Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and maintain mechanical systems. It is one of the oldest and broadest of the engineering branches.
In physics and materials science, elasticity is the ability of a body to resist a distorting influence and to return to its original size and shape when that influence or force is removed. Solid objects will deform when adequate loads are applied to them; if the material is elastic, the object will return to its initial shape and size after removal. This is in contrast to plasticity, in which the object fails to do so and instead remains in its deformed state.
Solid mechanics is the branch of continuum mechanics that studies the behavior of solid materials, especially their motion and deformation under the action of forces, temperature changes, phase changes, and other external or internal agents.
Bernard Budiansky was an American scholar in the field of applied mechanics, and made seminal contributions to the mechanics of structures and mechanics of materials. He was a recipient of the Timoshenko Medal.
Applied mechanics is the branch of science concerned with the motion of any substance that can be experienced or perceived by humans without the help of instruments. In short, when mechanics concepts surpass being theoretical and are applied and executed, general mechanics becomes applied mechanics. It is this stark difference that makes applied mechanics an essential understanding for practical everyday life. It has numerous applications in a wide variety of fields and disciplines, including but not limited to structural engineering, astronomy, oceanography, meteorology, hydraulics, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, nanotechnology, structural design, earthquake engineering, fluid dynamics, planetary sciences, and other life sciences. Connecting research between numerous disciplines, applied mechanics plays an important role in both science and engineering.
Micromechanics is the analysis of composite or heterogeneous materials on the level of the individual constituents that constitute these materials.
Dr. Ramulu Mamidala is a mechanical engineering professor at University of Washington. Usually goes by the name 'Ram', or 'M.R.', he is recognized for his leadership and outstanding record in promoting collaborative education and research with industry. He is currently the director of Manufacturing Science and Technology Laboratory (MSTL) at Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Washington. He has designed and developed manufacturing methods for a wide range of systems, from the B2 bomber to the Boeing 787. Additionally, in collaboration with industry, he established and directed two interdisciplinary graduate educational programs in engineering and management and a certificate program in composites tooling and manufacturing. His exemplary collaborative efforts motivated working engineers to pursue doctoral studies and he is a leader in using emerging technologies in distance education to reach non-traditional students.
Probabilistic design is a discipline within engineering design. It deals primarily with the consideration of the effects of random variability upon the performance of an engineering system during the design phase. Typically, these effects are related to quality and reliability. Thus, probabilistic design is a tool that is mostly used in areas that are concerned with quality and reliability. For example, product design, quality control, systems engineering, machine design, civil engineering and manufacturing. It differs from the classical approach to design by assuming a small probability of failure instead of using the safety factor.
In fluid dynamics and elasticity, hydroelasticity or flexible fluid-structure interaction (FSI), is a branch of science which is concerned with the motion of deformable bodies through liquids. The theory of hydroelasticity has been adapted from aeroelasticity, to describe the effect of structural response of the body on the fluid around it.
Daniel Charles Drucker was American civil and mechanical engineer and academic, who served as president of the Society for Experimental Stress Analysis in 1960–1961, as president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in the year 1973–74, and as president of the American Academy of Mechanics in 1981–82.
Junuthula N. Reddy is a Distinguished Professor, Regent's Professor, and inaugural holder of the Oscar S. Wyatt Endowed Chair in Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.[1] He is an authoritative figure in the broad area of mechanics and one of the researchers responsible for the development of the Finite Element Method (FEM). He has made significant seminal contributions in the areas of finite element method, plate theory, solid mechanics, variational methods, mechanics of composites, functionally graded materials, fracture mechanics, plasticity, biomechanics, classical and non-Newtonian fluid mechanics, and applied functional analysis. Reddy has over 620 journal papers and 20 books and has given numerous national and international talks. He served as a member of the International Advisory Committee at ICTACEM, in 2001 and keynote addressing in 2014.[2][3]
Morton E. Gurtin was a mechanical engineer who became a mathematician and mathematical physicist. He was an emeritus professor of mathematical sciences at Carnegie-Mellon University, where for many years he held an endowed chair as the Alumni Professor of Mathematical Science. His main work is in materials science, in the form of the mathematical, rational mechanics of non-linear continuum mechanics and thermodynamics, in the style of Clifford Truesdell and Walter Noll, a field also known under the combined name of continuum thermomechanics. He has published over 250 papers, many among them in Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis, as well as a number of books.
Marco Amabili is a professor who holds the Canada Research Chair in Vibrations and Fluid-Structure Interaction, Department of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
Yu Mao-Hong is a Chinese engineer and a university professor. He is noted for his research on the strength hypotheses and yield surfaces of isotropic materials. His unified strength theory (UST) has found acceptance as generalized classical strength theory. It contains the following nonparametric strength theories and criteria:
Andreas Öchsner is a professor, head of discipline, in mechanical engineering at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. He is a conjoint Professor of the Centre for Mass and Thermal Transport in Engineering Materials at the University of Newcastle (Australia). He is the author and co-author of over 150 refereed journal papers, over 70 conference papers and 15 book-chapters in the area of advanced materials and structures. Furthermore, he is the author and co-author of five books and 13 research monographs.
Ali Suphi Argon was a Turkish-American engineer, and the Quentin Berg Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Isaac Elishakoff is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Ocean and Mechanical Engineering Department in the Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida. He is a figure in the area of mechanics. He has made several contributions in the areas of random vibrations, solid mechanics of composite material, semi-inverse problems of vibrations and stability, functionally graded material structures, and nanotechnology.
Pierre Suquet is a French theoretician mechanic and research director at the CNRS. He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences.
André Zaoui is a French physicist in material mechanics, born on 8 June 1941. He is a corresponding member of the French Academy of sciences and a member of the French Academy of Technologies.
Somnath Ghosh is the Michael G. Callas Chair Professor in the Department of Civil & Systems Engineering and a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). He is the founding director of the JHU Center for Integrated Structure-Materials Modeling and Simulation (CISMMS) and was the director of an Air Force Center of Excellence in Integrated Materials Modeling (CEIMM). Prior to his appointment at JHU, Ghosh was the John B. Nordholt Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering at Ohio State University. He is a fellow of several professional societies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
