Online courses directory (182)

This course provides intensive coverage of the theory and practice of electromechanical instrument design with application to biomedical devices. Students will work with MGH doctors to develop new medical products from concept to prototype development and testing. Lectures will present techniques for designing electronic circuits as part of complete sensor systems. Topics covered include: basic electronics circuits, principles of accuracy, op amp circuits, analog signal conditioning, power supplies, microprocessors, wireless communications, sensors, and sensor interface circuits. Labs will cover practical printed circuit board (PCB) design including component selection, PCB layout, assembly, and planning and budgeting for large projects. Problem sets and labs in the first six weeks are in support of the project. Major team-based design, build, and test project in the last six weeks. Student teams will be composed of both electrical engineering and mechanical engineering students.

2.26 is a 6-unit Honors-level subject serving as the Mechanical Engineering department's sole course in compressible fluid dynamics. The prerequisites for this course are undergraduate courses in thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, and heat transfer.

The goal of this course is to lay out the fundamental concepts and results for the compressible flow of gases. Topics to be covered include: appropriate conservation laws; propagation of disturbances; isentropic flows; normal shock wave relations, oblique shock waves, weak and strong shocks, and shock wave structure; compressible flows in ducts with area changes, friction, or heat addition; heat transfer to high speed flows; unsteady compressible flows, Riemann invariants, and piston and shock tube problems; steady 2D supersonic flow, Prandtl-Meyer function; and self-similar compressible flows. The emphasis will be on physical understanding of the phenomena and basic analytical techniques.

This course focuses on the interaction of chemical engineering, biochemistry, and microbiology. Mathematical representations of microbial systems are featured among lecture topics. Kinetics of growth, death, and metabolism are also covered. Continuous fermentation, agitation, mass transfer, and scale-up in fermentation systems, and enzyme technology round out the subject material.

In this course problems from biological engineering are used to develop structured computer programming skills and explore the theory and practice of complex systems design and construction.

The official course Web site can be viewed at: BE.180 Biological Engineering Programming.

Topics in surface modeling: b-splines, non-uniform rational b-splines, physically based deformable surfaces, sweeps and generalized cylinders, offsets, blending and filleting surfaces. Non-linear solvers and intersection problems. Solid modeling: constructive solid geometry, boundary representation, non-manifold and mixed-dimension boundary representation models, octrees. Robustness of geometric computations. Interval methods. Finite and boundary element discretization methods for continuum mechanics problems. Scientific visualization. Variational geometry. Tolerances. Inspection methods. Feature representation and recognition. Shape interrogation for design, analysis, and manufacturing. Involves analytical and programming assignments.

This course was originally offered in Course 13 (Department of Ocean Engineering) as 13.472J. In 2005, ocean engineering subjects became part of Course 2 (Department of Mechanical Engineering), and this course was renumbered 2.158J.

This course examines wave equations for fluid and visco-elastic media, wave-theory formulations of acoustic source radiation and seismo-acoustic propagation in stratified ocean waveguides, and Wavenumber Integration and Normal Mode methods for propagation in plane-stratified media. Also covered are Seismo-Acoustic modeling of seabeds and ice covers, seismic interface and surface waves in a stratified seabed, Parabolic Equation and Coupled Mode approaches to propagation in range-dependent ocean waveguides, numerical modeling of target scattering and reverberation clutter in ocean waveguides, and ocean ambient noise modeling. Students develop propagation models using all the numerical approaches relevant to state-of-the-art acoustic research.

This course was originally offered in Course 13 (Department of Ocean Engineering) as 13.853. In 2005, ocean engineering subjects became part of Course 2 (Department of Mechanical Engineering), and this course was renumbered 2.068.

This course explores statistical modeling and control in manufacturing processes. Topics include the use of experimental design and response surface modeling to understand manufacturing process physics, as well as defect and parametric yield modeling and optimization. Various forms of process control, including statistical process control, run by run and adaptive control, and real-time feedback control, are covered. Application contexts include semiconductor manufacturing, conventional metal and polymer processing, and emerging micro-nano manufacturing processes.

Water supply is a problem of worldwide concern: more than 1 billion people do not have reliable access to clean drinking water. Water is a particular problem for the developing world, but scarcity also impacts industrial societies. Water purification and desalination technology can be used to convert brackish ground water or seawater into drinking water. The challenge is to do so sustainably, with minimum cost and energy consumption, and with appropriately accessible technologies.

This subject will survey the state-of-the-art in water purification by desalination and filtration. Fundamental thermodynamic and transport processes which govern the creation of fresh water from seawater and brackish ground water will be developed. The technologies of existing desalination systems will be discussed, and factors which limit the performance or the affordability of these systems will be highlighted. Energy efficiency will be a focus. Nanofiltration and emerging technologies for desalination will be considered. A student project in desalination will involve designing a well-water purification system for a village in Haiti.

Welcome to 2.007! This course is a first subject in engineering design. With your help, this course will be a great learning experience exposing you to interesting material, challenging you to think deeply, and providing skills useful in professional practice. A major element of the course is design of a robot to participate in a challenge that changes from year to year. This year, the theme is cleaning up the planet as inspired by the movie Wall-E.

From its beginnings in 1970, the 2.007 final project competition has grown into an Olympics of engineering.  See this MIT News story for more background, a photo gallery, and videos about this course.

This course introduces you to modern manufacturing with four areas of emphasis: manufacturing processes, equipment/control, systems, and design for manufacturing. The course exposes you to integration of engineering and management disciplines for determining manufacturing rate, cost, quality and flexibility. Topics include process physics, equipment design and automation/control, quality, design for manufacturing, industrial management, and systems design and operation. Labs are integral parts of the course, and expose you to various manufacturing disciplines and practices.

This course covers the design, construction, and testing of field robotic systems, through team projects with each student responsible for a specific subsystem. Projects focus on electronics, instrumentation, and machine elements. Design for operation in uncertain conditions is a focus point, with ocean waves and marine structures as a central theme. Topics include basic statistics, linear systems, Fourier transforms, random processes, spectra, ethics in engineering practice, and extreme events with applications in design.

This design course targets the solution of clinical problems by use of implants and other medical devices. Topics include the systematic use of cell-matrix control volumes; the role of stress analysis in the design process; anatomic fit, shape and size of implants; selection of biomaterials; instrumentation for surgical implantation procedures; preclinical testing for safety and efficacy, including risk/benefit ratio assessment evaluation of clinical performance and design of clinical trials. Student project materials are drawn from orthopedic devices, soft tissue implants, artificial organs, and dental implants.

This course covers the complete cycle of designing an ocean system using computational design tools for the conceptual and preliminary design stages. Students complete the projects in teams with each student responsible for a specific subsystem. Lectures cover such topics as hydrodynamics; structures; power and thermal aspects of ocean vehicles; environment, materials, and construction for ocean use; and generation and evaluation of design alternatives. The course focuses on innovative design concepts chosen from high-speed ships, submersibles, autonomous vehicles, and floating and submerged deep-water offshore platforms. Lectures on ethics in engineering practice are included, and instruction and practice in oral and written communication is provided.

The course covers the basic techniques for evaluating the maximum forces and loads over the life of a marine structure or vehicle, so as to be able to design its basic configuration. Loads and motions of small and large structures and their short-term and long-term statistics are studied in detail and many applications are presented in class and studied in homework and laboratory sessions. Issues related to seakeeping of ships are studied in detail. The basic equations and issues of maneuvering are introduced at the end of the course. Three laboratory sessions demonstrate the phenomena studied and provide experience with experimental methods and data processing.

This course was originally offered in Course 13 (Ocean Engineering) as 13.42.

This class is jointly sponsored by the MIT Museum, Massachusetts Bay Maritime Artisans, the Department of Mechanical Engineering's Center for Ocean Engineering, and the Department of Architecture. The course teaches the fundamental steps in traditional boat design and demonstrates connections between craft and modern methods. Instructors provide vessel design orientation and then students carve their own shape ideas in the form of a wooden half-hull model. Experts teach the traditional skills of visualizing and carving your model in this phase of the class. After the models are completed, a practicing naval architect guides students in translating shape from models into a lines plan. The final phase of the class is a comparative analysis of the designs generated by the group.

This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

This course introduces principles and technologies for converting heat into electricity via solid-state devices. The first part of the course discusses thermoelectric energy conversion and thermoelectric materials, thermionic energy conversion, and photovoltaics. The second part of the course discusses solar thermal technologies. Various solar heat collection systems will be reviewed, followed by an introduction to the principles of solar thermophotovoltaics and solar thermoelectrics. Spectral control techniques, which are critical for solar thermal systems, will be discussed.

This course reviews momentum and energy principles, and then covers the following topics: Hamilton's principle and Lagrange's equations; three-dimensional kinematics and dynamics of rigid bodies; steady motions and small deviations therefrom, gyroscopic effects, and causes of instability; free and forced vibrations of lumped-parameter and continuous systems; nonlinear oscillations and the phase plane; nonholonomic systems; and an introduction to wave propagation in continuous systems.

This course was originally developed by Professor T. Akylas.

This class is an introduction to the dynamics and vibrations of lumped-parameter models of mechanical systems. Topics include kinematics; force-momentum formulation for systems of particles and rigid bodies in planar motion; work-energy concepts; virtual displacements and virtual work; Lagrange's equations for systems of particles and rigid bodies in planar motion; linearization of equations of motion; linear stability analysis of mechanical systems; free and forced vibration of linear multi-degree of freedom models of mechanical systems; and matrix eigenvalue problems. The class includes an introduction to numerical methods and using MATLAB® to solve dynamics and vibrations problems.

This version of the class stresses kinematics and builds around a strict but powerful approach to kinematic formulation which is different from the approach presented in Spring 2007. Our notation was adapted from that of Professor Kane of Stanford University.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Create lumped parameter models (expressed as ODEs) of simple dynamic systems in the electrical and mechanical energy domains
• Make quantitative estimates of model parameters from experimental measurements
• Obtain the time-domain response of linear systems to initial conditions and/or common forcing functions (specifically; impulse, step and ramp input) by both analytical and computational methods
• Obtain the frequency-domain response of linear systems to sinusoidal inputs
• Compensate the transient response of dynamic systems using feedback techniques
• Design, implement and test an active control system to achieve a desired performance measure

Mastery of these topics will be assessed via homework, quizzes/exams, and lab assignments.

This half-semester course studies the economics of the principal markets related to marine transportation, environment, and natural resources. Topics include structures of the markets and industries involved; competition; impacts of policies and regulations. The course analyzes the relationship among industries, markets, technologies, and national policies, and introduces the concepts of national income accounts, sustainability, and intergenerational equity and their relationship to current economic practice.