Paper Authors

Abstract

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

Session 3226

Investigation of Shear as a Failure Mode in Anisotropic Materials

Scott R. Short Northern Illinois University

Abstract There is an immediate need in industry for engineers conversant in the fundamental principles of material behavior. This type of knowledge may best be imparted to the undergraduate student by direct, hands-on laboratory experience. Another way to enrich the undergraduate engineering laboratory experience is to introduce the student to current research. When undergraduate engineers are exposed to current research they begin to understand that their undergraduate learning experiences are merely building blocks upon which much more in-depth learning is based. Exposure to actual research projects in the undergraduate curriculum also serves to enhance the students’ curiosity about how their undergraduate course subject matter can be used to solve other than “textbook” problems. This article describes how the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Northern Illinois University is bringing current research into the undergraduate laboratory to enhance its curriculum.

Introduction Three required courses (MEE 212- Strength of Materials, MEE 330- Materials Science, and MEE 331 - Manufacturing Processes) form the core of the materials-related emphasis of the curriculum of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Northern Illinois University. These courses are offered each semester and average 30 students per semester. Until recently, none of these courses included a laboratory in which students could gain direct, hands-on experience into the behavior of materials. The lack of an undergraduate laboratory specifically focused on introducing the undergraduate mechanical engineering student to the world of materials was viewed as a weakness in our curriculum by the author. Moreover, in the opinion of industry, there is an immediate need for engineers conversant in the fundamental principles of material behavior best reinforced by direct, hands-on laboratory experience. Finally, the National Research Council has stated that materials are strategic to the global competitiveness of the United Statesl.

To address the above inadequacy in our curriculum, the author proposed and was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement (ILI) Grant to establish the first engineering materials laboratory for the College of Engineering at Northern Illinois University. The laboratory was equipped with several pieces of materials processing and testing equipment purchased with finding from both the NSF and the State of Illinois. A corequisite laboratory section has been added to our MEE 330- Materials Science course. In order to take the materials science course, students are required to have had, or currently be enrolled in our MEE 212 - Strength-of-Materials course. When enrolled in the materials science course, students are therefore adequately prepared to understand and conduct a wide range of experiments and demonstrations involving both strength-of-materials and materials-science principles.

?@xti; 1996 ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings ‘..+,ElllaJ

• Citation

• Format
  • APA
  • APA - LaTeX bibitem
  • MLA
  • MLA - LaTeX bibitem
  • Bibtex
  • EndNote - RIS

Short, S. R. (1996, June), Investigation Of Shear As A Failure Mode In Anisotropic Materials Paper presented at 1996 Annual Conference, Washington, District of Columbia. 10.18260/1-2--6152