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, linear circuits, heat transfer 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 transfer and smoke plume 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. The lecture discuss the general outline and underlying theory of the experiments, which will be similar for both the Mechanical and Environmental Engineering students and slightly different for the Aerospace Engineering sudents. As a result, the lectures are given in separate lecture rooms (PCYNH 109 and CENTER 212) 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.

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.

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 PCYNH 109 and CENTER 212 on mondays, wednesdays and fridays from 5:00pm to 6:50pm. During the laboratory hours, 3 out of 9 of the following different experiments must be completed:

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.

The course staff consists of Course Instructors, Tutors and Laboratory staff. The Course Instructors for Winter 2009 are Prof. R.A. de Callafon, Prof. V. Nesterenko, Prof. K. Seshadri and Dr. Shevchenko and they can be contacted as follows:

• Prof. de Callafon, tel.(858) 534-3166, email: callafon@ucsd.edu.
• Prof. Nesterenko,  tel. (858) 822-0289, email: vnesterenko@ucsd.edu.
  
• Prof. Seshadri, tel. (858) 534-4876, email: kseshadri@ucsd.edu.
• Dr.  Shevchenko, email: vshevchenko@ucsd.edu.
  

The laboratory staff consists of

• UnderGraduate Control Laboratoru (UGCL): Chris Cassidy, tel. (858) 534-1470, email: ccassidy@ucsd.edu
• UnderGraduate Laboratory (UGL):  Steve Roberts, tel. (858)  534-2421, email: steveroberts@ucsd.edu.
• Environmental Engineering Laboratory: Nick Busan, tel (858) 534-9585, email: nbusan@ucsd.edu
  

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:

• wind tunnel and water channel: TBA.
  
• position and gyroscope control experiment: TBA
• vibration and linear circuit experiment: TBA
  
• smoke plum simulation and heat echange experiment: TBA.
  
• material testing experiment: TBA
  

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.

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.

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. You are also required to fill out the Ethics Lecture Handout. 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 or without filling out the ethics lecture handout 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, contact Nick Busan, tel (858) 534-9585, email: nbusan@ucsd.edu to set up a time to attend the make-up lectures during finals week.

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. Lectures are given in PCYNH 109 and CENTER 212 on mondays, wednesdays and friday from 5pm- 6:50pm. It should be noted that not all days are used for lectures whereas experiments start only in the 2nd week of the Winter quarter. 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 weeks. 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 2009, lectures will be given on the following dates only. Please observe the location PCYNH 109 or CENTER 212 of the lecture, as lecture are given in parallel.

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 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:

• Use double space text with font size 12pt or larger
• Page limit (including figures) of 20 pages!!!, excluding sections on raw data and appendices.
  

Final
The final examination will be a closed book and closed notes written exam held during finals week. For MAE171a and MAE126a students, the final will be held on Monday March 16, 2009 from 7pm-10pm in PCYNH 109. For MAE175a students, the final will be held on Monday March 16, 2009 from 7pm - 10pm in CENTER 212.

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.

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 9 available laboratory experiments:

Which 3 out of 9 experiments you need to do, depends on your group number assignment. 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:

• 01/13/09 - 01/30/09 - Laboratory Sections for First Experiment & Laboratory Safety Training
  
• 02/03/09 - 02/20/09 - Laboratory Sections for Second Experiment
• 02/24/09 - 03/13/09 - Laboratory Sections for Third Experiment

Before you come to the lab

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.

The laboratory sections do not start until the second week of the course. During the first lecture on Monday, January 5, 2009, students have to organized themselves in groups of 4 within the specific Laboratory Section you signed up for. 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 3:50 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

During the first lecture on Monday, January 5th, 2009, students will be organized in groups of 4 within the specific Laboratory Section they have signed up for. 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 3 out of 9  experiments will have to completed during the last 9 weeks of this course:

Please carefully check the Laboratory Schedule and Group Number Assignment to see in what group you will be working. The laboratory schedule and group number 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. 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?

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 and come to the lab. 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. The links to the laboratory handouts will be updated regularly as soon as handouts become available.

• Gyroscope Control Experiment (MAE175a) handout for week 1, 2 and 3.
  
• Heat Transfer (MAE171a, MAE175a and MAE126a) laboratory handouts for week 1, week 2 and week 3.
  
• Material Experiment (MAE171a and MAE175a) laboratory handouts for week 1, week 2 and week 3.
• Position Control  Experiment (MAE171a) handout for week 1, 2 and 3.
  
• Smoke Plume Simulation Experiment (MAE171a and MAE126a) handout for week 1, week 2 and week 3.
  
• Vibration Analysis Experiment for Aerospace Engineering (MAE175a) handout for week 1, 2 and 3.
  
• Vibration Analysis Experiment for Mechanical Engineering (MAE171a) handout for week 1, 2 and 3.
  
• Water Channel Experiment (MAE171a, MAE175a and MAE126a) handout for week 1, 2 and 3.
  
• Wind Tunnel Experiment (MAE171a, MAE175a) handout for week 1, 2 and 3.
• Linear Circuit Experiment (MAE171a) laboratory handouts for week  1, 2 and 3.
  

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. The links to the lecture notes will be updated regularly as soon as the lecture notes become available.

• Position Control Experiment (MAE171a) lecture notes.
  
• Gyroscope Control Experiment (MAE175a) lecture notes.
  
• Heat Transfer Experiment (MAE171a, MAE175a and MAE126a) lecture notes.
  
• Material Testing Experiment (MAE171a and MAE175a) lecture notes.
• Smoke Plume Simulation Experiment (MAE171a and MAE126a) lecture notes.
  
• Vibration Analysis Experiment (MAE175a) lecture notes and handout on Lagrange's method.
• Vibration Analysis Experiment (MAE171a) lecture notes and handout on Lagrange's method.
• Water Channel Experiment (MAE171a, MAE175a and MAE126a) lecture notes.
• Wind Tunnel Experiment (MAE171a, MAE175a) lecture notes.
• Statistics and Error Analysis (MAE171a and MAE126a) lecture notes.
• Statistics and Error Analysis (MAE175a) lecture notes.
• Linear Circuit Experiment (MAE171a) lecture notes.
  
• Report writing (MAE171a, MAE175a and MAE126a) lecture notes.
• Ethics lecture notes and handout. Ethics handout needs to be completed by each students and handed in on Friday February 13 (3rd and last ethics lecture).
  

• Report writing (MAE171a, MAE175a and MAE126a) lecture notes.
• Summary of required format and key elements of your report.
• More detailed notes/worksheets on important report sections: Introduction, Experimental Procedure, Results and Discussion.
  
• Examples of reports from the American Journal of Physics: example 1, example 2 and example 3.
  

Maintained by Prof. R.A. de Callafon, last revision: 15:39 PM 03/11/2009 Department of MAE (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) at UCSD