Salt Lake City, Utah
June 23, 2018
June 23, 2018
July 27, 2018
Mechanics
13
10.18260/1-2--29639
https://peer.asee.org/29639
2102
Phillip Cornwell is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1989 and his present interests include structural dynamics, structural health monitoring, and undergraduate engineering education. Dr. Cornwell has received an SAE Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award in 1992, and the Dean’s Outstanding Teacher award at Rose-Hulman in 2000 and the Rose-Hulman Board of Trustee’s Outstanding Scholar Award in 2001. He was one of the developers of the Rose-Hulman Sophomore Engineering Curriculum, the Dynamics Concept Inventory, and he is a co-author of Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Dynamics, by Beer, Johnston, Cornwell, and Self.
Simon Jones is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 2010 and his present teaching and research interests include finite element analysis, vibration and wave propagation, and reduced-order numerical modeling.
Daniel Kawano is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, IN. He received his B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering, with a focus in dynamical systems, from the University of California, Berkeley. His interests include decoupling algorithms for second-order linear systems, rigid-body dynamics, and undergraduate engineering education. Dr. Kawano is the recipient of the 2016 Outstanding New Mechanics Educator Award from the Mechanics Division of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Students often view both analytical results and experimental results with supreme confidence without critically evaluating the assumptions behind them. In the Mechanical Vibrations course at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology lab experiences have been developed to help address this deficiency in students’ understanding of models, experiments, and their limitations. In the first lab, students are required to determine the first natural frequency of a cantilevered beam experimentally using several different approaches and then compare their findings to analytical results. The lab has a final project involving an experimental modal test and the creation of a finite element model of a structure of the students’ choosing. Students are required to propose explanations for the differences in the results from the test and the finite element model. Assessment results show that students have developed a much more sophisticated understanding of analysis and testing as a result of these experiences, and by the end of the course, they use appropriate technical terminology when discussing the differences between test and analytical results.
Cornwell, P., & Jones, S., & Kawano, D. T. (2018, June), If We Can’t Model a Cantilevered Beam, What Can We Model? Helping Students Understand Errors in Vibration Experiments and Analyses Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--29639
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