Research Areas

Research within the department can be categorized under the following areas of focus:

• Aerospace
• Bioengineering
• Design
• Dynamic Systems, Controls, and Robotics
• Energy Systems and Air Quality
• Fluid Mechanics
• Materials
• Structural Dynamics and Acoustics
• Thermal Transport

Learn about current research projects happening with professors in the department.

Aerospace

Aerospace engineering focuses on flight systems such as aircraft and spacecraft. Applications also include other "flight" systems such as underwater vehicles, wind turbines, and high performance automobiles. Research in the department includes both computational and experimental research across various applications including aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, turbomachinery, satellites, airports, and wind turbines.

Bioengineering/Biomechanics

Biomechanics is the application of mechanics to biology and has origins dating back to Aristotle. Biomechanics seeks to understand the mechanics of living systems, from molecules to organisms. Biomechanical engineering is the practical implementation of this understanding, and embodies the attempts of humans to design and develop mechanical devices that mimic, measure, improve, repair, or replace the function of living systems.

Design

Engineering design affects everyday life - everything around us has been designed. Design involves the systematic interplay between creation and validation with the intent to bring useful parts, products, or systems, to the marketplace. Researchers in engineering design develop theories, methodologies, and tools that improve the design process and bring new capabilities to the hands of the mechanical designer. This includes computer aided engineering, systems design, product development, numerical and optimization methods, and the integration of engineering with other disciplines.

Dynamic Systems, Controls, and Robotics

Many modern engineering systems, including robots, biomedical devices, vehicles, sensors, and machinery are comprised of interconnected dynamic elements. The ability to design, model, and control such systems is essential in modern engineering. Current areas of focus related to dynamic systems and controls at BYU include unmanned air vehicles (UAVs), microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), active noise control, haptic interfaces, and robotics.

Energy Systems and Air Quality

The dual specters of global warming and political instability in oil exporting countries have made the development of sustainable energy systems a national priority. Research in the department spans various aspects of energy engineering and includes collaborations with other departments, industry, and national labs.

Fluid Mechanics and Thermal Transport

Fluid mechanics deals with the study of liquids and gases at rest or in motion. Research in fluid mechanics focuses on understanding how fluids move and interact with their surroundings over the range of length scales from the nano-scale to the global scale. Fluid mechanics research encompasses many complicated dynamic systems which are solved through a combination of experiments and direct observation, analytical methods, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Research topics at BYU are broad and include areas such as: biological flows, micro- and nano-fluidic systems, flow physics in turbomachines, turbulence, fluid-structure interactions, atmospheric and oceanic flow dynamics, aircraft aerodynamics, and reacting flows.

Materials

Progress in materials science is at the heart of most exciting advances in modern engineering. Materials science consists in exploring the relationships between structure, properties and processing operations that define a material. The engineering materials group develops novel processing techniques to prepare advanced materials. We use cutting edge microscopy to determine material structure at the nano-scale. Then, we employ mathematical tools to characterize the structure and properties of the material, and we design even better ones.

Structural Dynamics and Acoustics

Acoustics research at BYU is strongly cross-disciplinary in character and focuses on the following areas: active noise and vibration control, sound-structure interaction, nonlinear acoustics, audio acoustics and architectural acoustics. The research in acoustics is both experimental and computational in nature and includes simulation and measurement of physical systems, as well as signal processing. Structural dynamics research focuses on modeling and experimental methods to ensure that structures such as aircraft and launch vehicles can survive the dynamic loads that they experience during operation.

Thermal Transport

Thermodynamics and Heat and Mass Transfer play a critical role in the design and optimization of energy conversion systems at all length scales (nano-, micro- and meso-scales). At BYU, we investigate methods to enhance and/or control transport of heat and mass to achieve efficient thermal management, chemical reactions and energy systems. Efforts include experimental and analytical approaches and address a host of applications (combustion, aerospace, biosensors, energy harvesting, etc.).