Introduction

This brochure will introduce you to the research activities in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. Research programs are defined by people. We have excellent academic and research faculty as well as outstanding graduate and undergraduate students and support staff. In our ranks, there are three members of the National Academy of Engineering, more than 40 fellows in national professional societies, 55 National Science Foundation doctoral fellows, and numerous faculty who have received significant professional recognition. As a group, the faculty holds more than 195 patents and is responsible for more than $30 million a year in externally funded grants and contracts.

Our faculty are divided into self-selected research area groups, which are the bases for presentation in this brochure. In addition, our faculty participate in more than a dozen interdisciplinary centers on campus, many of which are led by Woodruff School faculty. The size of our research program allows us to provide challenging research experiences for our students in areas beyond the typical core of mechanical engineering programs.

Research in Mechanical Engineering

At its core, Mechanical Engineering is about thermal systems and mechanical systems, and the design, manufacture, and operation of these systems. Georgia Tech has a strong program in manufacturing. Mechanical Engineering's contribution to this activity is major, including design, controls, precision manufacturing, rapid prototyping, polymer processing, and electronic packaging. Environmentally conscious design and “green engineering” is also addressed.

Another important area is the behavior and utilization of structural materials, including the study of crack formation and fatigue life as they relate to the processing and micro-structure of engineering materials. Mechanical systems research includes controls, robotics, mechatronics, fluid power and motion control as well as the dynamics and kinematics of machinery. In the thermal systems field, the thermal management of electrical and electronic systems as well as building energy management studies are addressed. Other activities in thermal systems include fuel cell development, thermocapillary flows and flow instabilities, thermohydraulic performance in conventional and nuclear power plant applications as well as micro and nano applications in thermosystems.

In addition to these traditional mechanical engineering fields, the Woodruff School has strong, internationally recognized research activities in acoustics, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), bioengineering, and tribology. Acoustics research includes underwater acoustic-structure interaction, aero-acoustics and noise control as well as the impact of acoustics on biological systems. In the MEMS area, our faculty are concerned with the design and production of microsensors, and actuators for the mechanical, chemical, and biological fields. Our bioengineering faculty have activities that range from the mechanics of biomaterials and the mechanical behavior of biological cells, to tissue engineering and medical devices. The tribology group is well known for its studies of controllable seals and dampers, the dynamics of rotating machinery, the rheological behavior of lubricants under extreme conditions, and the diagnostic methods for health monitoring in machinery.

Research in Nuclear and Radiological Engineering and Medical Physics

The Woodruff School also includes nuclear and radiological engineering and medical physics programs. This area includes research in thermal hydraulics of nuclear power systems, criticality studies for handling nuclear materials including the storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuels, and research in medical physics that focuses on both the nuclear industry and the use of radioactive materials in the medical industry. In addition, within our nuclear engineering program, we have activity in the development of fusion power.

Interdisciplinary Research Interdisciplinary programs are strongly encouraged in the Woodruff School. The faculty is involved in interdisciplinary research programs with faculty from the Schools of Aerospace Engineering, Biology, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Industrial and Systems Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering. Our faculty are major participants in the Institute-wide Mechanics of Materials Research Center, the Manufacturing Research Center, the Center for Sustainable Technology, the Engineering Research Center for Low Cost Electronic Manufacturing, the Bioengineering and Biosciences Research Center, the joint Emory-Georgia Tech Biomedical Engineering Program, and the Georgia Tech Paper Science and Engineering Program.

The Woodruff School Education

We make every effort to integrate our research programs into our educational programs, for both undergraduate and graduate students. The research support obtained by our faculty is important in supporting students. The research experience of our faculty is brought to the classroom, giving students a sense of the excitement of mechanical engineering and the cutting edge nature of the discipline. We require a senior experimental design course where the students work in groups of four to six, which is directly coupled to many of our research laboratories. The objective of this course is to design, build, and conduct a mechanical engineering related project.

We are proud of our research programs and hope that through this brochure you will gain respect for our faculty and their capabilities. By their very nature, printed documents are not current. Our research program is continuously evolving. This brochure was prepared to highlight the individual faculty members in the Woodruff School. A more current accounting of our research programs can be found on our website at www.me.gatech.edu.

Should you have any questions about our programs, contact me or any of the faculty listed in this book. Please stop by, write to The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0405, or send an e-mail to information@me.gatech.edu.

Sincerely,
Ward O. Winer
Eugene C. Gwaltney, Jr. School Chair
2005, Atlanta, Georgia