Mechanical Engineering

Students from the Whites Creek High School’s Academy of Alternative Energy, Sustainability and Logistics on a recent field trip to the Love Circle energy park. On Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2017, the renewable energy pilot facility atop Nashville’s Love Circle will complete five… Read More

Imagine slipping into a jacket, shirt or skirt that powers your cell phone, fitness tracker and other personal electronic devices as you walk, wave and even when you are sitting down. A new, ultrathin energy harvesting system developed at Vanderbilt University’s Nanomaterials and Energy Devices… Read More

Build and use microscope systems that do not exist commercially to unlock deeper insights in biomedicine. Design and develop a space-based platform to study Earth’s evolving ecology from an elevated vantage point. Create a research hub for development and testing of durable, sustainable infrastructure materials. All big ideas with widespread… Read More

A mechanical engineering Ph.D. student will spend two weeks using some the most advanced X-ray and neutron equipment in the world and learning the techniques from top experts. Marm Dixit was among 60 graduate students selected for the 2017 National School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering. As a part… Read More

When the Nashville Public Art Program commissioned a series of artistic bicycle racks, city officials did not expect vandals to remove one and stick it up in a tree. Outright theft was another problem. Maintenance presented still others. When a rack needs attention, workers have had to break up concrete… Read More

William Frances Flanagan, who taught at Vanderbilt University for more than 30 years and was renowned for his research on the causes of stress corrosion cracking in alloys and metals, died June 15 in Maryland. He was 90. Bill Flanagan (Walden S. Fabry/1975) “Bill” Flanagan was recruited from General… Read More

Johnny Hall Dunlap, a Vanderbilt University alumnus and professor emeritus of mechanical engineering known for his devotion to students, died June 17 in Nashville. He was 85. Dunlap earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering from Vanderbilt in 1953, graduating magna cum laude. He was offered a teaching position in 1955… Read More

Building transient electronics is usually about doing something to make them stop working: blast them with light, soak them with acid, dunk them in water. Professor Leon Bellan’s idea is to dissolve them with neglect: Stop applying heat, and they come apart. Using silver nanowires embedded in a polymer that… Read More

Vanderbilt University’s Office of the Provost has recognized three engineering faculty proposals with Discovery Grants, one of Vanderbilt’s primary means of investing in advancing the discovery of knowledge in its core disciplines and strengthening the university’s scholarly profile. A total of 13 faculty proposals have… Read More

Imagine plopping six cups of coffee grounds on the heads of patients just before they are wheeled into the operating room to have nose or throat surgery? In essence, that is what a team of Vanderbilt University engineers are proposing in an effort to improve the reliability of… Read More