Mechanical Engineering

This course explores the fundamentals of fluid motion and phenomena to understand how to calculate pressures and velocities in both static and flowing fluids, forces on submerged objects, and dimensionless numbers for the design of experiments.  

Required course prerequisites: Analysis, Linear Algebra, Mathematics, and Physics.

This course introduces the fundamental concepts from mechanical engineering that facilitates understanding and quantitative analysis of renewable energy systems. This includes concepts from the fields of structural mechanics, dynamics of mechanical systems, and fluid statics/dynamics. The course provides a grounding in key physical concepts and analytical methods to enable understanding of and quantitative analysis of renewable energy systems. Lecture material will cover: structural mechanics; Newtonian Dynamics; and fluid statics and dynamics. These are presented within the context of and applied to renewable energy systems

This course covers elasticity, structural analysis, energy and matrix methods, fatigue, vibration, airworthiness and aeroelasticity. It provides general information of aircraft structures and materials, and transfer of external aerodynamic loads into structural internal forces. The focus is to deliver the fundamental knowledge for stresses, deflection, and buckling analysis of these structural components under various static loading conditions including torsion, bending and shear. Lectures emphasize the fundamentals of structural mechanics and analytical approaches for analysis of aircraft structures. Students learn to derive the theory of linear elasticity and apply it to analyze the components subjected to typical aircraft loading conditions and design requirements. Tutorials provide a set of lessons and exercises teaching the concepts and methodology in analysis of aircraft structures. The students learn and understand the procedure of aircraft structural analysis from following tutorial problem solving exercises with group discussions.

This course gives knowledge of and familiarity with concepts and methods from the theory of dynamical systems which are important in applications within almost all subjects in science and technology. In addition, the course should develop the student's general ability to assimilate and communicate mathematical theory, to express problems from science and technology in mathematical terms and to solve problems using the theory of dynamical systems.

The course aims at in-depth studies within some area of materials technology. A practical or theoretical study in the area in which the student wishes to deepen their knowledge.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. As a result of this course, students will know and understand the fundamentals of the virtual prototyping through the systematic approach to a complete DMU (Digital Mockup) that from the design concept leads to the engineering of a vehicle (car or motorcycle). Students will learn to work independently and apply multidisciplinary knowledge to the virtual design and optimization of systems and components in vehicle engineering. The students learn the most advanced techniques of interaction between real and virtual prototype through the principles of human-machine interaction. Students develop the ability to work within a workgroup, planning and managing the activities needed to achieve technically valid project results.

This course provides the skills and knowledge for the development of an innovative concept for new motorcycles and/or scooters. To achieve these objectives, the program includes the following activities: Definition of project objectives through Market Analysis and Competitor Analysis; Definition of Technical Specifications; Setting up the Product Architecture; Morphological matrix for the selection of integrated innovative solutions; Setting up the layout of the new motorcycle/scooter; 3D construction of the Digital Mock-up of the new motorcycle/scooter; Introduction to Aesthetics-Oriented Design; Definition of the new motorcycle vehicle concepts; Virtual and physical prototyping of the concepts.

The following prerequisites are required to participate in the course: Advanced knowledge of 2D CAD software, advanced knowledge of 3D CAD software for solid modeling, and advanced knowledge of 3D CAD (CAS) software for surface modeling. Please note that during the course, no class hours are dedicated to teaching 2D or 3D modeling software, which, as stated above, must be considered prerequisites.

Production technology covers major part of manufacturing processes applied for creating form and shape of the product. The manufacturing processes covered in this course include: casting processes, such as sand casting, shell mold casting, die casting and investment casting; forming processes, such as hot and cold forging, rolling, extrusion, bending, deep drawing, wire drawing and spinning; shearing operations such as blanking and fine blanking; metal cutting methods such as turning, milling grinding, threading and drilling; non-traditional machining processes, such as chemical, electrochemical, erosive, laser and ultrasound machining; joining processes including metallurgy, weldability of the materials and different welding methods, such as fusion welding and solid state welding processes. 

This course introduces the characteristic of the materials of engineering and mechanical action of a material. The course emphasizes the need to understand of all kinds of the materials, the mechanical property of the engineering materials as well as to acquire the knowledge for selecting the required material for the particular engineering design. It is imperative to discover the characteristics of engineering materials and their mechanical actions so as understand how each material will perform in practice, not just in theory. Students attempt to determine the optimal mechanical action of materials. Text: William D. Callister and David G. Rethwisch, FUNDAMENTALS OF MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING. Assessment: exam, assignments, project and attendance.

A general form of the Navier-Stokes equation is derived with a focus on the physical interpretation of the mathematical model. This equation is used to derive simplified models for bi-dimensional incompressible flows, including potential flow and boundary layer flow. The fundamentals of turbulent flow, including basic turbulent statistics, are presented.

This course examines satellite systems, describing their main applications and providing a detailed introduction into the principles of orbital mechanics. It focuses on orbital mechanics, covering orbit description and analysis, perturbations, orbital manoeuvres, interplanetary transfers and launch systems.