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Mechanical engineering seniors explained their senior projects and honors theses noon Monday in Gagnon Lecture Hall, Hugel Science Center room 100.
Sub sandwiches were provided at the event, which was sponsored by the student chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Last school year, it won third place among ASME student chapters in the Northeast region of the Ingersoll Rand activities competition and received the Ingersoll Rand Most Improved Award. Also, President Kelly Martin ’03 (Farmington, Conn.) won the ASME Student Leadership Award.
Three student groups are taking on new senior projects, including a human-powered vehicle. The concept is similar to last year’s one-person submarine, which received an honorable mention for innovation at the International Submarine Races hosted by the Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Carderock facility in Bethesda, Md. Another team is working on design of high-performance parts for a Honda racing car engine’s intake manifold. A third group is designing an experimental apparatus for testing the properties of stainless steel (of which Pennsylvania is the nation’s top producer).
Repeating projects are a Mini-Baja off-road racing vehicle and a model airplane.
Each project is being supervised by Leonard Van Gulick, Matthew Baird Professor of Mechanical Engineering, or Erol Ulucakli, associate professor of mechanical engineering.
Several seniors are taking on an honors thesis. Varsity tennis player Monica Serrano ’04 (Caracas, Venezuela) will use the new biomechanics laboratory, funded by a $213,610 National Science Foundation grant awarded this year, to conduct an analysis of a tennis swing. Advanced software will allow her to model the swing in great detail, including the motion of muscles and bones, says her adviser, Steve Nesbit, associate professor and head of mechanical engineering. Nesbit has conducted his own groundbreaking research for the United States Golf Association on the mechanics of a golf swing.
Other senior theses include a project involving the heat transfer properties of thin films and another using the new structural engineering laboratory, funded by another NSF grant awarded this year, to implement special video techniques in analysis of structural deformations and extensions.