Mechanical Engineering. — The Department of Mechanical Engineering absorbed Production Engineering (previously Metal Processing) in 1956 and Engineering Graphics in 1968. Research and the Ph.D. program expanded rapidly when the Automotive and Fluids Laboratories were built on North Campus. Research has been in four major areas. Automotive Engineering and combustion research is concerned primarily with air pollution. Mechanical systems research is in dynamic analysis, computers, and biomechanics, and in the development of orthetic and prosthetic devices. Materials and processing research is in machinery, numerical control, plastic deformation and welding, as well as with the basic properties and behavior of solids. Thermal-fluids sciences research is in the areas such as cavitation and multiphase flow, heat transfer, fluid dynamics, and thermodynamics. The 17 departmental laboratories integrate research with instruction, and new graduate sequences have been developed in all areas.
The University of Michigan, an Encyclopedic Survey Supplement, Page 134.
