Welcome to the laboratory course web page! Print this page

Welcome to the website of the laboratory courses, serving MAE171a, MAE175a and MAE126a. The aim of the laboratory oriented courses is to analyze experiments in the area of mechanical engineering (MAE171a), aerospace engineering (MAE175a) and environmental engineering (MAE126a). The experiments in this laboratory course are tailored towards a specific engineering discipline and include fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, vibration, control systems, heat exchange and polution experiments. For the fluid and solid mechanics experiments large facilities such as a wind tunnel, a water channel and a load frame testing machine are used to analyze the behavior of both fluid and solid mechanical systems. The vibration and control experiments are configured around the modeling and experimental verification of the vibrations of a flexible structure, the high-speed and high-accuracy position control of a flexible lumped-mass mechanical system and a moment gyroscope. The heat exchange and polution experiments involve high precision temperature and density measurements in laboratory scale facilities tailored towards environmental engineering aspects.

The Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Laboratory course consists of lectures and 9 weeks of laboratory experiments. During those 9 weeks, students have to complete 3 different experiments that each take 3 laboratory sections (3 weeks) to complete. The lab course is accompanied with lectures to explain the experiments and discuss error analysis and engineering ethics. Although most of the laboratory experiments are different for MAE171a, MAE175a and MAE126a students, the lecture discuss the general outline and underlying theory of the experiments, which will be similar for both the Mechanical, Aerospace and Environmental Engineering students. As a result, the lectures for MAE171a, MAE175a and MAE126a are combined in a single lecture room (LEDDN, room: AUD, formerly HSS 2250) but will be taught by different lecturers. For more information on the course or download laboratory handouts, please consult the menu displayed on the left. Please press the reload button on your browser to make sure you see the latest version of this web page.

Prerequisites goto top

In order to enroll in the MAE laboratory courses one needs a grade of C– or better in MAE101C or CENG103C or CENG101C; MAE160, MAE141A or MAE143B, MAE170 and senior standing in engineering major. In general, no exceptions can be made to the listing of these prerequisites, as the basic background knowledge of these courses is required to complete the laboratory experiments safely and succesfully.


 
Course Organisation goto top

The course consists of lectures and laboratory work. The laboratory work takes place in the UnderGraduate Laboratory (UGL) located at Room 107, EBUII, in the UnderGraduate Control Laboratory (UGCL) at Room 121, EBUII, and the Environmental Engineering Laboratory, Room 119, EBUII. Lectures are given in LEDDN, room AUD (formerly HSS 2250) on mondays, wednesdays and fridays from 5:00pm to 6:50pm. Note: this has been a change in lecture room: lecture on monday was in YORK 2622, all lectures are now in LEDDN, room AUD (formerly HSS 2250). During the laboratory hours, 3 out of 8 different experiments must be completed. Students form groups of 4 (or sometimes 5) people that coordinate the work to be done for each specific experiment. Each experiment needs to be completed within 3 weeks and the results should be documented in a written laboratory report.

The lectures are used to explain the laboratory work to be done and the different experiments that have to be addressed. Additionally lectures are given that cover the topics of laboratory report writing, statistics and error analysis and engineering ethics. The course material consists of Laboratory and Lecture Notes available via this webpage. Office hours are during laboratory hours and by appointment.

 
 
Course Staff goto top

The course staff consists of Course Instructors, Tutors and Laboratory staff. The Course Instructors for Winter 2008 are Prof. T. Bewley, Prof. R.A. de Callafon, Prof. J. McKittrick, Prof. K. Seshadri and Dr. Shevchenko and they can be contacted as follows:

The laboratory staff consists of

For most of the experiments, Tutors or Teaching Assistants (TA's) are available for additional help and guidance during the laboratory hours. The information on the TA's will be updated on this website as soon as this is available:


Writing Lectures goto top

Objectives
Some of the lectures given in this course are specifically designed to assist students in acquiring the technical writing skills necessary to develop a clearly written, coherent laboratory research report.  Instruction will focus on the rhetorical structure and linguistic features of laboratory research reports.  Using the tool of text analysis, students will learn to analyze the features (content, organization, language and format) of the genre and apply this knowledge to the writing of the laboratory reports. Please check the class schedule below for the exact time and location of the writing lectures.

Course Texts
Writing handouts are available on this website. Students are expected to print out and read handouts for relevant lectures and tutorials prior to class.  Please bring handouts to lectures for your convenience.

 
 
Lecture on Statistics and Error Analysis goto top

Objectives
During the laboratory work of this class, experimental data is gathered to verify specific phenomena from an experimental point of view. These phenomena may include fluid, flow or material properties and vibration analysis. To analyse the consistency and reliability of the data, some basic statistic analysis is mandatory during the experiments and the analysis of the results in the laboratory reports. In addition, propagation and sources of errors during the experiments has to be analyzed to predict the behavior of the error made during the experiments on the final modeling and validation results. For this purpose, a lecture is given that reviews the basic sources of errors in indirect measurements during the laboratory experiments. Please check the class schedule below for the exact time and location of the statistics and error analysis lecture. Basic statistical analysis based on Normal and t-distributions will be reviewed to enable the construction of confidence intervals for your measurements.

Course Texts
The lecture notes for the statistics and error analysis is available in the form of a handout. Students are expected to print out and read the handout before the error analysis lectures prior to class. Please bring handouts to lectures for your convenience.


 
 
 
Ethics Lectures goto top

As part of this course course, three lectures on engineering ethics will be given. Attendance during these lectures is mandatory and attendance during the ethics lectures will be verified. Please check the class schedule below for the exact time and location of the ethics lectures. The lectures consist of a video program discussing the Challenger disaster followed by a open discussion and question session on the engineer ethics and managment decision processes taken place during the Challenger disaster.

Remember: without the ethics lectures you will receive an incomplete grade. An attendance list will be maintained to see if you have missed any of the ethics lectures. If you did miss one of the ethics lectures, you are required to attend the make-up lectures during finals week.


 
 
Class Schedule goto top

The lectures are used to give an introduction to and explanation of the laboratory experiments and the accompanying theory to analyse your work in the form of a laboratory report. For both the MAE171a, MAE175a and MAE126a students the lectures are given in LEDDN, room AUD (formerly HSS 2250) on mondays, wednesdays and friday. It should be noted that not all days are used for lectures! To speed up the laboratory work, most lectures are concentrated in the first three weeks. Additional lectures on error analysis and report writing are done in the subsequent week. Half way during the course, the mandatory engineering ethics lectures are offered, while in one of the last weeks a special lecture is reserved for the Mechanical Engineering students via a presentation of MAE171b, MAE175b and MAE126b projects.

During the Winter Quarter of 2008, lectures will be given on the following dates only:

Week 1
01/07 Monday - Organization Lecture for all 171a/175a/126a students (Bewley/de Callafon/
McKittrick/Seshadri/Shevchenko)
01/09 Wednesday - Position and Gyroscope Control Experiment  for 171a/175a students (de Callafon)
01/11 Friday - Water Channel Experiment for 171a/175a/126a students (Seshadri)

Week 2 - start of 1st experiment & laboratory safety training
01/14 Monday - Vibration Experiment for 171a/175a students (de Callafon)
01/16 Wednesday -
Smoke Plume Simulation Experiment for 171a/126a students (Shevchenko)
01/18 Friday  - Material Testing Experiment for 171a/175a students (McKittrick)

Week 3
01/21 Monday - Holiday (M.L. King Jr.)
01/23 Wednesday - Heat Exchange Experiment for 171a/126a students (Shevchenko)
01/25 Friday - Wind Tunnel Experiment for 171a/175a students (Seshadri)

Week 4
01/28 Monday - Report Writing for 171a/175a/126a students (McKittrick)
01/30 Wednesday - Error Analysis and Statistics for 171a/175a/126a students (de Callafon)
02/01 Friday - no lecture, students work on reports due next week

Week 5 - start of 2nd experiment and due date of your 1st laboratory report
no lectures

Week 6
02/11 Monday - Engineering Ethics for all 171a/175a/126a students (de Callafon)
02/13 Wednesday - Engineering Ethics for all 171a/175a/126a students (de Callafon/Seshadri)
02/15 Friday - Engineering Ethics for all 171a/175a/126a students (McKittrick/Seshadri)

Week 7
02/18 Monday - Holiday (Presidents) 
no lectures,  students work on reports due next week

Week 8 - start of 3rd experiment and due date of your 2nd laboratory report
no lectures

Week 9
no lecture: lecture moved to Monday 03/10!

Week 10
03/10 Monday
- Project Descriptions for MAE171b, MAE126b (and elective MAE175b)
This class is mandatory for MAE171a and MAE126a students, and optional for MAE175a students that take MAE175b as an elective.

Week 11 - final and due date of your 3rd laboratory report


 
 
Reports & Final goto top

Reports
The grading is done on the basis of three written laboratory reports and a final examination. The laboratory work will be done in groups of 4 - 5 students. Therefore, only one laboratory report per group per experiment needs to be handed in. The final examination, however, is done individually. The total grade will be determined as follows:

  1. First report: 20%
  2. Second report: 25%
  3. Third report: 30%
  4. Final examination: 25 %

Every laboratory report completes the work on one specific experiments and is due at the usual laboratory time prior to starting a new experiment. The reports have the following size limitation:

The laboratory report of the third and last experiment is due during finals week on the day and at the time of your laboratory section. Reports will be accepted during the first 1/2 hour of your lab time and should be handed in to one of the Course Instructors, Tutors or Laboratory staff. Reports accepted after the assigned time will receive a significant reduction in grade!

Final
The final examination will be a closed book and closed notes written exam held during finals week on Monday March 17, from 7pm-10pm.. The final will be given in 2 different rooms:T

The material covered in the final consists of:

  1. Theoretical background and laboratory work, based on the lecture notes and laboratory handouts, associated to the 3 experiments in which you participated during the labcourse.
  2. Error analysis and statistics as covered by the Statistics and Error Analysis lectures notes, including the identification of error sources in your experiment, statistical analysis and error propagation.
Laboratory Schedule goto top

For the laboratory work of the course, you will have to work in a group of 4 students in the UnderGraduate Laboratory (UGL), Room 107, EBUII, the UnderGraduate Control Laboratory (UGCL), Room 121, EBUII, or the Environmental Engineering Laboratory, Room 119, EBUII. Each group has to complete 3 out of the 8 available laboratory experiments. The experimental work for each experiment must be completed during 3 laboratory sections over the span of 3 weeks and the following time schedule will be followed:

Due Dates for Report Writing

Each laboratory report is due prior to starting a new experiment. The report can be handed in during laboratory hours, when you start your new experiment. For the third (and last) experiment, please consult with the Course Instructors, Tutors or Laboratory staff supervising the experiment, but basically the laboratory report is due in the laboratory (room 107, room 121 or room 119, EBUII) or at the TA's office during finals week on the day and at the time of your laboratory. Reports will be accepted during the first 1/2 hour of the lab time. Reports accepted after the assigned time will receive a significant reduction in grade.

 

Times of laboratory sections

The laboratory sections do not start until the second week of the course. During the first lecture on Monday, January 7, 2008, students are organized in groups of 4 and are able to choose a specific time slot (Laboratory Section) to work in. For completing the laboratory work, the following 8 Laboratory Sections (morning and afternoon) are available:

  1. Tuesday AM session - Tuesday 9:30am till 12:20pm
  2. Tuesday PM session - Tuesday 12:30pm till 3:20pm
  3. Wednesday AM session - Wednesday 9:00am till 11:50am
  4. Wednesday PM session - Wednesday 1:00 pm till 3:40 pm
  5. Thursday AM session - Thursday 9:30am - 12:20pm
  6. Thursday PM session - Thursday 12:30 pm till 3:20 pm
  7. Friday AM session - Friday 9:00 am till 11:50 am
  8. Friday PM session - Friday 1:00 pm till 3:50 pm


Group Assignment goto top

During the first lecture on Monday, January 7th, 2008, most students were assigned a specific laboratory section to perform the laboratory work of this course. The laboratory work and the report writing must be done in groups of 4 students. Each group is assigned a Group Number and depending on your Group Number and whether you are a Mechanical (MAE171A) or a Aerospace (MAE175A) Engineering or a Environmental (MAE126a) Engineering student, the following sequence of three experiments will have to completed during the last 9 weeks of this course:

List of 8 Possible Experiments

WT

Wind Tunnel Experiment

WC

Water Channel Experiment

MT

Material Testing Experiment

PC

Position Control Experiment

VA

Vibration Analysis Experiment

HT

Heat Transfer Experiment

SP

Smoke Plume Simulation Experiment

GC

Gyroscope Control Experiment


Experiments and Group number for Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science Students (MAE171A)

Group #

01/14/08 - 02/01/08

02/04/08 - 02/22/08

02/25/08 - 03/14/08

1

WC

SP

WT

2

HT

PC

WC

3

MT

VA

PC

4

PC

MT

SP

5

WT

HT

VA

6

VA

WT

HT

7

SP

WC

MT

Experiments and Group number for Aerospace Engineering Students (MAE175A)

Group #

01/14/08 - 02/01/08

02/04/08 - 02/22/08

02/25/08 - 03/14/08

8

WT

GC

VA

9

VA

WT

GC

10

GC

WC

MT

Experiments and Group number for Environmental Engineering Students (MAE126A)

Group #

01/14/08 - 02/01/08

02/04/08 - 02/22/08

02/25/08 - 03/14/08

11

SP

WC

HT


Laboratory Schedule and Group Number Assignment

Please carefully check the Laboratory Schedule and Group Number Assignment to see in what group you will be working. The laboratory schedule and group assignment will be made available in the form of a downloadable PDF file. In order to check your group number, you'll need Adobe Acrobat reader. You can use CTRL-F (or any search function of your Acrobar PDF viewer) to find your name in the listing of the Laboratory Schedule and Group Number Assignment. A hard copy of the Laboratory Schedule and Group Number Assignment will also be posted on the bulletin board in UnderGraduate Control Laboratory (UGCL), Room 121, EBUII on Monday, January 11, 2008 (beginning of laboratory sections during week 2). Before emailing the course instructors with questions on the Laboratory schedule and group number assignment, please see answers to the following questions below.

What if your name is NOT on the Laboratory Schedule and Group Number Assignment?

If you did not fill out a sign-up sheet during the first lecture on Monday January 7th, 2008, your name may not be listed on the Laboratory Schedule and Group Number Assignment. In addition, if you signed up in a group smaller than 3 or larger than 4 for a laboratory section, your name will also not be on the Laboratory Schedule and Group Number Assignment. No panic, if your name is not on the Laboratory Schedule and Group Number Assignment, please attend the second lecture on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008, 5pm-6:50pm in LEDDN, room AUD (formerly HSS 2250) (MAE126a, MAE171A and MAE175A students) to have yourself signed-up for a particular group and laboratory section. Before emailing Prof. de Callafon, first carefully check if your name is on the list!

What if I am still wait-listed?

Once your name is on Laboratory Schedule and Group Number Assignment, you basically have an assigned group in the labcourse. If you happen to be on the waitlist on Blink/TritonLink, please bring you add cart to the first lab and have it signed by the instructor.

 
Handouts goto top

For the different experiments conducted during the labcourse, handouts and lecture notes will be made available here. The handouts are in the form of a PDF file and in order to download, read and print it out, you'll need Adobe Acrobat reader. The lecture notes and laboratory handouts are updated on this webpage, as soon as they become available. Make sure to print out or obtain a copy and read the laboratory handout before attending the laboratory sessions. If you can't download and print the lab handout (because you don't have or don't like to install a free copy of Adobe Acrobat reader) you can always get a copy of the lab hand out at your first lab visit, but you will be spending your precious labtime reading the handout.

Laboratory Handouts
Please refresh your browser to upload the lastest version of this webpage. The laboratory handouts contain background information and a laboratory procedure and will help you plan your experiment over the course of the 3 weeks in which you do a specific experiment. Hence, print and read the laboratory handout before you start your experiment. Some of the laboratory handouts are separated in a laboratory procedure for each week separately. Note that the contents of the laboratory handout is part of the final exam in case you are assigned to perform this experiment with your group.


Lecture Notes
Please refresh your browser to upload the lastest version of this webpage. The lecture notes will provide background information on your experiment and note that the contents of the lecture notes is part of the final exam in case you were assigned to perform this experiment with your group. The lecture notes on Statistics and Error Analysis is part of the final exam for everyone taking the MAE171a, MAE175a, MAE126a laboratory course.


Report Writing
To help you with the report writing, we have posted the following supporting material for you. First of all, the lectures notes on report writing can be found below. In addition, you can find a short 3-page writeup describing the expected report format, based upon the grading sheet that we use to grade your reports. The 3-page writeup also gives a short narrative that describes what each key element of the report should consist of. Finally, several undergraduate research reports that have been published in the American J. of Physics give an idea of how a report might look like and can be used as examples.





Maintained by Prof. R.A. de Callafon, last revision: 4:50 PM 03/12/2008
Department of MAE (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) at UCSD