Mechanical Engineering

The seas and oceans appear to offer opportunities for the long term, cost effective, generation of energy. Waves and tidal currents represent high density energy resources which, in the case of the tides, are highly predictable in form. The wave resource, whilst not predictable in a true sense, is more easily forecast than is the wind. The engineering difficulties associated with effective exploitation of the marine resources are considerable, however. This course guides students through the process of understanding the resources and how to best develop and apply techniques for exploitation.

This course examines the basic concepts and application of thermodynamics and heat transfer, required for the analysis, modeling and design of processes and thermal-fluid systems in engineering practice. Major topics include the introduction and the application of the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, reversible and irreversible processes, entropy, non-flow and flow processes, cycles involving entropy changes, power and refrigeration cycles, as well as convection & radiation heat transfer.

This course covers a range of issues and activity associated with mechanical engineering practice. These include legal issues and knowledge of real world activity through engineering applications, guest lectures, and study of engineering companies.

The six-week summer lab research program at National Taiwan University places students in various science, engineering and social science research labs and/or projects under the supervision of faculty. Students spend approximately 30 hours per week in lab activities.

This course consists of lectures on the overall system and practice using Siemens NX and ProEngineer, which are commercial programs. 2D drawing is practiced with AutoCAD, and 3D shape modeling is practiced using UGS NX and ProEngineer.

The tissues that make up the human body display extraordinary characteristics; self-assembly, self-healing, adaptive, and sometimes actuatable. This course looks into the source of these characteristics and then considers what materials we, as engineers, can use to replace them. Students focus attention on the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems of the body and the biomaterials that have been developed for use as substitutes. They consider how the body reacts to the presence of man-made biomaterials and the impact of the need for biomaterial sterilization. Not all replacement materials are man-made; students think about tissue engineering as a way to grow new tissue. Finally, the course introduces the legal processes surrounding regulation of biomaterial use and considers the ethics of growing new body parts.