Assessment of a well-designed mechanical vibrations course

Abstract

Most of the time, mechanical vibration poses a highly undesirable aspect in the area of manufacturing. This is because vibrations waste energy and create unwanted noise. In addition, vibrations may cause unnecessary wear and tear on bearings and foundation structures of large equipment such as gasoline and diesel engines. Vibrations are frequently encountered with turbines and electric motors and generators. Therefore it is very important that manufacturing engineers study, in depth the topic of mechanical vibrations. According to the laws of physics, sound and vibrations are very closely related. In other words, if one's objective is to reduce noise, one has to reduce vibrations. In this presentation the author provides guidelines towards generating a mathematics based curriculum in the area of mechanical vibrations. He draws from his experience and also from various textbooks and relates them to the curriculum that is normally encountered in a mechanical engineering program. He also provides outlines for conducting assessment using appropriate data. This assessment data will be extremely useful for implementing Continuous Quality Improvement. He also provides examples and analyzes assessment data. © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education.