Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

UVa 4th year students regular win national and international design competitions.  This year’s UVa aerospace aircraft design team tied for first place in the FAA national aircraft design competition.  This is particularity impressive since they shared the first place with a GRADUATE design team at Ga Tech, where aircraft design is a research focus.  They… Continue reading »

Graduate student Seyed Mohammad Mehdi Saadat has won the Annual Presidential Research Poster Contest. The competition is designed to highlight the best of student research and was launched by UVa President Teresa Sullivan in 2011. For more about Mehdi’s research,  “On the observed tight range of Strouhal number (0.2>St>0.4) among the swimming species in nature,”  and to… Continue reading »

Caroline Gorham is the second UVa student to win the NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship.  The title for the work is “Optimizing Materials for Energy Harvesting on Interplanetary Return Missions.”  This fellowship will not only fund Caroline’s research starting in her 2nd year here at UVa, but also give her the opportunity to work on… Continue reading »

Brie Hudson, a U.Va. Aeropace  graduate, is now an exchange officer with the British Royal Air Force and is flying  RAF Tornadoes.  This photo was taken by a civilian on the ground during one of her low-altitude missions. Brie also happens to be the daughter of UVa’s own David Hudson, Associate VP for Research & Graduate Studies… Continue reading »

The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering produces  a monthly electronic newsletter, MAE News.  The MAE Newsletter showcases recent achievements and activities of the MAE Department. MAE Newsletter Spring 2013 (Web) MAE Newsletter Spring 2013 (pdf)

Nuclear Scientist and Professor Houston Wood will appear as part of a panel discussion in connection with the MSNBC documentary, Hubris, Selling the Iraq War based on a book of the same name by NBC News National Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff co-authored  with David Corn, an MSNBC contributor and the Washington Bureau Chief of Mother Jones.… Continue reading »

UVa Hoo’s Flying team did very well at the SAE (SAE International) Aero Design East Competition in Fort Worth, TX.  The team placed 2nd both overall and in most payload carried out of 37 teams in the regular class at this national competition.  They were the highest placed US team.  The 2nd place overall award is… Continue reading »

One  of MAE’s new faculty hires under the Rolls-Royce partnership, Patrick Hopkins, has just been selected to receive an award from the Young Investigator Program of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.  The objective of this program is to foster creative basic research in science and engineering, enhance early career development of outstanding young… Continue reading »

Steven Easter and Jonathan Turman, brothers and UVa engineering lab partners , have built a 3D printed plane.  The entire plane — from the nose to the rudders — had been designed in software and printed in lightweight plastic on a Stratasys 3D printer. Instead of a balsa-wood frame, the brothers printed a plastic exoskeleton… Continue reading »

Last spring, two University of Virginia students responded to a vague email about an internship that turned out to be the opportunity of a lifetime. Now, they’ve designed and flown a plastic plane that’s the first of its kind. Brothers and lab partners Steven Easter and Jonathan Turman were challenged to design a 3-D printed plane by… Continue reading »