News & Events

06-01-16

Mechanical Engineering student Tyler Okamoto, mentored by Professor Sergio Pellegrino, is a recipient of the 2016 Henry Ford II Scholar Award. He is working with Professor Pellegrino’s team to build an autonomous reconfigurable space telescope using multiple nanosatellites that align in space to create a camera and mirror assembly. The Henry Ford II Scholar Award is funded under an endowment provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund. The award is made annually to engineering students with the best academic record at the end of the third year of undergraduate study.

Tags: honors GALCIT MCE Henry Ford II Scholar Award Sergio Pellegrino Tyler Okamoto

05-11-16

Christopher E. Brennen, Richard L. and Dorothy M. Hayman Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Emeritus, has written a new book, Thermo-Hydraulics of Nuclear Reactors, that provides a concise and up-to-date summary of the essential thermo-hydraulic analyses and design principles of nuclear reactors for electricity generation. [Learn more]

Tags: MCE Christopher Brennen research highlight

05-03-16

Ares J. Rosakis, Theodore von Karman Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). His research interests span a wide spectrum of length and time scales and range from the mechanics of earthquake seismology, to the physical processes involved in the catastrophic failure of aerospace materials, to the reliability of micro-electronic and opto-electronic structures and devices. The National Academy of Sciences is a private organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare.[Caltech story] [List of NAS members]

Tags: honors GALCIT MCE Ares Rosakis NAS

04-20-16

Caltech Library hosted its first Three Minute Thesis 3MT® competition on April 15, 2016. Applied Mechanics graduate student Utkarsh Mital, advised by Professor José E. Andrade, won the People’s Choice award and placed second in the competition for his three minute presentation on, “Understanding Fundamentals of Soil Liquefaction: A necessary step to make our cities resilient to liquefaction .” Kristin Antelman, Caltech University Librarian said: “communicating research to a general audience is now a key skill for researchers at all stages in their careers … We are thoroughly impressed by the quality of the submissions received which speaks to a vibrant research community here at Caltech.” [Caltech Library story] [Springer Nature release]

Tags: honors MCE Jose Andrade Utkarsh Mital Kristin Antelman

03-25-16

Julia R. Greer, Professor of Materials Science and Mechanics, has been chosen as a 2016 class of National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow. The program awards grants to outstanding scientists and engineers at U.S. universities to conduct long-term, unclassified, basic research of strategic importance to the Defense Department. Professor Greer will conduct research in the area of Nano-architected Meta-materials. 

Tags: APhMS honors MedE MCE Julia Greer

03-22-16

Ares Rosakis, Theodore von Karman Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, will receive the Theodore von Kármán Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers. The medal recognizes distinguished achievement in engineering mechanics. Professor Rosakis is being honored for "discovering several fundamental physical phenomena in dynamic fracture of heterogeneous materials and interfaces at various length and time scales.” [Caltech story]

Tags: honors GALCIT MCE Ares Rosakis

03-08-16

The students in this year's Mechanical Engineering 72 (ME72) class, a two-term engineering design lab for mechanical engineering majors, designed, built, and operated, under manual and/or autonomous control, robotic vehicles that could compete and withstand the physical rigors of a robot soccer matches played within a 24-ft x 48-ft arena in the Brown Gym. The 2016 winning team was “Blitzkrieg Bots.” [KPCC coverage]

Tags: MCE ME 72

03-04-16

The Caltech team, Trigger Cats, has won the 2015/2016 International Thales Arduino Competition. They designed and developed a modular stabilization system which uses a gyroscope and an accelerometer to keep a load steady after sudden perturbations. Potential applications range from preventing military vehicles from flipping due to blasts to anti-seasickness chairs on cruise ships. The team comprised of undergraduate students: Aritra Biswas, Frederick Berl, Carlos Gonzalez, Cormac R. ONeill, and Yongkyun (Daniel) Lee. Teams from universities across the United Kingdom and the United States competed on the Project Arduino challenge which used an Arduino kit. The teams were asked to build and film the progress of a project that tied into the Thales business areas – Aerospace, Space, Transportation, Defense and Security. [Tigger Cats Video]

Tags: honors MCE Aritra Biswas Frederick Berl Carlos Gonzalez Cormac ONeill Yongkyun Lee

02-12-16

The students in the CS/EE/ME 75 class, Introduction to Multidisciplinary Systems Engineering, invited industry experts to their midterm design review on the evening of February 11, 2016. The students are currently in the manufacturing phase and plan to finish the vehicle frame this week and attach the mounting brackets shortly thereafter. They aim to have a running prototype electrical vehicle by mid-March to get early testing data before refining their design for the upcoming Formula SAE competition. The course is co-taught by Professors Guillaume Blanquart, Azita Emami, and Richard Murray as well as the Executive Director for the Resnick Institute, Neil Fromer. Several students in the course are also members of the Caltech Sustainable Vehicle Club led by undergraduate student Robert Anderson. [Huffpost Education Blog]

Tags: EE energy MCE CMS Guillaume Blanquart Richard Murray Rob Anderson Azita Emami Neil Fromer

02-08-16

Researchers in the lab of Julia R. Greer, Professor of Materials Science and Mechanics, have recently found that diatom shells have the highest specific strength—the strength at which a structure breaks with respect to its density—of any known biological material, including bone, antlers, and teeth. [Caltech story]

Tags: APhMS research highlights MedE MCE Julia Greer