Greater Insight into Earthquake Cycles
05-10-12
Nadia Lapusta, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Geophysics, and colleagues have developed the first computer model of an earthquake-producing fault segment that reproduces, in a single physical framework, the available observations of both the fault's seismic (fast) and aseismic (slow) behavior. "Earthquake science is on the verge of building models that are based on the actual response of the rock materials as measured in the lab—models that can be tailored to reproduce a broad range of available observations for a given region," says Lapusta. "This implies we are getting closer to understanding the physical laws that govern how earthquakes nucleate, propagate, and arrest." [Caltech Press Release]
Tags:
research highlights
MCE
Nadia Lapusta
Building Infrastructure to Handle Growing Populations
04-25-12
Mechanical Engineering undergraduate student, Eric Chang, has been named a Watson Fellow. The fellowship enables graduating seniors to spend a year traveling around the world, exploring and learning about topics of their choice. Chang will spend about three months each in Taiwan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Hyderabad, India. In Asia, more and more people are moving from rural areas to the cities, and these cities must be able to build the infrastructure to handle the new population. "I wanted to see how these problems are being approached in these countries," he says. "These issues are going to have a large impact on the world." [Caltech Feature]
More »
Tags:
honors
research highlights
MCE
Eric Chang
Robots Take Over Millikan Pond
03-09-12
Robots designed and built by undergraduate students battled in head-to-head competition, in this year's ME 72 Engineering Design Contest which was dubbed "The Conquest of Millikan Islands." Teams had to design and build robots to retrieve 11 ping-pong balls from dispensers on the footbridge and then use a second aquatic robot to put those balls into small "islands" distributed around the pond. Finally, after an afternoon of many fierce rounds, team Robotics Anonymous emerged victorious. [Caltech Feature] [ABC7 News Video]
Tags:
MCE
ME 72
"Hydrodynamics of Pumps" is Now in Japanese, Farsi, and Chinese Translation
01-09-12
Hydrodynamics of Pumps, a book written by Christopher E. Brennen, Richard L. and Dorothy M. Hayman Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Emeritus, which was originally published in 1994 by Oxford University Press and Concepts ETI has now been published in Japanese, Farsi, and Chinese translations. Professor Tsujimoto composed the Japanese translation which was published by Osaka University Press. Most recently Cambridge University Press concluded an agreement with Jiangsu University Press for the publication (in both hardback and paperback) of the translation by Dr. Pan Zhongyong of Jiangsu University.
Tags:
MCE
Christopher Brennen
