Short Programs

ADVANCED MECHANICAL DESIGN FOR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND MANUFACTURING TOOLS/TECHNOLOGY

Date: TBD | Tuition: TBD | Continuing Education Units (CEUs): TBD
*This course has limited enrollment. Apply early to guarantee your spot.
Application Deadline »

Introduction  |  Why Take This Course  |  Who Should Attend  |  Learning Objectives  | 
Prerequisite Skills/Knowledge  |  Schedule  |  About the Instructor  |  Location  |  Links & Resources  |  Updates

Introduction

This course features intensive coverage of advanced mechanical design/mechanism theory, modeling, design, manufacturing, and fabrication practices. Emphasis is placed on understanding principles and fundamentals and how they are applied to current, emerging and next generation applications, and prior art. Practical applications from various industries are discussed, for example:

• Optics (X-rays and micro-scale)
• Biomedical instruments
• Consumer products
• Automotive
• Aerospace
• Nanopositioners
• Machine tools
• Instruments
• MEMS
• Biomimetics
• Robotics

Why take this course

The successful development of technologies/products requires knowledge of mechanical design principles, their application, and new technology emerging from research efforts. This course provides an overview of the fundamentals of mechanical design.

The purpose of this short course is to provide participants with the proper perspective, proven design approaches, modeling tools, and the practical knowledge which will enable them to:

• Assess the suitability of designs concepts for specific applications.
• Choose an appropriate design approach.
• Understand the types of available modeling approaches and complementary design/analysis tools.
• Understand the practical issues which are important to address during integration and implementation.
• Obtain hands-on experience to cement understanding of theory and principles.

Upon completion, participants will possess the basic knowledge and skills required to conceptualize, model, fabricate, and integrate key mechanical designs into practical products, equipment, and instrumentation.

Who Should Attend

Technical professionals (engineers, scientists, manufacturers, machine designers, product designers, instrumentation engineers, etc.) who either have little experience with advanced mechanical design or some expertise in disparate areas of mechanical design and wish to gain a more holistic understanding. This course is also designed to help marketing/purchasing personnel make decisions, provided that they would feel comfortable with the following basic topics after a brief review:

- Trigonometry (sine, cosine, etc.)
- Linear elastic stress-strain
- Free body diagrams
- Vector addition

Learning Objectives

1. Understand the basic principles and concepts of Mechanical Design.
2. Define the physics that govern behavior.
3. Examine the suitability of mechanical devices/products for specific applications.
4. Understand the various quantitative and qualitative approaches to synthesis and modeling of compliant mechanisms.
5. Understand the metrics that are used to determine/set desired performance.
6. Understand the physics that govern the behavior of compliant mechanisms.
7. Identify the practical issues that are important to address during integration and implementation.

Prerequisite skills/knowledge

Professor Culpepper can point participants to appropriate sources that provide short reviews of the required prerequisite materials.

Participants who have an undergraduate degree in engineering or a technical field (e.g. physics, material science, etc.) will generally have the appropriate background knowledge. Participants are assumed to have a technical undergraduate degree in which the following have been covered at an undergraduate level:

• Mechanics (free body diagrams, dynamics, natural frequency)
• Trigonometry (basic trigonometric relationships, sine, cosine, etc.)
• Materials (relationships between stress and strain)

The course materials will include brief technical reviews of the relevant components of these subjects.

Course schedule and registration times

Class runs for the times listed below. Morning breaks are 10:00-10:15, lunch is noon-1:00, and afternoon breaks are 3:00-3:15.

Monday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm: Introduction and fundamental principles

Tuesday, 8:30 am-5:00 pm: Basic machine elements/layouts and modeling

Wednesday, 8:30 am-5:00 pm: System modeling and laboratory exercises

Thursday, 8:30 am-5:00 pm: System modeling and laboratory exercises

Friday, 8:30 am-2:30 pm: Flexure elements, advanced manufacturing examples, wrap up

Note: Laptops are encouraged for this course.

Participants' Comments

development engineer, smith & nephew
"Precision machine design principles are highly applicable, but not widely applied in industry. This course gave me a solid foundation to start improving some of our products and processes. The course was especially valuable to me because the practical examples and hands-on work provided a chance to discover cracks in my understanding of the material and patch them up while still in class."

development engineer, PFE medical/aston university
"Each theoretical example was related to a real life application, and experiment/activity to accompany it. This all occurred in a very coherent way that made the course as transferable to engineering practice as it was."

participant
"The course focused on areas that cannot be found in books or undergraduate course. It supplements the knowledge we gain from experience, books and undergraduate course. It connects the dots. The theories and principles are explained well with practical applications and group design project for as to apply immediately what we learned."

About the Instructor

Martin Culpepper
Professor Culpepper is Director of the MIT Precision Compliant Systems Laboratory. His areas of expertise include mechanical design, precision machine design, instrumentation/equipment design, nanomanufacturing, micromanufacturing, and manufacturing at the meso-scale.

Professor Culpepper was honored at the White House in 2005--click here to read the article.

Location

This course takes place on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We can also offer this course for groups of employees at your location. Please complete the Custom Programs request form for further details.

Links & Resources

Video/Audio:

• YouTube: Lathe Demo

News/Audio:

• A manufacturing renaissance for America? - At an MIT forum, experts examine new ways to pursue a good old idea: making things.
• Building a Nanomanipulator - MIT’s Martin Culpepper shows how to build simple machines that move with nanometer precision.
• Design and Fabrication of Single Chirality Carbon Nanotube-Based Sensors

Other:

• PDF (download) - Precision Engineering Education at MIT VIA Hands-On Design Projects: The MIT Nano-Etcha-Sketch Project

Updates

• This course was previously delivered as "Principles & Practice of Advanced Mechanical and Precision Machine Design [2.75s]" and "Design and Fabrication of Flexures & Compliant Mechanisms [2.90s]" and has been merged together as a five-day course.