Teaching Laboratories
The teaching laboratories and fabrication facilities are available to students for personal projects and class-related work. In the approximately 6,000 square-foot space, students conduct experiments that range in complexity from basic instrumentation and fundamental exercises to advanced experiments in such diverse areas as automatic controls, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, stress analysis, vibrations, microcomputer-based data acquisition, aerodynamics, and control of mechanical systems.
The labs are replete with state-of-the-art equipment including microcomputers and microprocessors, data acquisition, lasers and optics for holography and interferometry, a laser-Doppler velocimetry system, a Schlieren system, dynamic strain indicators, a servo-hydraulic material testing machine, a lead-screw Instron testing machine, photo-elastic demonstrations, subsonic and supersonic wind tunnels, pool boiling, HVAC, Digital Image Correlation (DIC), Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), process control, hydrogen fuel cell, solar energy, Westinghouse steam turbine, air compressor, Fanuc robotic arms, Fanuc delta robot, heat exchangers, strain measurement, metrology instruments, flow measurement, micro hardness testing, and a compressed air engine.
In the senior capstone design course, students will utilize the tools of a fabrication facility. Equipment in the fabrication facility includes: 3-axis Vertical CNC Milling Machines (5), Engine Lathes (2), CNC Lathe (1), Drill presses, band saws, power hack saw, sander, surface grinder, 3D Printers (2 Uprints, 1 Fortus), laser cutters (1 Universal, 1 Full Spectrum), and a CNC wire electrical discharge machine (EDM) ( available upon special request).
MechTech Laboratory
The MechTech Laboratory affords the opportunity for hands-on experience with microcomputer-embedded control of electromechanical systems. Facilities for the construction and testing of analog and digital electronic circuits aid the students in learning the basic components of the microcomputer architecture. The laboratory is divided into work centers for two-person student laboratory teams. Each work center is equipped with several power supplies (for low-power electronics and higher-power control), a function generator, a multimeter, a protoboard for building circuits, a microcomputer circuit board (which includes the microcomputer and peripheral components), a microcomputer programmer, and a personal computer that contains a data-acquisition board. The data-acquisition system serves as an oscilloscope, additional function generator, and spectrum analyzer for the student team. The computer also contains a complete microcomputer software development system, including editor, assembler, simulator, debugger, and C compiler. The laboratory is also equipped with a portable oscilloscope, an EPROM eraser (to erase microcomputer programs from the erasable chips), a logic probe, and an analog filter bank that the student teams share, as well as a stock of analog and digital electronic components.
CAD Lab
The CAD Lab is a modern computer-aided design laboratory equipped with 30 Dell Precision 670/650 workstations with Wildcat 6100 or Quadro FX 3400 video cards. Machines have software for design, CAD, FEM, and CFD, including Pro Engineer, Maya, IDEAS, FLUENT, and FEMLAB.
Other resources include the Columbia MakerSpace. Learn more about this affiliated workshop here.