Design for Durability Specialty


What is a Mechanical Engineering Concentration?
Shown is an example of a large machine design project.

Mechanical Engineering is the largest engineering department at Kettering University. It is also among the top ten largest ME programs in the nation in terms of size and the number of graduates.

ME students follow a prescribed program the first five terms.Near the end of the sophomore year, ME students choose a concentration for the final four terms. The students may select a pre-defined plan, called a "specialty", or a self-defined plan, called a "cognate". These specialties are available only to ME students.

Mechanical Engineering specialties include:

  • Automotive Body & Chassis
  • Automotive Powertrain
  • Bioengineering Applications
  • Machine Design: Mechanical Systems Design
  • Machine Design: Design for Durability
  • Plastic Products Design

What are the Objectives of the Machine Design Concentration?

The airplane is a great example of a continuous machine design project.
The term design covers a wide spectrum of concepts from “designer” jeans to high temperature components in jet engines. In this concentration we are more interested in the latter concepts. Engineering Design has been defined as “The process of applying the various techniques and scientific principles for the purpose of defining a device, a process, or a system in sufficient detail to permit its realization.” This may be evaluating one of a device, process, or system consisting of interrelated components, a single component, or more traditionally, one which modifies force creation of the initial or conceptual design of a new device or modification of an existing device to meet new customer requirements or to correct an operating problem. A student may be responsible for directing the efforts of other people such as design draftspersons, stress analysts, manufacturing process engineers, assembly and test personnel, field operating personnel, and customer interfacing. They may be the analyst who is required to determine which design criteria or codes are applicable, what materials to select for the design, force analysis (statics and dynamics based!), preparation of free body diagrams so proper force/stress analysis can be performed. Analysis may involve static analysis for loads which do not vary with time, fatigue evaluations (stress-life) which must consider the effects of loads which do vary with time, or cases wherein elevated temperatures interact, creating additional material behavior considerations. Do you normalize and temper or quench and temper the alloys used in the design? Do you post-weld heat treat the component? Is the design producible and maintainable (do you have to drop the entire engine to change the oil?) Will the part meet its intended life of 30 years (250,000 hours?) Is it cost effective and affordable? You, the design engineer, working with others, will have to be able to answer these questions.

If the design fails in service (and they do), you, the design engineer, will again be faced with many questions. For example, “Why did it fail?” “How many of these do we have in the field?” “Will other comparable designs fail; and, when?” The design engineer will have to formulate plans to answer questions such as these. This will again require working with many other people, many of them non-technical. And, you will be responsible for finding the solution, the correct solution.

Design can be a frustrating occupation. At the same time, it can be very rewarding, when, the job is finished, successfully, and you have led that effort.

The machine design concentration can not train you for all aspects of design. The class work, homework, and projects will, however, provide you with a strong foundation upon which you can build your career. Courses such as machine design will provide you with the basis for thinking in terms of how parts work, the forces involved, the actions of a component (i.e., does it transmit force or motion), materials considerations in design, and cost effects of decisions. Most designs are not unique, different individuals will create different designs, all of which perform the desired functions. This program will start you down the road to where you will be able to make those decisions. Follow on courses such as Machine Design II, Capstone Project all are intended to strengthen and enhance your ability to think as a design engineer. Electives allow you to broaden your perspective such as gaining additional analysis into manufacturing processes such as welding, or enhancing analytical capabilities with courses such as finite element analysis. Life cycle considerations can be enhanced through courses such as fatigue considerations in design or failure analysis. Other required courses such as thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, etc. are important courses for the design engineer.

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