Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: CURRENT TOPICS IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Department: Mechanical Engineering

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Designed for senior and graduate level students. Lectures in areas of current interest in mechanical engineering. Topics may vary from term to term. Fall 2019, Section 003: This course focuses on numerical techniques for solving partial differential equations (PDEs) including the full incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Several spatial-temporal discretization methods will be taught, primarily the finite difference method, but also moderate exposure to the finite volume method, and light exposure to the finite element method. Explicit and implicit approaches, in addition to methods to solve linear equations are employed to study fluid flows. A review of various finite difference methods which will be used to analyze elliptic, hyperbolic, and parabolic partial differential equations and the concepts of stability, consistency and convergence are taught to familiarize the students with general numerical PDE methods. Commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software used in the field will be briefly introduced. Repeatable for Credit.