Research

The Department of Mechanical Engineering engages in a broad range of teaching and research activities that support the BS degree program and lead to the MS and PhD degrees. Research on the fundamentals of engineering and at the cutting edge of technology carries national and international acclaim. In the last fiscal year, the department’s research expenditures were nearly $10 million. About 190 graduate students are enrolled in mechanical engineering, and over the past three years we have averaged 27 MS and 7 PhD graduates per year. Two faculty have active NSF CAREER Awards and seven are Fellows in professional societies. This speaks well of the educational quality and research productivity of the mechanical engineering faculty at Iowa State.

There are active research programs in energy systems, refrigeration, heat transfer, fluid mechanics and dynamics, combustion, machine design, system dynamics, controls and robotics, manufacturing and materials, micro/nano systems, and virtual reality. For multidisciplinary research, collaboration between faculty and students on campus with research partners and supporters in industry and government is facilitated through various research centers and institutes. These include the Ames Laboratory, the Center for Nondestructive Evaluation, the Center for Sustainable Environmental Technologies, the Virtual Reality Applications Center, and the Institute for Combinatorial Discovery. Students can also participate in interdepartmental majors in human-computer interaction, systems engineering, and biorenewable resources and technology.

Departmental laboratories that support these research activities include the following: biomass fuels; computational fluid dynamics; controls; Engel manufacturing; engine research; combustion and gasification; heat transfer and refrigeration; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning; laser; advanced robotics and computer control; multiphase flow computational lab; nanoscale tribology and mechanics; transport processes; tribology; vibrations; acoustics; appropriate technology; and virtual reality. For more details on the mechanical engineering department’s faculty, staff, students, and programs, access our homepage at  www.me.iastate.edu. 

Iowa State’s mechanical engineering faculty have a tradition of research excellence, experience working with industry, and an interest in collaboration in research and education with industry, government, and other universities.