Graduate Program Focus Area Details

Additive Manufacturing

The Additive Manufacturing focus area is related to the design and production of parts using additive manufacturing technology (AMT).

Students in this focus area learn about various additive manufacturing technologies, manufacturers and machines, 3D printing materials, design rules for 3D printing, mechanical and thermal properties of 3D printed parts, methods of performance simulation, and the economics of additive manufacturing.

Companies in the Portland area that hire students in these fields are:

• Daimler
• 3D Systems

Below are the suggested courses for the Additive Manufacturing Focus. MSME students must complete 31-40 elective credits depending on their degree option/track. MSMSE students must complete 12-20 core courses and 23-26 elective credits depending on their degree option/track.

Suggested Additive Manufacturing Courses

Below is the list of faculty who serve as permanent advisors for thesis and project track students focusing in Additive Manufacturing.

Faculty and Research Labs

Back to Top

Capillary Fluidics: Microfluidics On Earth, Macroscale Fluidics Aboard Spacecraft

Capillary Fluidics is a subtopic area within the thermal fluid sciences focusing on flows (transport) where surface tension and capillary forces play a significant role. Such flows are ubiquitous over small length scales on earth (coating flows, microfluidics, drops, bubbles, etc.), but are found at enormous length scales aboard spacecraft (fuel tanks, life support systems, drops, bubbles, etc.). The focus subject may better be described as 'spacecraft fluid mechanics.' The course selection includes a pair of nationally unique microgravity fluid mechanics classes with significant lab activities employing PSU's Dryden Drop Tower. Support courses in advanced fluid mechanics, heat transfer, transport CFD, microfluidics, and scale analysis support the focus area.

Below are the suggested courses for the Capillary Fluidics Focus. MSME students must complete 31-40 elective credits depending on their degree option/track.

Suggested Capillary Fluidics Courses

Below is the list of faculty who serve as permanent advisors for thesis and project track students focusing in Capillary Fluidics.

Faculty and Research Labs

Back to Top

Controls & Mechatronics

The area of Controls covers all types of mechanical and thermal systems. Some examples include engine control systems, motion control, HVAC control, and manufacturing systems control. One of the more recent examples of a very challenging control system is the precision landing of the SpaceX rocket. Control systems are necessary in virtually every industry. Whenever anything is changing with respect to time, control systems are involved. The study of control systems involves system dynamics and modeling, control system design methods, sensors, electronic systems (both analog and digital), and implementation of the controllers using microcontrollers. The course selection includes lecture courses that cover the basic and advanced control methods (ME 552 and ME 553) and laboratory classes that apply the theory learned in the first two courses to controlling real systems (ME 554 and ME 560).

Companies in the Portland area that hire students in this field are:

• Daimler
• Tektronix
• Olympus Controls
• Boeing
• Intel
• Applied Motion Systems

Below are the suggested courses for the Controls Focus. MSME students must complete 31-40 elective credits depending on their degree option/track.

Suggested Controls Courses

Below is the list of faculty who serve as permanent advisors for thesis and project track students focusing in Controls.

Faculty and Research Labs

Back to Top

Design, Modeling & Simulation

Most of the jobs in the mechanical engineering discipline are related to product design and development. Several subject areas beyond the basic skills covered in the undergraduate program should be learned in order to be a successful product design engineer. These subject areas fall into five categories: geometric modeling, simulation, manufacturing processes, materials, and design for manufacturing. The Design, Modeling, and Simulation focus area addresses some of these topics at the advanced level. These include an advanced class on geometric modeling for product design, two classes on finite element analysis, a class on rapid prototyping, a class on geometric tolerancing, and a class on design optimization.

Below are the suggested courses for the Design, Modeling & Simulation Focus. MSME students must complete 31-40 elective credits depending on their degree option/track. MSMSE students must complete 12-20 core courses and 23-26 elective credits depending on their degree option/track.

Suggested  Design, Modeling & Simulation Courses

Below is the list of faculty who serve as permanent advisors for thesis and project track students focusing in Design, Modeling & Simulation.

Faculty and Research Labs

Back to Top

Healthy Buildings

We spend over 90% of our time inside a building. Indoor environments are expected to be engineered to be thermally comfortable, but buildings are increasingly recognized as critical environments for maintaining and improving human health. Since we spend nearly all of our time indoors, buildings offer opportunities for reducing exposures to urban air pollution. Buildings can be designed to reduce the spread of infectious diseases. Buildings can be designed to promote productivity and cognition. A further challenge is that these demands of buildings must be met in an efficient manner to reduce the carbon footprint of buildings. In the Healthy Buildings focus area, you will learn how building environmental systems are designed and operated. You will learn how to model the flows of energy in buildings using state-of-the-art modeling software.  You will learn how building design and mechanical systems impact indoor exposure to air pollution and indoor transmission of disease. Research opportunities include the study of air pollution transport in cities and buildings, development of analytical methods for measuring persistent organic pollutants indoors, and characterization of indoor air pollution source and sink phenomena.

Below are the suggested courses for the Healthy Buildings Focus. MSME students must complete 31-40 elective credits depending on their degree option/track.

Suggested Healthy Buildings Courses

Below is the list of faculty who serve as permanent advisors for thesis and project track students focusing in Healthy Buildings.

Faculty and Research Labs

Back to Top

Microscopy & Microanalysis

This Microscopy & Microanalysis research area focuses on using different microscopy and microanalysis techniques to characterize broader-based materials aimed at addressing the effects of the material defects, crystallinity, surface morphologies in relation to the material properties and device performances. Students will learn how to use TEM/EDX, SEM/EDX/EBSD, AFM, STM, XRD, and Raman Spectroscopy techniques, to carry out the related research projects.

Below are the suggested courses for the Microscopy & Microanalysis Focus. MSMSE students must complete 12-20 core courses and 23-26 elective credits depending on their degree option/track.

Suggested Microscopy & Microanalysis Courses

Below is the list of faculty who serve as permanent advisors for thesis and project track students focusing in Microscopy & Microanalysis.

Faculty and Research Labs

Back to Top

Modeling & Characterization

Heat treatment of materials, coupled thermal-stress behavior, and nonlinear forming processes. These research areas focus on the evolution of microstructures that in turn determine thermal and mechanical properties of metallic materials subjected to heat treatment procedures. Typically, these involve using modeling techniques to predict properties that are derived from an initial soaking temperature of a material, followed by different quenching rates, and in some cases followed by subsequent heating and cooling cycles. Dealing with the prediction of stresses and strains induced into a material by the action of thermal and/or mechanical loads. The success of common materials processes like forging, drawing hydrostatic pressing, and large deformation operations often require modeling tools. Plate shaping and forming and other such operations involve both geometric and materials nonlinearity. The choice or development of a representative elastic-plastic constitutive relationship is key to developing reliable predictive tools. Finite element methods for low to high strain rate forming are the go-to tool for this modeling effort.

Below are the suggested courses for the Modeling & Characterization Focus. MSMSE students must complete 12-20 core courses and 23-26 elective credits depending on their degree option/track.

Suggested Material Modeling & Characterization Courses

Below is the list of faculty who serve as permanent advisors for thesis and project track students focusing in Modeling & Characterization.

Faculty and Research Labs

Back to Top

Nanomaterials & Nanodevices

The Nanomaterials & Nanodevices focus area covers the research efforts for nanoscale materials synthesis and nanodevice fabrications, as well as their property characterizations. The specific materials include graphene, carbon nanotubes, metal oxide nanoparticles, and their related nanodevice fabrications. These nanoscale materials and nanodevices are potentially used as electron field-effect transistors, electron field emitters, nanosensors, drug delivery agents, and novel catalysts for wastewater treatments.

Below are the suggested courses for the Nanomaterials & Nanodevices Focus. MSMSE students must complete 12-20 core courses and 23-26 elective credits depending on their degree option/track.

Suggested Nanomaterials & Nanodevices Courses

Below is the list of faculty who serve as permanent advisors for thesis and project track students focusing in Nanomaterials & Nanodevices.

Faculty and Research Labs

Back to Top

Renewable Energy Systems & Environmental Fluid Mechanics

Global warming is a primary problem closely tied to fossil fuel dependence. Alternative sources of energy contribute to solving this problem especially as we understand and improve them through engineering means. These renewable energy systems (wind plants, solar farms, hydropower, geothermal) all make part of a possible positive and vibrant energy portfolio. In tandem, these systems reside in the atmosphere and are directly coupled with the environment. In this focus area, you will gain insight into how these renewable energy systems work. You will experience the cross-disciplinary nature needed to improve these renewable energy systems. You will build competency on fluid and heat transfer related to topics to evaluate these systems. Opportunities for research in the area of renewable energy and the environment can be pursued in topics including, but not limited to, increasing capacity factors through control strategies for inland and offshore wind plants, increasing energy efficiency through heat dissipation and reduced soiling for solar farms, understanding atmospheric environment under complex terrain and diurnal cycles, characterizing multi-phase flows with perspective on flow control for hydropower applications.

Below are the suggested courses for the Renewable Energy Systems & Environmental Fluid Mechanics Focus. MSME students must complete 31-40 elective credits depending on their degree option/track.

Suggested Renewable Energy Systems & Environmental Fluid Mechanics Courses

Below is the list of faculty who serve as permanent advisors for thesis and project track students focusing in Renewable Energy Systems & Environmental Fluid Mechanics.

Faculty and Research Labs

Back to Top

Robotics & Neuromechanics

Robotics

Robotics investigates how things move and how to control how they move and interact with the world. Students gain a greater understanding of solid dynamic systems and modeling techniques, as well as develop experience in controlling motors. They also gain a better understanding of sensors and sensing, electronic systems, and microcontrollers.

Companies in the Portland Area that hire students in this field are:

• Daimler
• Tektronix
• Olympus Controls
• Boeing

Below are the suggested courses for the Robotics Focus. MSME students must complete 31-40 elective credits depending on their degree option/track.

Suggested Robotics Courses

Below is the list of faculty who serve as permanent advisors for thesis and project track students focusing in Robotics.

Faculty and Research Labs

Neuromechanics

Neuromechanics investigates how the neural control systems and biomechanics of animals and people function and interact. Students gain a greater understanding of how biological systems sense the world around them and enact effective control of themselves in their environment.

Companies in the Portland Area that hire students in this field are:

• OHSU
• Micro Systems Technologies

Below are the suggested courses for the Robotics & Neuromechanics Focus. MSME students must complete 31-40 elective credits depending on their degree option/track.

Suggested Neuromechanics Courses

*MSME students can take up to eight credit hours of coursework outside of ME. Courses outside of ME must be approved by the student's advisor beforehand.

Below is the list of faculty who serve as permanent advisors for thesis and project track students focusing in Neuromechanics.

Faculty and Research Labs

Back to Top

Semiconductor Materials & Manufacturing

The Semiconductor Materials and Manufacturing focus area covers how semiconductor materials are made, how their properties are characterized, how the materials’ failures are identified and analyzed, and how the correlations between the processing conditions and the material properties are established.

Students can also earn a Graduate Certificate in Semiconductor Materials & Manufacturing. Details can be found here: Proposed Semiconductor Materials & Manufacturing Graduate Certificate.

Below are the suggested courses for the Semiconductor Materials & Manufacturing Focus. MSMSE students must complete 12-20 core courses and 23-26 elective credits depending on their degree option/track.

Suggested Semiconductor Materials & Manufacturing Courses

Below is the list of faculty who serve as permanent advisors for thesis and project track students focusing in Semiconductor Materials & Manufacturing.

Faculty and Research Labs

Back to Top