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