The Design Projects for the Simulation-Based Design Course

The course MECH625-simulation-based design in our program was mainly to conduct FEA (Finite Element Analysis) on components and assemblies to provide stress/strain information. Through our program assessment, it was found that students who performed excellently in the previous MECH625 course had some difficulties incorporating FEA simulation correctly and efficiently on their senior design projects. In fall 2014, we decided to modify the course and created two projects to improve student skills in running FEA simulations on projects. The first project was an individual project in which students were mainly asked to use different simulation skills to run FEA simulations and then compare the FEA results with the theoretical handcalculation results. The second project was a team design project which was to baseline the structural strength of a real device and then redesign it according to the design specifications. During the successful implementation of the two projects in spring semester 2015, the majority of students had strong positive feedbacks about the projects based on the data collected both directly and indirectly. This paper will provide details of the two projects, their implementation and the analyzed results of a student survey.