A Volume Issued on the Occasion
Of the Centennial Celebration
Of the
Department of Mechanical Engineering
The University of Michigan
Edited by Charles M. Vest
Ann Arbor
The University of Michigan
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AT MICHIGAN
AN OVERVIEW
On the occasion of the Mechanical Engineering Centennial, it is appropriate to reflect on the past history and achievements of the Department, review its present state, and look forward to its future. In this chapter, R. Clay Porter outlines the history of the Department. One of our best known and most beloved faculty members, Professor Porter has for 43 years taught, consulted and conducted research in the thermal sciences with emphasis on power generation. Richard E. Sonntag reviews the present broad activities of the Department. Professor Sonntag, an active teacher and researcher in the area of thermodynamics, is coauthor with Dean Gordan J. Van Wylen of a widely used set of textbooks on this subject. Walter E. Lay broadens our perspective and insight by presenting some personal reflections on the past 100 years of mechanical engineering, particularly in the transportation industry. Now Professor Emeritus Walter Lay is 'without question one of the most distinguished men to have taught in the Department. His contributions to engineering education and to automotive engineering are indeed vast. To conclude the chapter, John Bair assesses the present strength and the future of the Department from the perspective of a student. Mr. Bair is currently an undergraduate in the Department.
THE GROWTH OF MECHANICAL
ENGINEERING AT MICHIGAN, 1868-1968
R. Clay Porter
The first official mention of mechanical engineering at the University appeared in the Regent's proceedings for December 1868. It was then that Professors DeVolson Wood and Stillman W. Robinson requested the Regents to establish a course in mechanical engineering, and to include a program description and degree requirements in the University's catalogue. On motion of Regent Sill, the request was granted. Thus began the program that within a century would be responsible for more than 8,000 of the degrees awarded at Michigan.
As a separate course, mechanical engineering did not have an entirely successful beginning. After just two years, the Regents abolished the degree of Mechanical Engineer, resolving that the course work be absorbed into an extended program in civil engineering.
Professor Wood continued to teach the orphaned ME courses, but resigned in 1872 to become Dean at Stephens Institute of Technology. It was not until nine years later, in August 1881, that Mechanical Engineering got an effective advocate here in Ann Arbor. He was Mortimer E. Cooley, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, 1878, and an Assistant Engineer in the U.S. Navy. Cooley was detailed to the University as Professor of Steam Engineering and Iron Shipbuilding, and his first assignment was to establish mechanical engineering courses within the Department of Civil Engineering. A month after he arrived his title was changed to Professor of Mechanical Engineering, which meant that after 11 years of dependence, ME was once again recognized as an independent specialty.
At the end of his first year in Ann Arbor, Cooley presented a lengthy report to the Regents, outlining the current course offerings and· projecting future courses. The active courses mentioned in this first ME report were:
WORKSHOP APPLIANCES AND PROCESSES
PATTERN MAKING
MOULDING AND FOUNDING
MECHANICAL LABORATORY
MACHINERY
MACHINE CONSTRUCTION AND DRAWING
MACHINERY AND PRIME MOVERS
MACHINE DESIGN
THERMODYNAMICS (not given that year)
ORIGINAL DESIGN
ESTIMATES
SPECIFICATIONS AND CONTRACTS
NAVAL ARCHITECTURE
The combined enrollment for all courses was 35.
The ingenious Cooley was faced by critical shortages of space and equipment for laboratory work. Undaunted, he filled the gap temporarily by taking his students into industrial plants, where they could gain experience with in-service machinery. By so doing, he also succeeded in directing the Regents' attention to the need for a laboratory, such that within months they put the sum of $2,500 at his disposal. This staggering sum was to pay for both building and equipment, of course.
Ingenuity was again demanded of Cooley, so he bought components of equipment and saved money by having the students assemble them as part of their laboratory work. His gentle "draft" technique helped him to stay within a $1,000 equipment allowance, leaving $1,500 for the building. Professor J. B. Davis of the Civil Engineering staff prepared plans, and construction of a frame; brick-sheathed laboratory unit was begun in December 1881. The laboratory was finished by the next February, in time for use during the second semester. On the first floor of this "scientific blacksmith shop" (the first engineering building at Michigan) were a foundry, a forge shop, and an engine room measuring 24 x 36 feet. On the second floor there was a pattern shop and machine shop.
In July 1883, Cooley cast his eye on the carpenter shop that had been used by the contractor in putting up the University's new library building. He asked that this shop, with all its machinery, be given over to mechanical engineering. The Regents said yes. Then Cooley proceeded to explain that his heavy teaching load hampered full use of the laboratory, and said that the remedy would be an assistant, preferably one with both a college education and a mechanic's skill. Again the Regents said yes, and set up an upper limit of $12 per week to hire the rare hybrid. A year later the ME facilities were further extended by the addition of a drill press (bought for $180) and "a room suitable for recitations and storage of models, a plank walk leading to the entrance of the laboratory, a wood planer and a sawing machine, a new pulley and countershaft, and a grinding stone."
At a meeting on 24 June, 1885, the Regents made not only local but State history by passing a resolution "that the honorary degree of Mechanical Engineer be and is hereby conferred upon Mortimer E. Cooley, Assistant Engineer, U.S. Navy." That made Cooley the only mechanical engineer in Michigan. By their act, the Regents brought honor to the Department of Mechanical Engineering, to the College of Engineering, and to engineering education for many years to come.
Cooley spent the rest of his years helping to pilot the College to international fame and as the College thrived, so did mechanical engineering. Also in 1885, the University's first degree in mechanical engineering, a BS in ME, was awarded to Frank C. Wagner. That same year, the Regents provided for the building of a brick structure that was to be used as the "New Mechanical Laboratory," and appointed Cooley to oversee the project. The brick structure was the first unit of what many alumni now remember as the "Engineering Annex," for many decades a familiar landmark of the campus, with its clock tower and bells. Completed in three years, the Annex contained offices, classrooms, drawing rooms, and laboratories for testing machines, steam engines, and such. A 100- barrel tank in the tower supplied its hydraulic machinery. The Annex stood on the site originally occupied by the "scientific blacksmith shop," and now occupied by the Undergraduate Library. It was demolished to make way for the library in 1956.
Civil Engineering was the first engineering program offered by the University (in 1852), and its first degree was conferred in 1857. But for many years, Civil Engineering was housed in buildings of the Literary School, so that the ME laboratories were the only separate engineering buildings on campus. Then, in 1891, all the engineering programs found a home of their own literally a "home." It was originally a professor's residence, but had been remodeled and enlarged for use as a Dental School Building. In 1891 it was again remodeled and enlarged for use by the engineering programs. With the word "Engineering" placed over its arched doorway, this building stood on the site now occupied by the Clements Library. It can be seen as background in engineering class pictures dating from the last years of the 19th century.
Although engineering was thus physically separated from the Literary School, the Regents did not establish a separate "Department of Engineering" for four more years, until 1895. Four men were responsible for organizing it: Charles E. Green, long a Professor of Civil Engineering; Professor Henry S. Cartright, of Electrical Engineering; President Angell; and Cooley. Green was made Dean of the Department and Cooley continued as Head of Mechanical Engineering.
Twenty years later, in 1915, the Department was-at long last officially designated as the "College of Engineering." At the same time, Mechanical Engineering was designated a Department. At the turn of the century the ME enrollment, like that of other engineering programs, was sizable and growing rapidly. Space was once again becoming inadequate and plans were underway for another new building, which was to prove longer-lived than any that had preceded it. In fact, this building is still the College's chief home, and the ME Department continues to be one of its chief occupants. This building is, of course, West Engineering. It was constructed in 1902-04 at a cost of about $250,000 including equipment. Originally (except for the naval tank on the ground floor) the four-story structure extended northward only as far as the north wall of the present center west wing. When the upper floors of the west wing were completed, the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory was moved from the Annex. In succeeding years, the ME equipment in West Engineering was greatly extended, to include steam engines, boilers, condensers, compressors, internal combustion engines, fans, pumps, refrigerators, turbines, hydraulic equipment, and such. Eventually it came to occupy two floors, a sub-basement, and a boiler room.
In 1904, after the death of Charles Green, Cooley was made Dean of the College. He served until 1928, when Herbert C. Sadler succeeded him after having given 45 years of service to the University. Cooley lived on until 1944, and with his passing at the age of 89, both the ME Department and the College lost their "grand old man." In 1904, Professor John R. Allen became Chairman of Mechanical Engineering, and Joseph A. Bursley, later the University's Dean of Students for many years, joined the Department. During Allen's administration he organized the College of Engineering at Robert College in Turkey; he left in 1917 to become Dean at the University of Minnesota.
Professor Henry C. Anderson succeeded Allen as Chairman of Mechanical Engineering and served until 1937, when he became Dean of the College following Sadler's retirement. Anderson was to have a short term as Dean, for he died in 1939, and was succeeded by Professor Ivan C. Crawford. The same year that Anderson became Dean, Professor John E. Emswiler was appointed Chairman of the ME Department, and he too was to have a short term serving for just three years until his death in 1940. In that year, Professor Ransom S. Hawley was appointed Chairman of the Department and served until his retirement in 1951.
Chairman Hawley and Dean Crawford both faced problems of insufficient funds, insufficient staff and equipment, and excessive enrollment, which at various times marked the war years and immediate post-war years. Many of the problems of worn or obsolete equipment had been accumulating for decades. Back in 1923 the East Engineering Building was completed, and the shops were moved into it from the old Engineering Annex. The vacated shop space was taken over by the Automotive Laboratory, an important ME unit that had slowly taken shape from various course offerings. To accommodate the new lab, the Annex had been enlarged by the addition of a wooden shed, and by the late 1940's it was a fire hazard, totally inadequate for instructional or research purposes. Furthermore, severe curricular problems had arisen throughout the College. These problems were due largely to explosive developments within the engineering profession during the war years; at any rate, many of the pre-war courses required revision.
Professor Edward T. Vincent succeeded Hawley as Chairman in 1951, the same year that Professor George Granger Brown became Dean of the College. During Vincent's administration, an Industrial Engineering program was added to the Department, and in 1952 the Regents changed the name accordingly, to the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. Professor Vincent requested relief from the Chairmanship in 1955, and was succeeded by Professor Wyeth Allen.
To replace the Automotive Engineering Laboratory, the State Legislature appropriated funds for a new building, which was completed on the North Campus in 1956. This was the second building on the new campus; it was equipped principally through contributions from the automotive and related industries. It provided the Department with the most modern automotive instructional and research facilities in any American university; and continues to serve as an outstanding center for research on air pollution and other topics of importance to the automotive industry.
Early in Professor Allen's term as Chairman, the Department of Metal Processing (formerly Production Engineering, and before that, the Engineering Shops) was abolished by the Regents, and its staff and functions were incorporated into the ME Department. Having absorbed one activity, the Department lost another. In 1956, Industrial Engineering became a ne, and separate department, and Professor Allen moved from ME to serve as its Chairman. Upon recommendation of Dean Stephen S. Attwood, who had succeeded Dean Brown after his untimely death in 1957, Professor Gordon Van Wylen was appointed to take the vacant ME Chair. Van Wylen was the first ME Chairman to hold a Doctor's Degree, a fact, which signaled new directions and new attitudes for the Department.
During his years as Dean, Brown had secured an appropriation for the construction of a new, all-college laboratory building on the North Campus. The first wing of this laboratory was completed in 1958, and provided greatly enlarged space for the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. This building, together with its ME Engineering facilities, was greatly enlarged once again in 1964. At that time the building was named the George Granger Brown Laboratories, although it is still popularly known as the Fluids Building. The ME Department had awarded graduate degrees for many years, but Van Wylen added new impetus to the graduate program, particularly at the Doctoral level. By adding to the staff many men who held Ph.D.'s, revising the undergraduate program, and extending research facilities, he brought the graduate program to unprecedented size and quality. Soon it led other Departments of the College in the number of Ph.D. degrees granted.
With the sad passing of Dean Attwood in 1965, Van Wylen was named Dean of the College, becoming the third ME Chairman to be so elevated. Professor Arthur G. Hansen was appointed Chairman of the Department, and resigned after a year to become Dean at Georgia Tech. In 1966, Professor John A. Clark was appointed to succeed Hansen as Chairman. By action of the Regents, the Department of Engineering Graphics was absorbed into the ME Department effective July 1968. Under Clark's leadership, the Department continues to flourish. It has 240 undergraduate students, 120 graduate students (60 of them 16 working toward the Ph.D.), and 56 full-time faculty members at the date of this writing, the Centennial Year of 1968.
THE STATE OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
AT MICHIGAN, 1968
Richard E. Sonntag
To describe the Mechanical Engineering Department today is no simple task. The profession's breadth and diversity of interest is certainly reflected in our faculty and students, our new academic programs, our research efforts, and our other activities both within and outside the University. In a rather brief descriptive article, I should perhaps concentrate on our programs and areas of current interest.
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS
Undergraduate Program
Our new, four-year undergraduate program begins this term. It is constructed within the framework of the College's 128-hour requirement for graduation, compared with the previous requirement of 138 hours. This new framework has resulted from several years of study and planning at both College and Department levels. In no sense does it represent cutting 10 credit hours from the "top" of a student's program, which we regard as probably the most important part of his studies. Instead, the entire undergraduate program has been examined in detail, from new admissions standards for freshmen (which reflect improved high-school preparation) on through the senior elective areas. The result is an overall streamlining and repackaging of course material that enables us, in a shorter time, to provide the student with a better education and a sounder preparation for entering the mechanical engineering profession of today.
With the development of entirely new fields of study and the tremendous advances in technology during the last decade alone, we are well aware that no school can turn out a polished and experienced engineer after four years of study. We do hope, however, that our new program will prepare the student for a lifetime of learning and productivity by providing him with thorough grounding in the basic tools (mathematics, English, physical and social sciences, engineering sciences and applications); with a proper exposure to the humanities; with experience in the laboratory and in design; and-perhaps most importantly- with the ability to encounter and analyze new and unfamiliar areas.
One of the most important aspects of our new curriculum is a set of sophomore-level core courses in the engineering sciences. These courses are based on and closely integrated with the student's experience in mathematics, chemistry, and physics. They must lay the groundwork for subsequent Departmental studies in engineering analysis and design, and must lead logically to the various areas of interest and specialization within the Department. The core course in materials leads to a sequence of Departmental courses in materials properties and processing; the core course in solid mechanics leads to courses in stress analysis and ultimately to design; the core course in thermodynamics leads to a series of upper-level courses in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer and design; the core course in dynamics leads to a course in the dynamics of mechanical systems and ultimately to design and automatic control; and the core course in electronics leads to a course in electro-mechanical devices.
Other aspects of the new undergraduate program that should be noted here are the increased emphasis on English, especially at the junior-senior level; the new freshman course in graphics and computers, which is a particularly important responsibility to us since the Graphics faculty has been added to our Department; the continued emphasis on laboratory experience; the consolidation of material into more closely integrated sequences; and improved coordination of subject matter. We are especially happy to be able to maintain all our former areas of required material within the framework of the new program while actually increasing the hours of electives available to the student in his junior and senior years. Many students use these elective hours to specialize in depth in one of the advanced areas of study, while many others elect courses over a broad range of interest both within and outside the Department.
Graduate Programs
The graduate programs leading to the MSE and PhD degrees have flourished in recent years, and the general trends in education will undoubtedly make them still more important in the coming years. These programs have been carefully examined and revised by our faculty during the past two years. The 30-hour program leading to the Master's degree includes two courses elected from the areas of materials, stress analysis, and dynamics; two courses elected from the areas of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer; and two courses in graduate-level mathematics. These requirements are intended to provide the student with breadth of coverage at a relatively advanced level, while still allowing him enough flexibility to specialize in greater depth in an area of particular interest to him. Students who continue for the PhD must demonstrate sufficient background and breadth of knowledge in the doctoral preliminary exam, which has been revised to consist of written and oral exams in four of the six areas mentioned above plus one elective area. After this exam, the doctoral program includes advanced course work, demonstration of proficiency in one foreign language, and the doctoral dissertation.
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
Research in the Mechanical Engineering Department today is extensive and varied, and includes experimental and analytical investigations on topics and problems at the forefront of the profession. These projects generally deal with reasonably self-contained problems of a fundamental nature, and with the problems arising from and related to engineering applications-the results of which hopefully lead to new or improved products, processes, or techniques for analysis and design. The research projects are supported by various government agencies, industry, private foundations, and by University sources. They give both graduate and undergraduate students an opportunity for employment, as well as for valuable experience in the design and construction of experiments and equipment, the use of specialized instrumentation, and the analysis of advanced problems.
On the Main Campus, the Department occupies facilities in the West Engineering and East Engineering Buildings. On the North Campus, its facilities are in the Automotive Engineering and Fluids Engineering Laboratories. Most of its 14 laboratories are located in these two North Campus buildings. Many of those laboratories serve a dual purpose, being utilized not only as teaching laboratories at both undergraduate and graduate levels but also as research facilities. The nature and scope of the research efforts in these laboratories cannot be described here in detail, but a brief description of the types of problems studied recently and currently in progress should indicate the variety of activities and interests within the Department.
Automotive Engineering and Combustion
In the Automotive Engineering and Combustion Laboratories, extensive research has been conducted for many years on fundamental problems related to industry. This research is particularly relevant today in view of increased public emphasis on problems related to vehicle and highway safety and to air pollution. Examples of this research include studies of basic combustion phenomena, wall-quenching, the relation of carburetor metering to exhaust emission, computer simulation of carburetor How, the effect of mixture motion on combustion, combustion phenomena in supercharged engines, tire mechanics, vehicle reliability, vehicle brake stability, and road-tire interface conditions. Several of these and other projects are being conducted in con junction with the University's recently established Highway Safety Research Institute.
Mechanical Design and Automatic Control
The general areas of design and automatic control include the Department's Automatic Control, Computer-Aided Design, Mechanical Analysis, and Mechanical Design Laboratories. In addition to teaching responsibilities in the areas of automatic control, instrumentation, dynamics, mechanical analysis and design, considerable research efforts are in progress in such fields as the reliability of mechanical components, basic research in biomechanics, development of orthopedic and prosthetic devices (in conjunction with researchers from the University's Medical School). There is a great emphasis on the areas of digital, analog, and hybrid computers, dealing with methodology and programs for simulating mechanical systems, including the use of graphic display.
Materials and Processing
Research in the Materials Processing Laboratory deals with problems and phenomena involved in various types of machining, in numerical control, plastic deformation, and welding. In the Rheology and Fracture Laboratory, a number of studies are currently in progress concerning the basic properties and behavior of solids, including yielding, strain-hardening, strain-aging, fatigue, sliding friction, and solid interface behavior.
Thermal-Fluid Sciences
Research in the Thermal-Fluid Sciences has been conducted for a number of years on a wide variety of subjects, and includes work in six Department laboratories. Problems dealing with cavitation in liquid metal flow, multi-phase flow phenomena, and acoustics are being studied in the new Cavitation and Multi-phase Flow Laboratory. Current research in the Fluid Dynamics Laboratory is concerned with rarified gas flow, low-density transport properties, and unsteady and separated flows. Many investigations have been conducted in the Heat Transfer Laboratory, examples of which include the effects of high and low gravity on heat transfer, boiling phenomena, oscillating flows, problems. Related to thermal design of nuclear reactors, transient pressurization of, cryogenic vessels, thermal stresses, radiation, and stationary and oscillatory stability. Studies involving rheological properties of lubricants and fluid film thickness by optical interference techniques are presently being conducted in the Lubrication Laboratory. In the Power and Fluids Laboratory, current researches deals with viscous flow in ducts and blade passages, and with problems related to jet pump performance and switching characteristics of fluid amplifiers. Research on cryogenic phenomena, thermodynamic properties, thermal diffusion, and direct energy conversion is conducted in the Thermodynamics Laboratory. These areas of research represent topics studied in the Department during very recent years and currently in progress; they are continually changing as new areas of technology develop. Their listing here is merely representative of current Departmental interest and activity.
Many aspects of the Department have not been discussed here-the growth of facilities and changes in them (half of the 14 laboratories mentioned above are less than five years old!); the Department's overall growth and various directions of growth; counseling, consulting, and professional activities of the faculty; our philosophy of education; our interest in continuing education for engineers; the future of the Department; and many others. These subjects will be of great interest to many of our alumni, and we hope that you will join us during the Department's Centennial Celebration this month to become better acquainted with the Department as it is today.
