With 33 faculty members and a dedicated staff, the Mechanical Engineering Department prides itself on serving our students and their families both in and out of the classroom.
Dr. Knight's research and interests are in the areas of advanced nuclear fuels and materials, Nuclear safeguards, Nuclear fuel cycle, Alternative uses of nuclear power including hydrogen, space nuclear power and propulsion.
Dr. Banerjee's expertise and research interest include Computational NDE/SHM, Material State Awareness, Smart Structure/Energy Harvesting, Mechatronics/Robotics, Biomimetic, and Metamaterials.
Dr. Bayoumi's research interest includes Smart Predictive Systems, CBM, Design, Advanced Manufacturing and Biomechanics.
Dr. Besmann's research interests are related to thermochemical experiment and modeling for nuclear fuel development and in-reactor behavior, and development of advanced nuclear waste forms.
Director, Center of Economic Excellence in Nuclear Science and Energy.
Dr. Chen’s research interests include synthesis and characterization of materials for energy conversion and storage, catalysis and electrocatalysis, composition, structure & property relationship, ionic and electronic conducting ceramics, solid oxide fuel cells, solid oxide electrolysis cells, and gas separation membranes.
Dr. Deng's research and interests include nanomechanics/atomistic simulation, fracture mechanics/crack-growth simulation, manufacturing process modeling/simulation (friction stir welding, metal cutting, GMA welding).
Dr. Downey's research focuses on enhancing the safety and serviceability of structures through structural health monitoring and control. Topics include the investigation of algorithms enabling condition assessment, characterization of sensors, and design and development of structural control systems.
Dr. Dryer's current research interests include: chemistry/chemical kinetics of fuels and hazardous waste materials as related to ignition, combustion, and emissions generation/abatement; petroleum-derived fuels, including gasoline, diesel, gas turbine, and heavy fuel oil combustion properties; non-petroleum-derived alternative fuels, their production, their chemical kinetic properties, and their ability to address U.S. energy security and reduction in net carbon cycle emissions as well as other pollutant concerns; fire safety related issues on earth and in micro gravity environments; solid phase/gas phase interactions as related to particle burning phenomena and nano-catalyst materials; emissions from internal combustion engines, including hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, aerosol
Dr. Farouk’s expertise is in the general area of Reacting Thermal Fluid Sciences involving plasma, combustion multiphase reacting flow, chemical-kinetics-turbulence interaction and energy systems. His research interests are in multi-scale, multi-physics computational model development for studying complex phenomena e.g. plasma discharge, micro-nano scale systems.
Dr. Giurgiutiu's research interests span active materials, smart structures, structural health monitoring, mechatronics, and other multi-physics applied mechanics topics. Dr. Giurgiutiu has published several books and book chapters and many journal articles and conference papers. He is Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) and of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He is Associate Editor of the Aeronautical Journal of RAeS.
Dr. Glenn’s technical research involved developing a novel approach to potentially reducing the potency of asthma triggers produced in indoor environments. In any environment, allergens are bound to dry dust particles. The effectiveness of using dry ice, essential oils with CO2 through CFD modeling and an ELISA assay was investigated. Dr. Glenn’s present passion is STEM education along with engineering education research.
Experienced engineer with a diverse background ranging from educational instruction and mentoring roles, extensive experience in research and development environments, entrepreneurial start-ups and community-based non-profit social work. Educational roles range from experience as a teaching assistant in graduate school chemical engineering laboratories, serving as a mentor and thesis committee member as an adjunct professor while working in the national laboratory system, and serving as a laboratory manager and instructor in the chemistry department at a state-supported liberal arts university.
With a background in solid mechanics, interests are centered on the mechanical properties of materials. Specific topics of interest include: Design, fabrication, and characterization of architected materials; especially those with nanoscale constituents, the use of full field experimental data for the calibration of material models, plasticity and fracture behaviors of materials.
Dr. Gürdal’s research interests are in structural and multidisciplinary design and optimization, design and optimization of composite materials and structures, and computational methods for design with manufacturing emphasis. His research has largely been funded by NASA Langley Research Center and Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) in the US, and EU Research Frame work programs in Europe.
Dr. Harik’s expertise and fundamental research interests is in Advanced and Smart Manufacturing. In Advanced Manufacturing, Dr. Harik is concentrated on Automated Fiber Placement and Additive Manufacturing. Topics like Automation of Process Planning, Optimization of Build Orientation and toolpath trajectories, Design for Manufacturing and Inspection constitutes the essence of his interest. In Smart Manufacturing, Dr. Harik is concentrated on Product Lifecycle Management, Digital Transformation of Manufacturing Industries, Internet of Things and Smart Production.
Dr. Hu's research interests include modeling and simulation of micro-/nano-scale thermal transport in novel energy systems, in particular low-dimensional materials and nanostructures, and energy nanotechnology, interfacial heat transfer for advanced thermal management, and multi-scale and multiphysics modeling of complex energy transport process.
Dr. Huang's research interests include solid oxide electrochemical cells, storage batteries, gas separation membranes, solid state defect chemistry and electrochemistry.
Dr. Huang's research interests include mechanics and durability of functional and structural composite materials, in particular, composite materials in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, solid oxide fuel cells, structural composites, and coatings.
Dr. Khan's research interest include modeling of manufacturing processes, temperature distribution during machining, heat transfer and fluid flow with phase change (solidification/melting in casting, welding), computational and experimental fluid dynamics related to contaminants transport in rooms, heat transfer in porous media, micro-channel heat transfer, thermodynamic analysis of IC Engines, CFD analysis of combustion processes etc.
Dr. Kidane's research interest includes Fracture, shock & Impact Mechanics, Multifunctional material.
Dr. Lee's research interests lie at the intersection of synthesizing functional oxide materials by atomic control, understanding energy conversion and storage mechanisms as well as the physicochemical properties of materials, and applying a fundamental understanding to design advanced energy conversion and storage devices including solid oxide fuel cells, solid-state batteries, solar thermoelectric generators, and solar to fuel energy conversion devices.
Dr. Li's research interest are micro/nano-scale two-phase heat and flow physics, prediction, control and modeling. Aim at basic research in developing and verifying theories for two-phase transport behaviors and the application of these theories towards controlling two-phase heat and flows at micro/nano-scale.
Dr. Lyons' research and interests include engineering education, composites and reinforced plastics, design and manufacturing of renewable materials.
Dr. McNeill's research and interests include computer vision, digital image correlation, microprocessors, experimental mechanics and reverse engineering.
Dr. Mostafa Mobli is Interested in numerical solutions to problems involving reactive flows and heat transfer.
Dr. Riahi-Nezhad’s broad areas of specialization are based on innovative combinations of fluid mechanics, separation science, and heterogeneous catalysis.
Dr. Reynolds' research and interests include friction stir welding, fatigue and fracture, experimental micro-mechanics, quantitative fractographic analysis.
Dr. Rocheleau’s group has interest in machine design and machine component design. His group has done work in optimizing the design of epicyclic gear trains to ensure long life and reduced noise. Work has also been done in helping small to medium size companies in a wide area of product design issues.
Dr. Sabalowsky’s expertise is in project based design and computational method. His research involves Environmental Engineering
The research in Dr. Shazly’s lab is focused on defining and characterizing relevant tissue properties for clinical applications and rationally designing polymeric biomaterials that leverage local biology to enhance therapeutic gain. His specific interests include physiological mechanical testing of soft matter, mechanical modeling, multiphysics-based computational modeling, tissue-material adhesion and tissue scaffold engineering.
Dr. Sockalingam’s research interests include development of advanced composite materials that are light weight and stronger through a multiscale experimental and computational approach for aerospace, automotive and defense applications. His expertise are in multiscale finite element modeling and analysis, material characterization, constitutive model development, ballistic impact, design and development of body and vehicle armor, automotive crashworthiness and engineering consulting.
Dr. Sutton's research and interests include coherent and incoherent optics applications, experimental mechanics, digital image processing, Computer Vision, applications of integral methods and experimental mechanics, boundary valve problems, plastic fracture mechanics, finite elements modeling of cracked bodies.
Dr. Van Tooren's research interest include Design Automation, Knowledge Based Engineering, Alternative aircraft concepts, Composite aircraft fuselages, Aircraft Certification, Systems Engineering and Road vehicle aerodynamics.
Dr. Vitzilaios’ research interests are in the broad area of Autonomous Unmanned Systems and include Robotics, Intelligent Systems, Mechatronics, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), perception and autonomous navigation of mobile robots, operational autonomy, field robotics, robot teams, automation, control systems, and machine learning.
Dr. Wang's research and interests include micro/nanofluidics, lab-on-a-chip, far field optical nanoscopy, super-resolution imaging, cancer detection, fluorescence spectroscopy, tissue engineering, fluid dynamics, turbulence and mixing.
Dr. Wang’s research interests include Computational and data-enabled science and engineering (CDS&E) and its applications in multiphysics and multiscale systems engineering, including aerospace, microfluidics/nanofluidics, thermal and energy management, additive manufacturing, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), among others.
Dr. Won's interest are experimental and numerical energy conversion physics, including experimental characterization of chemical kinetic behaviors for conventional and alternative fuels, development of predictive chemical kinetic models for real fuel combustion, plasma-assisted combustion, fundamental combustion physics, and quantitative laser diagnostic techniques.
Dr. Xue’s research interests include Solid Oxide Fuel Cells, Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cells, Gas Separation Membranes, Materials for Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage, Reliability and Durability of Functional and Structural Materials, Transport Phenomena and Electrochemical Kinetics.
Dr. Yuan’s research focuses on microstructure and defect formation during alloy solidification for Additive Manufacturing, casting and remelting technologies. His research interests also include Integrated Computational Materials Engineering, discrete element modeling, process development and optimization for additive, nucleation, X-Ray imaging and diffraction of solidification phenomena and data sciences.
Dr. Lingyu Yu’s research interests include structural health monitoring (SHM) and nondestructive evaluation (NDE) using ultrasonic guided waves supported by active sensor technology, theoretical modeling, advanced signal processing and data analysis; damage diagnosis in complicated structures; scanning laser vibrometry for guided wave propagation; and mechatronics.
Dr. Zhou's research focuses on understand the fundamental strengthening, deformation and failure mechanisms of advanced structural materials, by integrating both experimental and computational approaches, and provide a scientific basis for design and processing advanced materials with superior properties.
Dr. Ziehl oversees an active research program in aerospace composite materials, structural prognostics, and real-time in flight evaluation systems.
Dr. Chao's research and interests include theoretical and experimental studies on failure, fracture and fatigue of materials and structures, welding modeling for residual stress and distortion, impact mechanics for material characterization and failure criterion, biomechanics and nanomechanics, and the durability of PEM fuel cell systems.
Dr. Morehouse and his students have investigated a broad range of thermodynamic heat engine applications, ranging from space-based fuel cell power systems to ground-coupled heat pumps to phase change storage systems.
Dr. Peters' research and interests include Complex Systems Study and Design.
Dr. Ranson's research and interests include scale invariant computer vision applications to the measurement of mechanical systems, mathematical modeling of mechanical systems measurements to the systems life predictions application of technology to learning systems.
Dr. Reifsnider's research and interests include durability, damage tolerance and strength-life relationships in material systems; performance of life prognosis, aging, material state changes, long term behavior; fuel cell science and engineering.
Adjunct Professor
Dr. Carrilho’s research and interests include product design and analysis, modeling of manufacturing processes, nuclear fuel material, structural and thermo hydraulic performance, experimental and finite element analysis of structures and components, experimental and finite element/volume analysis of fluid flow and heat transfer.
Prof. Cheng's main research fields are nuclear thermal-hydraulics and nuclear safety.
Prof. Loiselle's research and interests include nuclear engineering, environmental remediation, emphasis on waste management and disposal of EPA pond closures and metal recycle manufacturing.
Dr. McCants research interests include nanofluids heat transfer mechanics, electronics thermal management, experimental and computational fluid dynamics with heat transfer.
Adjunct Professor
Dr. Robert's research and interests include materials performance in nuclear reactors, product design, manufacturing and concurrent engineering.
Adjunct Professor
Dr. Paul’s research interest includes Energy storage liquid for solar technologies, Heat transfer with phase change, Numerical methods in conjugate heat and mass transfer problem,Thermal management of microelectronics, and Heat transfer and moisture migration problems in building environment.
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