Below is a brief list of the research areas the faculty for the Mechanical Engineering Department are currently engaged. For complete bios of the Mechanical Engineering Professors and a list of active projects visit our Research website.
Rodney Andrews, Ph.D., Associate Professor (Joint Appointment)
Research interests include activated carbons; adsorbents; environment; hydrogen; materials characterization; nanotube synthesis and applications; pitch production and uses.
F. Fazleena Badurdeen, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Research interests include mass customization and application of genetic algorithms in manufacturing.
Sean C. Bailey, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Research interests include coherent structures, homogeneous turbulence, microelectromechanical systems, scaling wall-bounded flows, turbulent drag reduction, turbulent flows, unsteady vortex flows, wake turbulence, wall flows.
John R. Baker, P.E., Ph.D., Associate Professor
Research interests include stability analysis and vibration control in metal cutting systems; finite element analysis of rotating machinery; automation of analysis techniques for nonlinear finite element analysis.
Louis M. Brock, Ph.D., Professor
Research interests include elastic wave propagation, dynamic analyses of contact, fracture, dislocation motion and thermoelasticity.
Vincent R. Capece, P.E., Ph.D., Recipient of the H.E. Katterjohn Professorship, Associate Professor
Research interests include experimental and computational fluid dynamics of turbomachinery, fluid-structure interaction of lifting surfaces, and gas turbine engine cycles for power generation and aircraft propulsion.
Mark T. Hanson, Ph.D., Associate Professor Applied Mechanics
Research interests include contact and fracture mechanics and their applications to various areas of engineering, tribology, stress analysis resulting from concentrated contacts and the resulting failure mechanisms, effects of material anisotropy and in homogeneity.
David W. Herrin, Ph.D., P.E., Associate Professor. Director, Vibro-Acoustics Consortium.
Research Interests include Acoustics and Vibration; Numerical Methods in Vibro-Acoustics, Boundary Element Methods, Finite Element Modeling.
Jesse B. Hoagg, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Research interests include adaptive control, Aerospace, flow control, robust control, structural control, System Identification, vibration control.
I. S. Jawahir, Ph.D., Hardymon Chair and Professor Manufacturing Engineering. Director, Institute for Sustainable Manufacturing
Research interests include predictive modeling and optimization of machining processes; assessment of machining performance (tool-life, chip-breakability, surface roughness, etc.), characterization of machining systems, A.I. applications in design and manufacturing.
Haluk Karaca, Ph.D., Assistant Professor Mechanical Engineering
Research interests include processing-microstructure-mechanical property relationships in metals, (ferro)magnetic and conventional shape memory alloys, phase transformations, twinning and slip in single crystals and severe plastic deformation.
Thomas W. Lester, Ph.D., P.E., Professor
Research interests include rotary kiln incineration; hazardous waste incineration; chemical mechanisms of soot nucleation; the kinetics and mechanisms of coal combustion.
Tianxiang Li, Ph.D., Assistant Research Professor Mechanical Engineering
Research interests include combustion and propulsion.
Y. Charles Lu, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Research interests include solid mechanics; micromechanics and nanomechanics; materials; polymers, elastomers and composites; finite element modeling and design; vibration.
Alexandre Martin, Ph.D., P.E., Assistant Professor
Research interests include ablation, Aerospace, Aerothermodynamics, compressible aerodynamics, Computational Fluid Dynamics, gas surface interactions, Heat Transfer, Hypersonic, material response, Numerical Methods, Re-entry.
James M. McDonough, Ph.D., Professor Engineering
Research interests include computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and heat transfer; nonlinear dynamical systems; cooling of gas turbine blades; simulation of forest fires; development of turbulence simulation and modeling techniques utilizing dynamical systems theory to predict interactions of turbulence with other physical phenomena.
William E. Murphy, Ph.D., P.E., Professor
Research interests include heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems, especially in geothermal applications.
Johné M. Parker, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Research interests include automation and control of manufacturing systems; flexible automation; machine vision system design for manufacturing applications; assessment of surface appearance for specular coatings using vision; integration of human perception into automated surface appearance assessment.
Patrick K. Poole, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer
Research interests include fluid dynamics; underwater work systems; life-support systems; naval architecture; advanced power conversion.
Keith E. Rouch, Ph.D., P.E., Professor
Research interests include application of finite element, modal analysis, and other numerical and experimental techniques in the mechanical design process; rotor dynamics and foundation interaction; control of chatter during machining.
Kozo Saito, D.Eng., Tennessee Valley Authority Professor. Director, IR4TD
Research interests include experimental combustion studies (flame structure and soot formation); fire research (building fires, wildland fires, flame spread, fire extinguishing and control); painting technology; scale modeling; lean manufacturing.
T. Michael Seigler, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Research Interests include morphing air vehicles; intelligent material systems and structures; vibration; control theory.
Dusan P. Sekulic, Dr. Sc. Eng., Professor and Director of Graduate Studies of Manufacturing Systems Engineering
Research interests include materials behavior and transport processes in manufacturing; netshape manufacturing processes; modeling; materials processing, manufacturing and thermal design of compact heat exchangers; fundamentals of aluminum brazing; heat transfer augmentation in low Reynolds number flows.
Andrew F. Seybert, Ph.D., P.E., Professor
Research interest include acoustics and vibrations; mechanical design and linear systems; development of computeraided design tools for noise prediction; the use of boundary element techniques in acoustics; the measurement and control of machinery noise.
Suzanne Weaver Smith, Ph.D., P.E., Professor, Lester Professor; Director, Kentucky Space Grant Consortium and NASA EPSCoR.
Research interests include modeling, testing and test/analysis correlation of nonlinear and linear structural dynamic response; system identification and damage location for spacecraft, bridges and other structures and design and control of flexible structures.
Lyndon S. Stephens, Ph.D., P.E., Engineering Alumni Association Professor. Chair, UKY Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Research interests include optimal design and control of precision machines with an emphasis on bearing and sealing systems; magnetic bearings; tribology; computer aided design and finite elements; Design of MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) for machine components; vibration isolation and cancellation.
Gerry Swan, Ph.D., Assistant Professor (Joint Appointment)
Research interests include the use of interactive media with instruction and computer managed instruction/research.
Kaveh A. Tagavi, Ph.D., Professor
Research interests includes phase change heat transfer; high heat flux; hydrodynamic instability; liquid metal heat transfer; analytical conduction and convection heat transfer; heat transfer in crystal growth; heat transfer in electronic packaging, and metal formation in manufacturing processes.
Christine Trinkle, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Research interests include microfluidic systems, lab-on-a-chip and point-of-care medical diagnostics, micro-scale design and fabrication, microrobotics, biologically-inspired design, and precision machine design.
Horn-Sen Tzou, Ph.D., Professor
Research interests include precision mechatronic systems, “smart” structures and structuronic systems, and optomageneto-electro-thermo-elastic-control systems; dynamics and vibration controls of distributed and discrete systems; nonlinear joint dynamics and control; computer-aided design and manufacturing; robotics, sensor/actuator systems, and instrumentation and measurements.
Jonathan F. Wenk, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Research interests include Cardiovascular Mechanics, Finite Element Methods, Fluid-Structure Interaction Modeling, Multi-scale Modeling, Nonlinear Solid Mechanics, Numerical Optimization.
Michael Winter, Dr.-Ing., Assistant Professor
Research interests include Airborne Observation of Re-entry, Development of Flight Experiments for Re-entry, Electric Spacecraft Propulsion, Optical Plasma Diagnostics in Equilibrium and Non-equilibrium, Spectral Simulation of Plasma Radiation
Ting-Wen Wu, Ph.D., Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Research interests include computational acoustics and boundary element methods; muffler and silencer analysis; disk brake squeal prediction; parallel computation