PhD
Innovation in product design and manufacturing has become a major driver for industrial competitiveness and profitability in recent years. As enabling technologies become more easily accessible, engineers are faced with increasing demands for designing and producing more complex mechanical devices to serve the needs of the society. Next generation engineering products will be ‘smart’ with many functionalities; they will be made of new materials; they will increase energy efficiency and reduce environmental impact; they will vary in size from nano to mega scales; and they will be more closely integrated with information processing systems. Also as mechanical systems are becoming increasingly complex to analyse and expensive to experiment, more emphasis will have to be placed on computer aided analysis, design, verification and manufacturing. Our research program in mechanical engineering responds to these trends and focuses on basic research related to materials science and process engineering, product design, and information integrated manufacturing processes. In doing so applications to different physical processes are studied (e.g. energy systems, bioengineering, metal forming, polymer processing, discrete part manufacturing to name a few).

Degree Requirements
Students can apply to the Ph.D. programs with a B.S. or M.S. degree. The Ph.D. degree requires successful completion of 14 courses within 3 years and take the Qualifying Examination within 7th semester at latest beyond the B.S. degree and 7 courses within 2 years and take the Qualifying Examination within 5th semester at latest beyond the M.S. degree. In addition to the credit courses, students must complete the non-credit courses; MECH 590 Seminar, ENGL 500 Graduate Writing and TEAC 500 Teaching Experience.

Curriculum

Graduate curriculum consists of the following 3-credit courses:

• MECH 506 Introduction to Elasticity and Plasticity
• MECH 511 Theory of Vibration
• MECH 512 Advanced Dynamics
• MECH 525 Mechanics of Microsensors
• MECH 534 Computer Based Simulation and Modeling
• MECH 542 Mechatronics
• MECH 543 Computer Integrated Manufacturing and Automation
• MECH 444/544 Robotics
• MECH 547 Metal Forming
• MECH 562 Micro and Nanofabrication
• MECH 568 Mechanics and Materials Medicine
• CHBI 505 Polymer Engineering
• CMSE 501 Introduction to Computational Science
• MASE 538 Intermolecular and Surface Forces

Courses are selected by the students from the above list and from other courses not listed here in accordance with their areas of specialization and subject to the approval of their advisors. In addition, each student has to take a seminar course, MECH 590 Seminar. Students working towards the thesis register for MECH 595 M.S. Thesis, and students enrolled in non-thesis option register for MECH 591 Project.

Students who have TA assignments  must take TEAC 500: Teaching Experience during the semesters of their assignments.  Students must also take ENGL 500: Graduate Writing course.