity was devoted to the cause. The American Society ofCivil Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, government and large manufacturers hadbeen setting their own standards so when the American Section of the International Association forTesting Materials proposed a set of steel standards for everything from railroad track to building beamsand wheels to axles, the ASCE and the ASME immediately joined the dialogue and the resultant socialdiscourse community became a broad, ongoing exchange between manufacturers, users, and experts asthey

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Aaron S. Bradshaw; Gary N. McCloskey; Franklin Miguel

wealthier citizens reside adjacent to others living in extreme poverty. Many of thepoor neighborhoods originated from the occupation of land without permission (i.e. squatters). Theseland invaders or “Invasores” as they are called in the local community staked their claims by buildingsmall shacks on parcels of land. These dilapidated houses were built quite literally using any materialsthat the people could get their hands on. Over time these communities grew as the walls of one housebecame the walls of the next. One of these neighborhoods, called Luz Consuelo, is shown in the satellitephotograph in Figure 1. Notable is the poor condition of the houses as compared to the wealthiersurrounding neighborhoods. Figure 2 shows some of the materials that

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

NADIYE O. ERDIL; KOENRAAD E. GIESKES

involvement in academic and social activities beyond the classroom has been the topic ofmany studies.3,4,5 Zhao and Kuh show that participating in learning communities results in the outcomeslisted above.6 Edwards and McKelfresh, further, demonstrate the positive impact of linking theresidential life component.7The Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science at Binghamton University features a commonfreshman year for all engineering students. Mechanical, electrical, computer, industrial, and bio-engineering students are enrolled in the same freshman engineering courses. During the first semester oftheir freshman year, all engineering students take an introduction to engineering course (WTSN 111:Exploring Engineering I), a Technical Writing

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Richard B. Mindek

Development of a Programmable Logic Controller Experiential Learning Platform Richard B. Mindek, Jr. Western New England College, Springfield MassachusettsAbstractAn experiential learning platform was recently developed to expose graduate engineering students, aswell as undergraduate junior and senior mechanical engineering students, to the concept, components,operation, and application of programmable logic controllers (PLCs). The platform consists of aprogrammable logic controller, which can be programmed with a desktop PC, in order to control severalsimple output devices. The system allows students to write their own ladder logic programs, and

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Ha Van Vo; Stephanie Rossman; Zsaquez Flucker; R. Radharamanan

Comparison of Shear Stress Acting in the Sockets of Typical Mobile and Immobile Ankle Prostheses Using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) Ha Van Vo, Stephanie Rossman, Zsaquez Flucker and R. Radharamanan School of Engineering, Mercer University, Macon, GA 31207AbstractMajor problems with below the knee prosthetics today involve both cost and mechanics. Current designlacks an ankle complex which disrupts not only the natural biomechanics of ambulation but also sitting.Without the necessary frontal plane motion (inversion and eversion) along with sagittal plane motion(plantarflexion and dorsiflexion), the current manual immobile prostheses for below the knee amputeesthe lower limb is unable to adapt appropriately

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Ismail I. Orabi

Engineering. He haspublished over 25 technical articles in refereed journals and conference proceedings. His researchinterests include theoretical and computational investigation in the area of mechanical vibrations anddynamic systems and control. Professor Orabi has taught courses in both undergraduate and graduatelevel Mechanical Vibrations and Multimedia Engineering Analysis, and undergraduate levelthermodynamics, Measurement Systems, Engineering Mechanics and Introduction to Engineering. Oneof Professor Orabi's most recent projects involves the development of Learning Modules on the web.These modules provide information, not only about particular course material, but also about moregeneral topics relevant to engineering. He is also working on

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Vicki V. May

textbook for the course, I recommended the following twotextbooks: Advanced Mechanics of Materials by Boresi and Schmidt1 and AdvancedMechanics of Materials by Cook and Young3. I placed these two textbooks andseveral other textbooks on reserve at Feldberg Library (the engineering library atDartmouth). In addition, I worked with librarians to find appropriate digitalresources (owned by the library); I placed links to these resources on the Blackboardcourse website. Finally, I use a Tablet PC to annotate my lectures (developed inPowerPoint) and I post all of these annotated lecture notes in Blackboard for thestudents to access.ExamplesAs an example, the General Discussion section of the wiki for Unit 1: Unsymmetric Bendingis shown in Figure 1. This

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Yiming Rong

MQP in China: Extension of WPI Practice on Project based Engineering EducationYiming (Kevin) RongWorcester Polytechnic Institute, Mechanical EngineeringAbstract - With the development of global economy and the rapid shift of manufacturing to China, thedemand for engineers with the ability to work in unfamiliar cultural environments is critically importantfor both Chinese and US companies. In response to a world in which science and engineering areincreasingly global in scope, integrating international research experience into engineering education isessential. An exchange program of Senior Projects in Mechanical Engineering has been establishedbetween WPI and HUST. US and Chinese students work in mixed teams doing real world

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Adam J. Czekanski; David-Michael P. Roux

retention during testing. Testing and grading for the second semester occurred after the deadlinefor submission of this publication and, therefore, could not be captured to make this assessment. Thebenefit may be that conducting the review at the beginning of the following lesson creates an entirely 9separate event that reintroduces concepts already familiar to the students, as opposed to the reviewimmediately after class that essentially becomes part of the same event introducing the material for thefirst time. We intend to build a more organized feedback mechanism into the end-of-course critiques inorder to capture student evaluation of review techniques. This will give further insight into

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Ashraf Ghaly

The Challenge Of Preaching To No Choir: How Mindset Can Make Or Break A Course Ashraf Ghaly, Ph.D., P.E. Professor of Engineering, Union College, Schenectady, NY 12308ABSTRACTStudents taking a course required for their major know that the materials the course covers fallalmost entirely within their chosen area of interest. Generally, instructors like to teach suchcourses because their audience shares almost the same mindset. This gives a feeling thateveryone in the classroom is on the “same wavelength” because all speak the “same language”.Elective, interdisciplinary courses, on the other hand, are different. The interests

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Ashraf Ghaly; Megan Ferry

thedesign of dams include engineering design, safety, method of construction, materials used, flood control,environmental impact including greenhouse gas emission and health effects, hydropower generation,sedimentation and erosion problems, water salinity, fertility on farmland in the downstream, loss offarmland in the upstream, navigation in the waterway, economical factors, finance issues, construction ofnew communities for displaced people, and compliance with codes and regulations (7). The non-technicalaspects include history, culture, disturbance to people’s lives due to displacement and resettlement, effecton the social fabric in the area, quality of life in the basin of the river, recreation and tourist activities,effect on wild life and

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

be developed either by creating Java Applets orby writing code in Adobe Flash Action Script. A popular package of interactive web-basedsoftware has been developed to animate Statics and Mechanics of Materials problems1,2,3,4,5. Thesoftware, MecMovies, contains approximately 150 modules that can be accessed via theinternet6. In a recent study, it was found, “Slight to modest gains were seen in student learningand retention of material in some mechanics of materials topics, as evidenced by someimprovement in the quiz scores of the students who used MecMovies”7. Other interactive web-based software has been created to enhance learning in mechanical engineering classes8,9,10.None of the animations stated are directly linked to any homework

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Linda Ann Riley; Charles Thomas

materials for use in K-12classrooms, professional development for K-12 teachers, web-based resources, activities that take place atthe institution of higher education, activities in the K-12 school (such as design competitions or somemember from a higher institution partner– a student or instructor teaching in the K-12 classroom). Aswith other classification systems, there is room here for crossover, thus there are also “blended models”which would encompass one or more of these forms.Given the nature of the time scales involved (it might be as many as 10 years after the “outreach”experience occurs that the student makes a decision about what to study) it is somewhat difficult to assesswhether one form of “outreach” is more effective at attracting

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Imin Kao

Using Video Podcast to Enhance Students’ Learning Experience in Engineering Imin Kao Department of Mechanical Engineering State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook Stony Brook, NY 11794-2200 Corresponding author: imin.kao@sunysb.eduAbstractThe students and faculty today have available to them many technologies that did not exist adecade ago. Such technologies can be great tools for the delivery of course contents to enhancestudents’ learning experience. In this presentation, podcast is employed as an asynchronousonline tool in engineering courses to record lectures and supplementary materials

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

John Hartke; Robert Kewley; Greg Kilby; Greg Schwarz; Gunnar Tamm

isa neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) ceramic material. The advantage of theceramic is that it can operate at higher temperatures than the standard crystal form. The SSHCL is alsoscalable in that each slab of Nd:YAG provides about 10 kW of laser output power. This makes theSSHCL convenient to analyze because you need only analyze one slab and multiply by the number ofslabs. The first year of the project the cadet team consisted of students from physics, mechanicalengineering, systems engineering, and law. The second year’s team consisted of cadets from physics,mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and systems engineering. The team employed thesystems engineering decision process to address the problem. The

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

R. Radharamanan; Ha Van Vo

Effect of Conformity and Plastic Thickness on Contact Stresses in Metal Backed Plastic Implants”, Journal of Biomechanical Engineering, 107, 1985, p. 193-199.[21] Bartel, D. L., Bicknell V. L., and Wright T. M., “The Effect of Conformity, Thickness, and Material on Stresses in Ultra-High Molecular Weight Components for Total Joint Replacement”, Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, 68-A (7), 1986, p. 1041-1051.[22] Implants & Materials in Orthopedics, http://www.orthoteers.co.uk/Nrujpij33Lm/Orthbiomat.htm.BiographyR. Radharamanan: Dr. R. Radharamanan is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and IndustrialEngineering at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. He has thirty five years of teaching, research, and

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Marie-Pierre Huguet; Tom Haley; Sehnaz Baltaci-Goktalay

, and atomic quantummechanics. II. Nuclear structure, characteristics, and reactions: structures, forces, decay mechanics, reactionmechanics, and interaction probabilities at the nuclear level. III. Applications and implications of nuclearphenomena: radiation effects on materials and biological systems, radiation shielding, radioisotopeproduction, radiation detection, radiation sources, fission energy, and fusion energy.For many years, NPEA was successfully taught in the “traditional” classroom format, with the instructorlecturing his students in a large lecture hall, using technology that slowly changed with the times: the pieceof chalk and the blackboard were first replaced by the overhead, then PowerPoint.Blended learningAs technology is

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Beena Sukumaran; Joshua Bonzella; Kevin McGarvey; Heather Klein

, who are in thejunior and senior years of study in the mechanical and civil engineering program are investigating anddesigning an environmentally sustainable grain crusher that can be easily operated and built using locallyavailable materials. The other elements in developing the product are the business perspective and marketanalysis. Through the entrepreneurial program available at Rowan University, which is offered by thebusiness school, the engineering students were able to obtain the help of business students to determinelocal business potential and draw up a small business plan for a rural community in the developing worldwith very little access to resources.Design of the grain crusherThe process of design of the grain crusher is

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Peter Thomas Tkacik

Racing to Learn Engineering Dr. Peter Thomas Tkacik, Asst. Professor The University of North Carolina at CharlotteAbstractStudents are encouraged to drive a race car in order to learn more about the job of a MotorsportsEngineer. Mechanical Engineering students at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte can focus ona new Motorsports program which emphasizes skills in the area of the large and growing motorsportsindustry. In one particular course, Motorsports Instrumentation, the classroom extends to the engineshop, the race shop, and the race track.Students analyze the requirements of the instrumentation, install video and dozens of sensors on the

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Sarosh Patel; Manan Joshi; Lawrence Hmurcik

). The friction is not proportional to the contactarea of the two objects. N is equal to the force component of the first object (its weightcomponent plus other forces acting on it) acting inward and perpendicular to the second object. Insimple terms: a truck has more friction than a car when both slide on the same road surface. Thecoefficient of friction represents the material properties of the two surfaces that are in contact: forexample, an ice cube slides better on ice than rubber on concrete [3]. Friction is NOT dependenton the contact area between the two objects, at least not in the classical sense.Using the classical concept of friction, friction can be measured by placing blocks of wood on aboard. There may be different sheets of

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2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Roger Chapman Burk

author’sbackground in the subject. The author found that this approach did succeed in attracting a variety ofstudents who otherwise would learn little of engineering, and in engaging them in the subject and givingthem a basic quantitative understanding of some aspects of the subject. Of course, the approach was notwithout its difficulties, including the problem of integrating very diverse material. On the whole, theauthor found that the approach worked well and recommends it for further development.The rest of this paper is in five parts: (1) An account of how and why the course was developed and itseducational goals; (2) The design of the course, including the syllabus; (3) Observations on the types ofstudents who took the course; (4) The students