UVa 4th year students regular win national and international design competitions.  This year’s UVa aerospace aircraft design team tied for first place in the FAA national aircraft design competition.  This is particularity impressive since they shared the first place with a GRADUATE design team at Ga Tech, where aircraft design is a research focus.  They… Continue reading » View full post

Graduate student Seyed Mohammad Mehdi Saadat has won the Annual Presidential Research Poster Contest. The competition is designed to highlight the best of student research and was launched by UVa President Teresa Sullivan in 2011. For more about Mehdi’s research,  “On the observed tight range of Strouhal number (0.2>St>0.4) among the swimming species in nature,”  and to… Continue reading » View full post

Caroline Gorham is the second UVa student to win the NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship.  The title for the work is “Optimizing Materials for Energy Harvesting on Interplanetary Return Missions.”  This fellowship will not only fund Caroline’s research starting in her 2nd year here at UVa, but also give her the opportunity to work on… Continue reading » View full post

Brie Hudson, a U.Va. Aeropace  graduate, is now an exchange officer with the British Royal Air Force and is flying  RAF Tornadoes.  This photo was taken by a civilian on the ground during one of her low-altitude missions. Brie also happens to be the daughter of UVa’s own David Hudson, Associate VP for Research & Graduate Studies… Continue reading » View full post

The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering produces  a monthly electronic newsletter, MAE News.  The MAE Newsletter showcases recent achievements and activities of the MAE Department. MAE Newsletter Spring 2013 (Web) MAE Newsletter Spring 2013 (pdf)

Nuclear Scientist and Professor Houston Wood will appear as part of a panel discussion in connection with the MSNBC documentary, Hubris, Selling the Iraq War based on a book of the same name by NBC News National Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff co-authored  with David Corn, an MSNBC contributor and the Washington Bureau Chief of Mother Jones.… Continue reading » View full post

UVa Hoo’s Flying team did very well at the SAE (SAE International) Aero Design East Competition in Fort Worth, TX.  The team placed 2nd both overall and in most payload carried out of 37 teams in the regular class at this national competition.  They were the highest placed US team.  The 2nd place overall award is… Continue reading » View full post

One  of MAE’s new faculty hires under the Rolls-Royce partnership, Patrick Hopkins, has just been selected to receive an award from the Young Investigator Program of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.  The objective of this program is to foster creative basic research in science and engineering, enhance early career development of outstanding young… Continue reading » View full post

Steven Easter and Jonathan Turman, brothers and UVa engineering lab partners , have built a 3D printed plane.  The entire plane — from the nose to the rudders — had been designed in software and printed in lightweight plastic on a Stratasys 3D printer. Instead of a balsa-wood frame, the brothers printed a plastic exoskeleton… Continue reading » View full post

Last spring, two University of Virginia students responded to a vague email about an internship that turned out to be the opportunity of a lifetime. Now, they’ve designed and flown a plastic plane that’s the first of its kind. Brothers and lab partners Steven Easter and Jonathan Turman were challenged to design a 3-D printed plane by… Continue reading » View full post

Two mechanical engineering students have built and flown a plastic airplane using 3-D printing technology at the engineering school’s Rapid Prototyping Lab.  Read more.

July 2012 MacKenzie R. Siden-Redding and Justin Smoyer traveled to Venice Italy for the 3rd International School: Lasers in Materials Science on the Isola di San Servolo, home to Venice International University. The school was directed by Marta Castillejo of the Instituto de Química Física Rocasolano, CSIC, in Madrid Spain, Wolfgang Kautek of the University… Continue reading » View full post

Several students  in the mechanical and aerospace research labs have been awarded the National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship.  Sponsored by the Department of Defense, this prestigious fellowship gives leading students the increased freedom and flexibility to pursue research interests in cutting-edge science and technology. Nanoscale Energy Transport Laboratory: MacKenzie Sinden-Redding is using Time-Domain Thermoreflectance… Continue reading » View full post

Professor Hilary Bart-Smith leads a MURI project (a Multi-disciplinary University Research Initiative) consisting of participants from the University of Virginia, Princeton University, UCLA and West Chester University to create a robotic manta ray. This fascinating project is aptly illustrated in this report.  http://watch.discoverychannel.ca/daily-planet/may-2012/daily-planet—may-15-2012/#clip679805

Justin Kirk has been awarded a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship that is funded through the Department of Defense (DoD) High Performance Computing Modernization Program. Justin is one of 200 students across the country who have been awarded this highly competitive, three-year graduate fellowship.  Justin will be doing research on Particle Image… Continue reading » View full post

If creating models and mechanical devices constitutes a hands-on curriculum, UVA’s mechatronics projects could be called “hands- and minds-on” learning. Mechatronics combines mechanical, electronic, computer, software and control engineering with systems-design engineering to imagine and manufacture useful products. Developing students’ design skills beyond the theoretical is critical as employers increasingly seek graduates with applied, tested… Continue reading » View full post

During this weekend’s ASME conference, Alex Russomanno (MAE ’12) gave a brilliant lecture on microactuators, which he has been researching with Associate Professor Carl Knospe this year, and brought home the gold medal for the best oral presentation and another one for the best technical content in a presentation. He will be advancing to the finals… Continue reading » View full post

The regional ASME Student Professional Development Conference that was held at VMI March 24th-25th.  The centerpiece of this event is a design competition. This year’s competition involved developing an autonomous relay race with four small cars propelled by different energy sources.  The cars our students designed for the event used energy sources such as fuel… Continue reading » View full post

University of Virginia representatives will be at the Rolls-Royce facility in Prince George County on Friday as President Barack Obama visits the site of a successful partnership among the company, the University and other institutions of higher education. In 2007, Rolls-Royce invited U.Va., Virginia Tech, Virginia State University and the Virginia Community College System into… Continue reading » View full post

A project led by Professor and Department Chair Hossein Haj-Hariri and Mr. Joey Wyatt (MAE BS’06, MS’08) resulted in the development of a carbon-fiber tape laying machine.  This patented technology has been incorporated into the manufacturing of mostly carbon-composite jet engine which is claimed could dramatically cut the amount of fuel used by airlines. The… Continue reading » View full post

Mechanical Engineers create an unusual instrument in the Mechatronics Lab.  In honor of the School of Engineering’s 175th anniversary, Gavin Garner, an assistant professor in the mechanical and aerospace engineering department, helped four of his students design and build a one-of-a-kind guitar that is also a replica of the Rotunda.  See a great video of… Continue reading » View full post

Fourth-Year Aerospace engineering and Physics student Brian Ichter was awarded First Place in the Undergraduate Student Presentation Competition at the AIAA Young Professional, Student, and Education Conference held at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in November 2011.  Brian presented his research on structural simulations of a segmented morphing wind turbine rotor blade. He is working… Continue reading » View full post

The School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia is seeking applications for Rolls-Royce Doctoral Student Fellows. There are no citizenship or residency requirements. The purpose of this award is to support outstanding PhD students in pursuit of research and scholarship on topics of interest to Rolls-Royce, the University of Virginia, and… Continue reading » View full post

While there is plenty of research to show how the outside of muscles work under strained conditions, researchers are just beginning to get an accurate look beneath the muscle surface and into connective tissues. From this vantage, researchers will be able to isolate the biomechanics that lead to injury, as well as pinpoint and treat… Continue reading » View full post

July 14 2011 — The American Society of Engineering Education has selected Larry G. Richards, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Virginia, as a member of its Academy of Fellows. Richards was honored June 29 at the society’s annual conference in Vancouver, B.C. He is the first ASEE fellow selected from the… Continue reading » View full post

You can do a lot with 3D printing—even create a working model jet engine. As a final project for a jet engine manufacturing course at the University of Virginia, students led by Professor David Sheffler constructed a one-quarter-scale working replica of the Rolls-Royce AE3007 turbofan jet engine (which is found on the Air Force’s RQ-4… Continue reading » View full post

By observing manta rays in the wild, modeling them, and building robots, researchers are learning how these agile animals ply the ocean. Swimming like butterflies underwater, with mesmerizing ease and grace, manta rays are the envy of engineers seeking more efficient underwater vehicles. For the past 3 years, researchers at Princeton University and the University of Virginia… Continue reading » View full post

The 4th year Aerospace Engineering students, led by Professor Jim McDaniel, won first place in a highly competitive NASA design contest: the NASA Environmentally Responsible (Green) Aviation College Student Challenge. The goal of the design competition was to create an environmentally friendly airplane for the 2020 time frame. In order to achieve this, the UVA design… Continue reading » View full post

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has recognized MAE graduate students Tyler Gillen (2nd from left) and two graduate students from the University of Illinois who contributed to the design and fabrication of a large-scale low-boom inlet model for testing at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The three students received NASA Aeronautics… Continue reading » View full post

Supersonic jets are fired forward of a spacecraft in order to decelerate the vehicle during entry into the Martian atmosphere prior to parachute deployment.  These retropropulsion jets are positioned off the center of the model in order to preserve the drag of the vehicle without jets.  Experiments at the UVa Aerospace Research Lab use a hypersonic… Continue reading » View full post

Supersonic Combustion Ramjets, or SCRAMJETS, will be used to propel future flight vehicles to hypersonic speeds.  The test facility at the UVa Aerospace Research Lab reproduces the conditions in a SCRAMJET combustor for a vehicle flying at a Mach number of 5.  Hydrogen fuel is injected into air flows at speeds of about 1 km/sec… Continue reading » View full post

For NASA’s access to space mission and the Air Force’s high-speed atmospheric vehicles, new engines are being developed to propel aircraft to hypersonic speeds.  The engines will use a combination of standard gas turbines up to Mach 3 and then ram/scramjets to about Mach 12.  A National Center for Hypersonic Combined Cycle Propulsion is led… Continue reading » View full post

The Hy-V Program is a ground and flight test activity aimed at examining the effects of wind tunnel ground test facilities on scramjet performance. The Hy-V team includes university, industrial and government participants and involves a significant level of collaboration. The team includes the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, ATK-GASL, Test Resource Management Center, Aerojet,… Continue reading » View full post

The 4th year aerospace undergraduates spend the year designing an aerospace vehicle. This experience is a culmination of all the engineering courses that they have taken at UVa. The image below is a supersonic commercial airliner, designed to fly overland at supersonic speeds with low sonic boom. This design won first place in a national… Continue reading » View full post

The supersonic inlet research being conducted is helping to change civil air travel. The group from the University of Virginia includes Prof. Eric Loth and M.S. student Tyler Gillen, from University of Illinois Ph.D candidate Michael Rybalko, engineers from NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, OH, and Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation in Savannah, GA. Currently, aircraft… Continue reading » View full post

Anti-wetting materials have the potential for dramatic performance improvements in many applications such as drag reduction for marine vehicles and fluid power systems, anti-fouling & icing on aircraft and wind turbines, and stain-resistant coatings. The degree to which a solid surface repels a liquid mainly depends upon two factors: surface energy and surface morphology. The… Continue reading » View full post

Central Pattern Generator Control: Biologically Inspired Neural Control of Tensegrity Structures and Propulsors.  The aim of this research is to integrate neuronal circuits with tensegrity structures for use in bio-inspired aquatic propulsion.

Recent Research Activities and Capabilities Development of processes for integrating aerogel into devices: * Thin film aerogel coating for thermal and electrical insulation in MEMS and MMIC devices * Measurement of the thermal properties of thin film aerogels Organometallic aerogel/xerogel materials for: * Catalysts and catalytic supports • Micro- and nano- patterning * IR (infrared radiation) absorption… Continue reading » View full post

AFOSR (Air Force Office of Scientific Research) Project at the Nanoscale Heat Transfer (NET) Lab. Modeling Interfacial Thermal Boundary Conductance of Engineered Interfaces.  Lead Researcher: Pamela M. Norris, in collaboration with Leonid N. Zhigilei, University of Virginia

Probing Thermal Transport on the Nanoscale. Probing nanoscale thermal processes and carrier interactions is generally a difficult tasks due to contact resistance and substrate interactions. In the Nanoscale Energy Transport (NET) Laboratory at University of Virginia, we have developed a series of optical-based pump-probe thermometry techniques to probe ultrafast and nanoscale carrier interactions in nanosystems. The… Continue reading » View full post

Soft Materials. The purpose of this project is to construct a voltage controlled artificial excitable cell fabricated from electro-active polymers.  Lead Researcher: Pamela Norris.

The Bio-Inspired Engineering Research Laboratory (BIER Lab) is an internationally recognized center for biologically inspired engineering research, with the primary goal of designing an autonomous robotic manta ray. BIER Lab has received major funding from the Department of Defense (DoD) Multi-disciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program. Current research teams are engaged on a broad array of issues… Continue reading » View full post

Morphing Structures. Uses the principles of static determinacy and tensegrity–with their superior mechanical properties such as stiffness and strength–to develop three-dimensional morphing foils. Through collaborations with scientists and engineers at the National Institute of Aerospace, NASA Langley and a grant through the Rising Stars Fellowship program, the MMS Lab is also involved in the area of… Continue reading » View full post

Lightweight Metallic Structures. The Multi-functional Materials and Structures (MMS) Labstudies the mechanics of lightweight lattice truss structures for their use as load-bearing structures and impact amelioration systems as well as their possible morphing and thermal management capabilities. Lead Researcher: Hillary Bart-Smith