The Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering enrolls over four hundred undergraduate students and one hundred graduate students. There are twenty three full-time faculty members. The core technical areas in the department are: Design of Mechanical Systems, Dynamics & Control, Industrial Engineering & Operations Research, Materials & Manufacturing and Thermodynamics & Fluids. Faculty, students, and staff, working in these areas have an impact in three sectors of modern society: energy & environment, healthcare, and transportation & aerospace.
In energy & environment, there is emphasis in wind energy, energy conservation, and climate-change policy. Specific areas in healthcare include assistive and therapeutic technologies, analysis & design of biological systems and biomedical devices, and modeling & analysis of health care delivery systems. Work in the five core areas help advance transportation and aerospace research. The Thermodynamics & Fluids group works on advanced simulation and experimentation to solve fundamental and applied problems in turbulence, multiphase flows and Non-Newtonian fluid mechanics. Our Materials & Manufacturing and Dynamics & Control groups conduct research in high temperature materials, as well as sensing, control and condition monitoring of vehicle and manufacturing systems. Faculty in Industrial Engineering & Operations Research investigate innovative logistics, supply chain and network design concepts in transportation and aerospace. A state-of-art driving simulator facility is used to advance traffic safety research.
The department offers fully-accredited B.S. degree programs in both Mechanical Engineering (B.S.M.E.) and Industrial Engineering (B.S.I.E.) and has an honors option for qualified students. In addition, the department has Ph.D. and Master's programs in M.E. and I.E.
You can follow the links in the sidebar for more information on our department, our faculty and their research, the different degree programs we offer, as well as news and upcoming events.
Location: UMass Amherst College of Engineering
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, 220 ELAB,
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003-2210
(413) 545-2505
SMV Team Hits 817 Miles per Gallon The UMass Amherst Supermileage Vehicle Team successfully fielded two vehicles this year at the annual Society of Automotive Engineers Supermileage Vehicle competition, held at the Eaton Corporation Proving Grounds in Marshall, Michigan, on June 4th and 5th. “Our ‘old reliable’ car, the Homewrecker, finished tenth with a strong showing of 817 MPG,” reports the team’s faculty advisor, Professor David Schmidt of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department. “Though we have achieved higher mileage as a team, this was a peak for this particular car. It will now be retired.” The SMV team’s other car, the “new and lovely VV-CF1 (Vroom Vroom - Carbon Fiber 1),” was completed just before the competition and, due to lack of time, had to compete with the stock lawnmower engine donated by Briggs & Stratton. This prevented it from getting particularly high mileage (536 MPG), but the vehicle ran successfully and won the award for "Vehicle with the Greatest Visual Appeal." Read More
Fisher Chosen as New MIE Head The search committee looking for the new head of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department has chosen MIE Professor Donald Fisher to replace the departing Mario Rotea. “I am delighted to inform you that Professor Donald L. Fisher has accepted the position of Department Head in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, effective July 1, 2009,” announced Dean Mike Malone. “Dr. Fisher has a distinguished record of research, teaching, and service over more than two decades on the faculty at UMass Amherst.” As the director of the UMass Amherst Human Performance Laboratory, a facility with some of the most advanced driving simulators in the country, Dr. Fisher and his team have completed a wide variety of research projects, including studying the effects on drivers of distractions such as cell phones and text messaging. In the past year, Dr. Fisher has created a large amount of good publicity for the college by talking about his research on ABC World News and the NBC Today Show, in U.S. News & World Report, and for many other media outlets. Read More
Schmidt Presented with Teetor Award The adjacent photo pictures David Schmidt, Mechanical Engineering Department, receiving his Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award from the 90,000-member Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) at its 2009 World Congress in Detroit, Michigan. Established in 1953, this award is focused on exceptional younger engineering educators and is administered by the Teetor Educational Award Committee. The award consists of a framed certificate, a trip to a major SAE meeting, and two years of SAE membership. Professor Schmidt’s involvement in the annual SAE collegiate supermileage competition and his research related to many SAE interests, which now span the range of “mobility” engineering, including the aerospace industry, made him a perfect candidate for the Teetor Award. Read More
Wind Energy Center Assessing Site on Mount Lincoln The UMass Amherst Wind Energy Center's pre-development team has installed anemometry on the WFCR tower on Mount Lincoln in Pelham as part of a state-sponsored project to evaluate the wind resource and see if it’s feasible for UMass to install a wind turbine at that site. Depending on how favorable the resource is, UMass might install a 1.5-2 MW wind turbine that would supplement its new combined heat and power plant, making the campus even greener. The site is owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and located in the 1200-acre Cadwell Memorial Forest being managed by the Natural Resource Conservation Department. There are two communication towers on that site, one of which hosts WFCR’s transmission equipment, and a third tower located on Cowles Lumber land. The surrounding forest is a laboratory for research projects undertaken by the Natural Resource Conservation Department and others. Read More
