2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Augmenting Machine Design textbooks by Integrating vendor-supplied resources

Presented at MECH - Technical Session 6: Curriculum Development and Pedagogical Strategies

A course in Design of Machine Elements (aka Machine Design in some programs) is a required part of most Mechanical Engineering curricula in the world. Textbooks for this course are usually divided into two halves: 1) development of failure theories, and 2) design, analysis, and selection of individual machine components such as bearings, flexible power elements (belts, chains), gears, shafts, springs, threaded members, etc. Analytical methods for these individual components are presented at a very general level to provide the student with a broad understanding of the technical issues involved. While this broad understanding provides a good starting point, there is not enough technical detail to facilitate the selection of an actual component from a vendor. In engineering practice, detailed information regarding selection and application of a particular machine component often comes from engineering guides that are supplied by component vendors. A good example of this is the selection of rolling-element bearings. Machine design textbooks present a general description of bearing types, present a few mounting strategies, and give basic bearing life calculations. In practice, roller element bearings are manufactured in a wide number of variations that are intended for specific conditions of use and specific mounting geometry. Engineering guides from the major bearing vendors contain extensive information on proper mounting, allowable loads, and load types, sealing and lubrication, and allowable environment. In practice, engineers use these guides to learn the details involved in selection and application of roller bearings. The author contends that effective use of vendor-supplied engineering guides is a significant skill in engineering practice, in addition to the fundamentals of Machine Design, and is a big missing piece in many curricula.

Authors

Dr. Rungun Nathan http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0651-1448 Penn State University [biography]

Rungun Nathan, a professor and program chair for the mechanical engineering department, joined the faculty at Penn State Berks in 2007 as an assistant professor and was promoted in 2012 to associate professor. He has over 25 combined years of increasing responsibilities in industry and in academia, including at the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), a telecommunications technology arm of the Indian government, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc.), Bangalore, and Villanova University, PA.
Nathan received his BS from the University of Mysore, a postgraduate diploma from the Indian Institute of Science, an MS from Louisiana State University, and a PhD from Drexel University. He worked in electronic packaging in C-DOT and then as a scientific assistant in the robotics laboratory at IISc. in Bangalore, India, and as a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania in haptics and virtual reality. His research interests are in the areas of brain traumatic injury, unmanned vehicles, particularly flapping flight and Frisbees, mechatronics, robotics, MEMS, virtual reality, and haptics, as well as teaching with technology. He has ongoing research in brain traumatic injury, flapping flight, frisbee flight dynamics, lift in porous material, and wound therapy. He is an active member of APS (DFD), ASEE, ASME, and AGMA, and is a reviewer for several ASME, IEEE, ASEE, and FIE conferences and journals. He is co-editor for ASEE publication Computers in Education.
Nathan has been a very active member of both the Mechanics and Mechanical Engineering Divisions of ASEE since 2006. He started as a member at large and then rose to chair the Mechanics Division in 2012–2013. He currently is chair of the Mechanical Engineering Division after starting as member at large in 2017. Nathan also has been an active member of ASEE’s Engineering Technology, Computers in Education, Educational Research Methods, Multidisciplinary Engineering, Experimentation and Laboratory-Oriented Studies, and Systems Engineering Divisions. He is also one of the organizers for MEEd held annually by ASME. He volunteers as a Program Evaluator for ABET.

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