Why CU ME?
Highlights

Why CU Mechanical Engineering?

The Department of Mechanical Engineering is one of the six departments in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado. It consists of 23 faculty members. The Department provides a rich environment for Graduate and Undergraduate study supported by a wide variety of stimulating, well funded research projects. These include theoretical, computational and experimental projects in fluid mechanics, thermal engineering, solid mechanics, materials engineering, and design and manufacturing. The Department has an undergraduate enrollment of about 380, roughly 1/8 of the total undergraduate enrollment in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. The graduate enrollment is 80.  

Highlights

  • Host to three major interdisciplinary research centers:
  • Participant in two interdisciplinary research centers:
    • NSF Center for Membrane Applied Science and Technology
    • Colorado Center for Information Storage
  • In the last two years, CU-ME has been awarded over $6,100,000 in research grants on MEMS with annual research expenditures exceeding $2,000,000/year. This level of support assures our leadership in MEMS.
  • The Durning laboratory serves as the focus for upper-division laboratory and design-based activities.
  • One NSF (Presidential) Young Investigator
  • One faculty Bell Laboratories Fellow
  • One NSF CAREER Award
  • One NSF WEE '99 Scholar
  • Four editors of major engineering and scientific journals

What Are the Grand Challenges for
Mechanical Engineers in the 21st Century?

Have you ever wondered what kinds of companies will be the "movers and shakers" in the 21st Century? GM, Microsoft, Intel or Company X? Have you ever wondered what kinds of public services will be needed to guide these companies to benefit society? As mechanical engineers, will we create a Mechanical "Microsoft" twenty years from now? Will we apply technologies to improve health care and environmental quality? The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-ME) is well positioned to provide you with excellent training to create your and our future. We offer Teaching and Research Assistantships and Graduate Internships. You are invited to join us to define Mechanical Engineering in the 21st Century.

CU-ME hosts several multidisciplinary research centers. In particular, we would like to highlight a few new initiatives. Here is one example. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are micro-machines on a scale of 1 to 100 m m. Can you imagine the use of millions of micro-robots and sensors to operate a machine, control an engine, fix an optical image, fine tune a cell phone, sort DNAs, monitor air pollution, or explore space? How about the use of micro-robots to deliver drugs precisely and effectively to someone's heart seconds before its failure? In two years (1997 - present), CU-ME has been awarded over $4,300,000 in research grants on MEMS with annual research expenditures exceeding $1,400,000/year. This level of support assures our leadership in MEMS. See http://mems.colorado.edu for more details.

In addition to MEMS, another exciting initiative is in multidisciplinary research involving every mechanical engineering discipline. The Department is in the final stage of competing for an Engineering Research Center on High Temperature Systems and Materials from the National Science Foundation. This prestigious award would bring together faculty at CU, Cornell University and Harvard University to develop a revolutionary new systems approach for integrating fundamental materials science research into the design of critical systems. The test-bed systems will include gas turbines, fuel cells and low-emissions diesel engines. The 12-year effort (with over $24 million support proposed) would involve graduate and undergraduate students working in the areas of materials science, solid mechanics, thermal science, environmental engineering, design and manufacturing. There will be exchange opportunities for the participating students at Colorado, Cornell and Harvard.

A third example is a new joint initiative between CU-ME, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and the Intermountain Fire Sciences
Laboratory of the USDA Forest Service to study and model wildland fires. The goal of this research is to improve current capabilities to model atmosphere-fire coupling as might occur during intense burning in wildland fires. The United States spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year to control and extinguish wildland fires in the Western United States and Alaska alone. These fires result in human and animal casualties and in addition cause extensive damage to both private and public property. This new research activity funded by NSF(1999-2002) is expected to significantly improve the capability to model wildfires, thereby enabling fire behavior analysts to make better decisions on fire fighting strategies.

The success of our research enables us to deliver a rich curriculum to M.S. and Ph.D. students. At CU-ME you will receive excellent training to prepare you to be engineering/business/service leaders and contribute to society through technological, environmental and bio-medical innovations. In addition, you will enjoy personal growth in a beautiful community located at the foot of the Rockies.

Here is the list of our representative research areas, multidisciplinary research centers and the faculty members involved. Please go back to http://me-www.colorado.edu for more information.

  • Fluid Mechanics, Thermal Sciences and Environmental Engineering
    - Center for Combustion & Environmental Research (CCER)
    - Metal combustion in microgravity, wildfire modeling, split flame phenomena, (Professors Branch, Daily, Mahalingam, Milford, and Hertzberg)
    - Modeling, characterization, and control of indoor and outdoor air pollution, including photochemical smog, bioaerosols and aerosols, and combustion generated pollutants (Professors Miller and Milford)
    - Methods for reducing emissions from combustion sources (Professors Milford, Miller, Branch, Daily and Hertzberg)
    - Hydrodynamic stability and rotating flows (Professor Weidman)
    - Cardiopulmonary fluid dynamics (Professors Hertzberg and Mahalingam)
  • Solid Mechanics and Materials Science
    - NSF Center for Membrane Applied Science and Technology
    - Colorado Center for Information Storage
    - Wave Mechanics for seismic hazard assessment and mitigation and non-destructive evaluation of structural integrity (Professors Datta and Geers)
    - Mechanics of information storage devices (Professors Zable and Geers)
    - Micro-mechanics in multi-layer structures (Professors Dunn and Datta)
    - High-temperature materials and systems - gas turbines, fuel cells and diesel engines (Professors Raj, Dunn, Subbarayan and Gall)
    - Nano-technology (Professor Raj)
    - Shape memory alloys (Professor Gall)
    - Membrane and thin film applied science and technology (Professor Greenberg)
  • Design and Manufacturing
    - Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Packaging of Microwave, Optical and Digital Electronics
    - Center for MicroElectronic Devices in Cardiovascular Applications (no Web site available)
    - Application-specific MEMS packaged for optical, RF, data storage, and sensing applications (Professors Bright, Lee, Dunn, Mahajan, and Subbarayan)
    - Bio-medical devices using MEMS, prosthetics, and CAD for X-ray analysis (Professors Mahajan, Bright, Carlson, and Suh)
    - Packaging and interconnects: Integration technologies for reliable microsystems with microelectronics, optoelectronics, microwave and MEMS (Professors Subbarayan, Mahajan, Lee, Dunn and Bright)