A Global Collaborative Effort to Enhance Design in a Mechanical Engineering Curriculum in Saudi Arabia

In 2008, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in Saudi Arabia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) partnered together to develop project-based curricular material to be tested out in a new undergraduate course offering in KFUPM’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. This paper details some of the unique challenges to collaborating across countries and time zones, and the approaches the KFUPM-MIT team used to address these. These approaches have so far included the establishment of a shared vision for the project and the use of an array of technologies to facilitate distance communication. The paper concludes with a description of lessons learned that might be useful for future programs that plan to engage in international collaboration on design education.Jāmiʻat al-Malik Fahd lil-Batrūl wa-al-Maʻādi

Muhammad Irfan-ul-Haq Effect of Temperature on Fatigue Crack Growth in CPVC

This study addresses the effect of temperature on fatigue crack growth (FCG

Impact behavior and finite element prediction of the compression after impact strength of foam/vinylester-glass composite sandwiches

This paper presents the impact and compression after impact behavior of PVC foam cored /E-glass reinforced/vinylester sandwiches used in a four-seat amphibian aircraft. The impact damage was sorted in three categories: barely visible impact damage; visible impact damage; and clearly visible impact damage. It was observed that when increasing impact energy, the extension of the damage from barely visible impact damage to visible impact damage corresponds to a significantly high rate of energy absorption as depicted by the absorbed energy/impact energy ratio. Sandwich coupons were modeled with the finite element analysis ANSYS software to predict the critical failure load in presence of damage zones equivalent to those observed experimentally. The finite element model predicts consistently the compression after impact strength of undamaged coupons and this result confirms the model used to represent the woven fabric by an equivalent cross-ply laminate model. However, the finite element overestimates the compression after impact strength of impacted ones. It is suggested that the induced out-of-plane displacements generate stress concentrations in the tip of cracks located at the borders of the damaged zone. </jats:p

Analysis of the Fatigue Damage Behavior of AW2099-T83 Al-Li Alloy under Strain-Controlled Fatigue

Microstructural characteristics, monotonic and strain-controlled cyclic axial behaviors of AW2099-T83 Aluminum-Lithium alloy were investigated. Grain sizes and structures are not uniform in the different orientations studied. High strength and low ductility characterize the tensile behavior of the alloy under static loading. Strain-controlled fatigue testing was conducted at strain amplitudes ranging from 0.3% to 0.7%. Over this range, macro plastic deformation was only observed at 0.7%.&nbsp; Cyclic stress evolution was found to be dependent on both the applied strain amplitude and the number of cycles. Limited strain hardening was observed at low number of cycles, followed by softening, due probably to damage initiation. With low plastic strain, analytical approach was adopted to profile the damaging mechanism for the different applied strain amplitude. Because of the absence of fatigue ductility parameters due to low plasticity, a three-parameter equation was used to correlate fatigue life. Fractured specimens were studied under SEM to characterize the fracture surface and determine the controlling fracture mechanisms. The fractography analysis revealed that fracture at low strain amplitudes was shear controlled while multiple secondary cracks were observed at high strain amplitude. Intergranular failure was found to be the dominant crack propagation mode