University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Faculty Experience and Expertise -
The College of Engineering at UNLV, and in particular, the Department of Mechanical Engineering has a significant number of faculty with expertise in areas of interest to UTSR. The key faculty along with their associated area of expertise are listed below:
- Dr. Darrell Pepper ...................Computational Fluid Mechanics
- Dr. Robert Boehm ...................Heat Transfer/Thermal Systems Design
- Dr. Yitung Chen .......................Computational Fluid Mechanics
- Dr. William Culbreth ...............Computational Fluid Mechanics
- Dr. Daniel Cook .......................Computational Fluid Mechanics/Materials/Manufacturing
- Dr. Douglas Reynolds ............Acoustics
- Dr. William Wells .....................Aeronautical Engineering
- Dr. Mohamed Trabia ...............Design Optimization
- Dr. Woosoon Yim ....................Active Controls/Smart Materials
- Dr. Z. Y. Wang ..........................Manufacturing
- Dr. Ajit Roy ................................Metallurgy/Fatigue/Corrosion
- Dr. Brendan O'Toole ...............Composite Materials
- Dr. Eric Sandgren ....................Design Optimization
- Dr. Sajendra Singh ..................Non-linear Controls
The above listed faculty show strength in key research focus areas and include funded work with companies including United Technologies Research Center , Pratt & Whitney, Solar Turbines and Government entities including NASA. The work covers simulation, design and optimization of gas turbine components and systems.
The college supports various research centers that have direct application. These centers include:
- Nevada Center for Advanced Computation Methods
- Center for Energy Research
- Center for Mechanical and Environmental Systems Technology
A University Level Center is:
- National Supercomputing Center for Energy and the Environment
Total energy related funding at UNLV for 2004-2005 is in excess of 25 million dollars.
A wide selection of courses is available in the aerospace/turbo machinery area. These courses include:
- Design of Thermal Systems
- Intermediate Fluid Mechanics
- Gas Dynamics
- Aerodynamics
- Engineering Thermodynamics II
- Composite Materials
- Advanced Fluid Mechanics
- Computational Fluid Mechanics
- Advanced Heat Transfer
- Advanced Thermodynamics
- Acoustics
- Vibrations
- Engineering Optimization
- Advanced Dynamics
- Application of High Performance Computing Methods
- Turbo machinery (Special Topics Course – Offered summer 2005)
Aerospace Engineering in an undergraduate option in mechanical engineering and we offer a Master Degree in Aerospace Engineering. The College has over 400 graduate students of which a major percentage are working on energy related topics. A newly instituted Air Force ROTC unit was opened within the College of Engineering in Fall 2005 which with the proximity to Nellis Air Force Base, places a strong emphasis on aerospace related research.
Facilities
The College of Engineering has access to a wide range of facilities which would support the UTSR Program. These facilities include the following:
Experimental:
- Subsonic Wind Tunnel
- Compressible Flow Bench
- Anechoic Chamber
- Large Scale Water Flume
- 2 Reverberation Chambers
- PIV Measurement System
- 2 Component LDV System
- Hot Wire Anemometer
- Pilot Tubes/Boundary Layer Probes
- Flow Meters/Flow Nozzles
Computing Hardware:
- 225 Node Beowolf Cluster with 64 bit AMD 3200+/2gigabyte RAM per node/Dual Gigabit Ethernet
- 32 Processor Silicon Graphics Onyx 3800 with Infinite Reality 3 Graphics
- SUN Fire 6800 Server
- SUN Enterprise 550 and 450 Servers
- Itanium-2 Cluster
Software:
- Solid Works
- Pro Engineer
- ANSYS
- Star CD
- Fluent
- FIDAP
Machine Shop:
- 5 Axis HAAS CNC
- 3 DOF HAAS Turning Center
- Virtual Prototyping Machine
- Metal Shop
- Wood Shop
The College has working relationships with local and national aerospace and turbo machinery companies and government facilities. These relationships include the following:
Local:
- Nellis Air Force Base
- Creech Air Force Base
- Bigelow Aerospace
- Aeroquest
- Global Aerial Surveillance
- Hasting's Chariots
National:
- NASA, Dryden
- Pratt & Whitney
- Solar Turbines
- INTEL
Construction has just begun on our 90 million dollar Science, Engineering and Technology building which is scheduled for completion in 2007. This building will add almost 200,000 square feet of additional space for the college, most of which is dedicated to the mission of research. A North Las Vegas Campus for UNLV is currently being planned and the College of Engineering will acquire significant new research space (up to 2 square miles). While it will take at least five years before any new facilities come on line, this space is largely dedicated to engineering and new experimental facilities are being considered including a full scale wind tunnel and a supersonic wind tunnel. The proposed North Las Vegas Campus is located five miles from Nellis Air Force Base.
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