Mechanical Engineering

This course introduces students to the transformative and innovative field of advanced materials and nanomaterials, focusing on their applications in the electronics, energy, and healthcare sectors. Students are introduced to state-of-the-art material characterization techniques, such as advanced microscopy and profilometer, to analyze properties at the nanoscale. The course explores surface and particle nanoengineering, contrasting bottom-up and top-down fabrication methods, including cutting-edge advanced manufacturing techniques like 3D printing and precision machining. Highlighting successful nanotechnology applications, such as flexible electronics and energy storage devices, the module also introduces Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impacts of materials and manufacturing processes. Through the hands-on mini-projects, students apply knowledge to real-world challenges, gaining practical skills in sustainable material design and advanced manufacturing. This comprehensive course equips students with the expertise to innovate and address complex issues in materials science and manufacturing, sparking their curiosity and excitement for the field.

Turbomachinery is an essential technology for delivering the power and propulsion needed for society, particularly in rapidly developing economies. This course integrates the fundamental principles of fluid mechanics and thermodynamics in order to analyze compressible flows and high speed turbomachinery. The course instills students with an awareness of different power and propulsion applications and the importance of high efficiency energy conversion devices to minimize environmental impact, both in a national and global context. The course provides an understanding of the unique issues associated with transonic flows and basic tools to analyze these. That understanding underpins a detailed treatment of design calculations for high speed turbomachinery, including aerodynamic performance, instability, losses, and structural limitations on performance.  The course covers the most important types of turbomachines; centrifugal compressors, radial turbines, axial compressors, and axial turbines. Students also gain an appreciation of the manufacturer and user perspectives, such as costs, safety, durability, flexibility, and noise.  

In high value added manufacturing industry, engineers are required to understand how mechanical systems and materials behave at length scales at the micron level. This course develops the student’s skills and knowledge in both precision engineering and micro engineering. The course considers the selected topics in precision, micromanufacturing, ranging from enabling technologies, and processes to applications. This is research-lead, hence the content can vary on a year-to-year basis. Currently, most of the course focuses on LASER based manufacturing, LASER-Additive Manufacturing (3D printing) with metallic materials, and related automation.   

This course presents a practical and theoretical introduction to modern autonomous mobile robot systems. It gives students a broad introduction to the field spanning topics including hardware, software, AI and machine learning, and human-robot interaction and robot ethics. Students study the technology and methods underlying a robot’s ability to sense and act in its environment. Through a series of labs and assignments, students gain a proficiency in developing applications for robots in both simulation and real-world settings  The course has the following key components: an introduction to mobile robots – sensors, actuators, and control paradigms; the fundamental theory for autonomous mobile robots (kinematics, localization, mapping, and path planning); the scientific methods for evaluating robot performance; an introduction to the field of human-robot interaction; and robots-in-the-wild: case studies of real-world robots and their ethical implications.