For each of our five research thrusts, we have selected a group of courses from the relevant disciplines. Students are required to take four courses from a “major” thrust area, providing disciplinary depth, and three courses from one other thrust area, providing interdisciplinary breadth. Students can take additional courses within the other thrust areas as needed for their research, but the requirement ensures students are research-capable in two thrust areas.
- RT1: Wind resource characterization and aerodynamics of wind farms
- RT2: Wind energy conversion system and grid operations
- RT3: Manufacturing, construction, and supply chain
- RT4: Reliability and health monitoring
- RT5: Wind economics, policy, and public perception
RT1: Wind resource characterization and aerodynamics of wind farms
AER E 481. Advanced Wind Energy: Technology and Design. Advanced topics in wind energy, emphasis on current practices. Theoretical foundations for horizontal and vertical axis wind turbine. Design codes for energy conversion systems design, aerodynamic an structural load estimation, wind resource characterization wind farm design, optimization.
AerE 541. Incompressible Flow Aerodynamics. Kinematics and dynamics of fluid flow. Derivation of the Navier-Stokes, Euler and potential flow equations. Introduction to generalized curvilinear coordinates. Ideal fluids. Two-dimensional and three-dimensional potential flow. Complex variable methods.
AER E 545. Advance Experimental Technique for Thermal-Fluid Studies. Introduction of various experimental techniques widely used for fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, heat transfer, and combustion studies. Pressure gauge and transducers; Pitot tube; hot wire anemometry; shadowgraph and Schlieren Photography; laser Doppler velocimetry; particle image velocimetry (PIV); advanced PIV techniques ( stereo PIV, 3-D PIV, Holograph PIV, microscopic PIV); laser induced fluorescence; pressure sensitive painting, temperature sensitive painting; molecular tagging velocimetry; molecular tagging thermometry. Extensive application and demonstration laboratory experiments will be included.
AerE/ME 546. Computational Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer I. Basic concepts of discretization, consistency,, and stability. Explicit and, implicit methods for ordinary diffential equations. Methods for each type of partial differential equation. Iterative solution methods; curvilinear grids. Examples of basic algorithms.
AerE 572. Turbulence. Qualitative features of turbulence. Statistical and spectral representation of turbulent velocity fields: averages, moments, correlations, length and time scales and the energy cascade. Averaged equations of motion, closure requirements, Reynolds average models. Homogeneous shear flows, free shear flows, bounded flows. Numerical simulation of turbulence: DNS, LES, DES.
AgEds 451. Agricultural Law. The legal framework impinging upon decision-making by firms, families, and individuals, real and personal property, contracts, secured transactions, negotiable instruments, debtor-creditor relations, bankruptcy, farm income tax organization of firms, intergenerational property transfers, trusts and farm estate planning, civil and criminal liabilities, environmental law, federal and state regulatory powers.
Agron/Mteor/EnSci 505. Environmental Biophysics. A description of the physical microenvironment in which organisms live. Emphasis on the movement of energy (heat and radiation) and mass (water and carbon) among organisms, the soil, and atmosphere. Applications to humans, other animals, plants, and plant communities.
EE 553. Steady State Analysis. Power flow, economic dispatch, unit commitment, electricity markets, automatic generation control, sparse matrix techniques, interconnected operation, voltage control.
EnSci 581. Environmental Systems I: Introduction to Environmental Systems. Introduction to the structure and function of natural environmental systems. Systems approach to the analysis of material and energy flows in natural environmental systems and the primary environmental factors controlling these systems.
EnSci 582. Environmental Systems II: Analysis of Environmental Systems. Continuation of EnSci 581. Systems approach to the analysis of material and energy flows in natural environmental systems and the primary environmental factors controlling these systems.
Mteor/Agron 507. Mesoscale Meteorology. The physical nature and practical consequences of mesoscale atmospheric phenomena. Mesoscale convective systems, fronts, terrain-forced circulations. Observation, analysis, and prediction of mesoscale atmospheric structure.
MTEOR 543. Advanced Dynamic Meteorology I. The first half of a two semester sequence. Governing equations, scale analysis, simple types of wave motion in the atmosphere, instability theory
Mteor 605. Boundary-Layer Meteorology. Atmospheric boundary-layer structure and dynamics. Diurnal and seasonal variations, turbulent fluxes and turbulence kinetic energy. Measurements and empirical relations for wind and temperature near the ground. Numerical simulation and applications to wind energy.
RT2: Wind Energy Conversion System and Grid Operations
AER E 422. Vibrations and Aeroelasticity. Vibration theory. Steady and unsteady flows. Mathematical foundations of aeroelasticity, static and dynamic aeroelasticity. Linear unsteady aerodynamics, non-steady aerodynamics of lifting surfaces. Stall flutter. Aeroelastic problems in civil engineering structures. Aeroelastic problems of rotorcraft. Experimental aeroelasticity. Selected wind tunnel laboratory experiments.
AER E 514. Advanced Mechanics of Materials. Theory of stress and strain, stress-strain relationships. Unsymmetrical bending, curved beams, shear center. Torsion of thin-walled noncircular sections. Equilibrium, compatibility equations. Airy stress functions. Membrane stresses in shells, thick-walled cylinders.
AER E 525. Finite Element Analysis. Variational and weighted residual approach to finite element equations. Emphasis on two- and three-dimensional problems in solid mechanics. Isoparametric element formulation, higher order elements, numerical integration, imposition of constraints and penalty, convergence, and other more advanced topics. Use of two- and three-dimensional computer programs. Dynamic and vibrational problems, eigenvalues, and time integration. Introduction to geometric and material nonlinearities
AerE 541. Incompressible Flow Aerodynamics. Kinematics and dynamics of fluid flow. Derivation of the Navier-Stokes, Euler and potential flow equations. Introduction to generalized curvilinear coordinates. Ideal fluids. Two-dimensional and three-dimensional potential flow. Complex variable methods.
AerE/ME 546. Computational Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer I. Basic concepts of discretization, consistency,, and stability. Explicit and, implicit methods for ordinary diffential equations. Methods for each type of partial differential equation. Iterative solution methods; curvilinear grids. Examples of basic algorithms.
C E 541. Dynamic Analysis of Structures. Single and multi-degree-of-freedom systems. Free and forced vibrations. Linear and nonlinear response. Modal analysis. Response spectra. Seismic analysis.
EE 552. Energy Systems Planning. Characteristics of bulk energy conversion, storage, and transport technologies. Environmental legislation. Modeling of electricity markets. Evaluation of sustainability and resiliency. Types of planning analyses; economic, multi-sector, long-term, national. Planning tools and associated optimization methods.
EE 553. Steady State Analysis. Power flow, economic dispatch, unit commitment, electricity markets, automatic generation control, sparse matrix techniques, interconnected operation, voltage control.
EE 554. Power System Dynamics. Dynamic performance of power systems with emphasis on stability. Modeling of system components and control equipment. Analysis of the dynamic behavior of the system in response to small and large disturbances.
EE 556. Power Electronic Systems. Converter topologies, AC/DC, DC/DC, DC/AC, AC/AC. Converter applications to do motor drives, power supplies, AC motor drives, power system utility applications (var compensators) and power quality.
EE/AerE/ME 577. Linear Systems. Linear algebra review. Least square method and singular value decomposition. State space modeling of linear continuous-time systems. Solution of linear systems. Controllability and observability. Canonical description of linear equations. Stability of linear systems. State feedback and pole placements. Observer design for linear systems.
EE/AerE/Me 578. Nonlinear Systems. Linear vs nonlinear systems. Phase plane analysis. Bifurcation and center manifold theory. Lyapunov stability. Absolute stability of feedback systems. Input-output stability. Passivity theory and feedback linearization. Nonlinear control design techniques.
IE 531. Quality Control and Engineering Statistics. Statistical methods and theory applicable to problems of industrial process monitoring and improvement. Statistical issues in industrial measurement; Shewhart, CUSUM, and other control charts; feedback control; process characterization studies; estimation of product and process characteristics; acceptance sampling, continuous sampling and sequential sampling; economic and decision theoretic arguments in industrial statistics.
IE 510. Network Analysis. Formulation and solution of deterministic network flow problems including shortest path, minimum cost flow, and maximum flow. Network and graph formulations of combinatorial problems including assignment, matching, and spanning trees. Introduction to deterministic and stochastic dynamic programming.
IE 534. Linear Programming. Develop linear models. Theory and computational aspects of the simplex method. Duality theory and sensitivity analysis. Introduction to interior point methods and column generation. Multiobjective linear programs.
IE 631. Nonlinear Programming. Develop nonlinear models, convex sets and functions, optimality conditions, Lagrangian duality, unconstrained minimization techniques. Constrained minimization techniques covering penalty and barrier functions, sequential quadratic programming, the reduced gradient method.
IE 632. Integer Programming. Integer programming including cutting planes, branch and bound, and Lagrangian relaxation. Introduction to complexity issues and search-based heuristics.
ME 517. Advanced Machine Design. Stress life, strain life, and fracture mechanics approaches to fatigue life and design with metals, polymers and ceramics. Introduction to material selection in design of machine components. Thermal and structural considerations in design of machine components and hybrid materials.
ME 543. Introduction to Random Vibrations and Nonlinear Dynamics. Vibrations of continuous systems. Nonlinear vibration phenomena, perturbation expansions; methods of multiple time scales and slowly-varying amplitude and phase. Characteristics of random vibrations; random processes, probability distributions, spectral density and its significance, the normal or Gaussian random process. Transmission of random vibration, response of simple single and two-degree-of-freedom systems to stationary random excitation. Fatigue failure due to random excitation.
M E 564. Fracture and Fatigue. Materials and mechanics approach to fracture and fatigue. Fracture mechanics, brittle and ductile fracture, fracture and fatigue characteristics, fracture of thin films and layered structures. Fracture and fatigue tests, mechanics and materials designed to avoid fracture or fatigue.
RT3: Manufacturing, Construction, and Supply Chain
AerE/EM 514. Advanced Mechanics of Materials. Theory of stress and strain, stress-strain relationships. Unsymmetrical bending, curved beams, shear center. Torsion of thin-walled noncircular sections. Equilibrium, compatibility equations. Airy stress functions. Membrane stresses in shells, thick-walled cylinders.
AER E 522. Design and Analysis of Composite Materials. Composite constituent materials, micro-mechanics, laminate analysis, hygro-thermal analysis, composite failure, joining of composites, design of composite beams and plates, honeycomb core, manufacturing of composites, short fiber composites, and demonstration laboratory.
AerE/EM 525. Finite Element Analysis. Variational and weighted residual approach to finite element equations. Emphasis on two- and three-dimensional problems in solid mechanics. Isoparametric element formulation, higher order elements, numerical integration, imposition of constraints and penalty, convergence, and other more advanced topics. Use of two- and three-dimensional computer programs. Dynamic and vibrational problems, eigenvalues, and time integration. Introduction to geometric and material nonlinearities.
CE 460. Foundation Engineering. Fundamentals of foundation engineering. Exploration, sampling, and in-situ tests. Shallow and deep foundations. Settlement and bearing capacity analyses. Stability of excavations and earth retaining structures.
CE 533. Structural Steel Design II. Development of the AISC design equations for and the design of tension members, columns, beams, beam-columns, and plate girders for Load and Resistance Factor Design. Elastic and inelastic buckling of members and member elements. Torsion of W-shapes.
CE 534. Reinforced Concrete Design II. Design of reinforced concrete long columns, floor slabs, building frames, isolated footings and combined footings. Design and behavior considerations for torsion, biaxial bending, structural joints and shear friction. Introduction to cold-formed composite steel and composite floor slab design.
CE 535. Prestressed Concrete Structures. Design of prestressed concrete structures, review of hardware, stress calculations, prestress losses, section proportioning, flexural design, shear design, deflections, statically indeterminate structures.
CE 541. Dynamic Analysis of Structures. Single and multi-degree-of-freedom systems. Free and forced vibrations. Linear and nonlinear response. Modal analysis. Response spectra. Seismic analysis.
CE 561. Applied Foundation Engineering. Lateral earth pressure theories and retaining structures. Field investigations, in-situ testing, foundations on expansive soils, and analysis and design of shallow and deep foundations. Foundation engineering reports.
E E 516. Computational Methods in Electromagnetics. Maxwell’s equations. Differential equation based methods. Finite difference and finite difference time domain methods, boundary conditions. Finite element method and applications to the analysis of practical devices. Integral equation based methods. Electric and magnetic field integral equations. Matrix solvers. Fast solution methods.
IE 503. Introduction to Sustainable Production Systems. Quantitative introduction of sustainability concepts in production planning and inventory control. Review of material recovery (recycling) and product/component recovery (remanufacturing) from productivity perspectives. Sustainability rubrics ranging from design and process to systems. Application to multi-echelon networks subject to forward/backward flow of material and information. Closed-loop supply chains. Comparative study of sustainable vs. traditional models for local and global production systems.
IE 514. Production Scheduling. Introduction to the theory of machine shop systems. Complexity results for various systems such as job, flow and open shops. Applications of linear programming, integer programming, network analysis. Enumerative methods for machine sequencing. Introduction to stochastic scheduling.
IE 541. Inventory Control and Production Planning. Economic Order Quantity, dynamic lot sizing, newsboy, base stock, and (Q,r) models. Material Requirements Planning, Just-In-Time (JIT), variability in production systems, push and pull production systems, aggregate and workforce planning, and capacity management.
IE 543. Wind Energy Manufacturing. Materials, processes and systems required to produce the major components (blades, towers, nacelles) of megawatt scale wind turbines. Transportation, manufacturing siting and procurement decisions as it relates to these large components in an expanding industry.
IE 546. Geometric Variability in Manufacturing. Assessment, accommodation, and control of geometric variability of manufacturing processes. Use of CMMs, vision and scanning systems, and prolifometers. Techniques to successfully accommodate variation through design of product, tooling or process plan including plastic injection molding, metalcasting, welding, machining, powder metallurgy. Methodologies to control geometric variability.
IE 549. Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing. Representation and interpretation of curves, surfaces and solids. Parametric curves and surfaces and solid modeling. Use of CAD software and CAD/CAM integration. Computer numerical control, CNC programming languages, and process planning.
ME 520. Material and Manufacturing Considerations in Design. Integration of materials, design and manufacturing. Materials selection. Design for assembly and manufacturing (DFMA). Design and redesign to facilitate cost-effective manufacturing using material selection and DFMA software.
ME/EM/MSE 564. Fracture and Fatigue. Materials and mechanics approach to fracture and fatigue. Fracture mechanics, brittle and ductile fracture, fracture and fatigue characteristics, fracture of thin films and layered structures. Fracture and fatigue tests, mechanics and materials designed to avoid fracture or fatigue.
MSE 554. Polymer Composites and Processing. Basic concepts in polymer composites, blends, and block copolymers. Phase separation and miscibility, microstructures and mechanical behavior. Fiber reinforced and laminated composites. Viscosity, rheology, viscoelasticity of polymers. Polymer melt processing methods such as injection molding and extrusion; selection of suitable processing methods and their applications.
MSE/EM 569. Mechanics of Composite and Combined Materials. Mechanics of fiber-reinforced materials. Micromechanics of lamina. Macromechanical behavior of lamina and laminates. Strength and interlaminar stresses of laminates. Failure criteria. Stress analysis of laminates. Thermal moisture and residual stresses. Joints in composites.
SCM 522. Supply Chain Planning and Control Systems. An integrated analysis of planning and control systems for supply chains. Master production scheduling, material requirements planning, enterprise resource planning, capacity planning, shop floor control, competitive analyses of modern supply chain systems, and implementation of information technologies related to these topics.
RT4: Reliability and Health Monitoring
EM/MSE 550. Fundamentals of Nondestructive Evaluation. Principles of five basic NDE methods and their application in engineering inspections. Materials behavior and simple failure analysis. NDE reliability, and damage-tolerant design. Advanced methods such as acoustic microscopy, laser ultrasonics, thermal waves, computed tomography, and thermoelectrics are analyzed. Laboratory experiments on all basic methods: ultrasonics, eddy currents, x-ray, liquid penetrants, magnetic testing, and visual inspection are performed.
MSE/EE 588. Eddy Current Nondestructive Evaluation. Electromagnetic fields of various eddy current probes. Probe field interaction with conductors, cracks and other material defects. Ferromagnetic materials. Layered conductors. Elementary inversion of probe signals to characterize defects. Special techniques including remote-field, transient, potential drop nondestructive evaluation and the use of Hall sensors. Practical assignments using a ‘virtual’ eddy current instrument will demonstrate key concepts.
Stat 500. Statistical Methods. Introduction to methods for analyzing data from experiments and observational data. Design-based and model-based inference. Estimation, hypothesis testing, and model assessment for 2 group and k group studies. Experimental design and the use of pairing/blocking. Analysis of discrete data. Correlation and regression, prediction, model selection and diagnostics. Simple mixed models including nested random effects and split plot experimental designs. Use of the SAS statistical software.
STAT 506. Statistical Methods for Spatial Data. The analysis of spatial data; geostatistical methods and spatial prediction; discrete index random fields and Markkov random field models; models for spatial point processes.
Stat 511. Statistical Methods. Introduction to the general theory of linear models, least squares and maximum likelihood estimation, hypothesis testing, interval estimation and prediction, analysis of unbalanced designs. Models with both fixed and random factors. Introduction to non-linear and generalized linear models, bootstrap estimation, smoothing methods. Requires use of R statistical software.
Stat 533. Reliability. Probabilistic modeling and inference in engineering reliability; lifetime models, product limit estimator, probability plotting, maximum likelihood estimation for censored data, Bayesian methods in reliability, system reliability models, competing risk analysis, acceleration models and analysis of accelerated test data; analysis of recurrence data; planning studies to obtain reliability data.
Stat 542. Theory of Probability and Statistics I. Sample spaces, probability, conditional probability; Random variables, univariate distributions, expectation, median, and other characteristics of distributions, moment generating functions; Joint distributions, conditional distributions and independence, correlation and covariance; Probability laws and transformations; Introduction to the Multivariate Normal distribution; Sampling distributions, order statistics; Convergence concepts, the law of large numbers, the central limit theorem and delta method; Basics of stochastic simulation.
Stat 543. Theory of Probability and Statistics II. Point estimation including method of moments, maximum likelihood estimation, exponential family, Bayes estimators, Loss function and Bayesian optimality, unbiasedness, sufficiency, completeness, Basu’s theorem; Interval estimation including confidence intervals, prediction intervals, Bayesian interval estimation; Hypothesis testing including Neyman-Pearson Lemma, uniformly most powerful tests, likelihood ratio tests; Bayesian tests; Large sample properties of maximum likelihood estimators and likelihood ratio tests; Nonparametric methods, bootstrap.
STAT 551. Time Series Analysis. Concepts of trend and dependence in time series data; stationarity and basic model structures for dealing with temporal dependence; moving average and autoregressive error structures; analysis in the time domain and the frequency domain; parameter estimation, prediction and forecasting; identification of appropriate model structure for actual data and model assessment techniques. Possible extended topics include dynamic models and linear filters.
RT5: Wind Economics, Policy, and Public Perception
Econ 501. Microeconomics. The theory of the consumer, theory of the firm, perfect and imperfect competition, welfare economics, and selected topics in general equilibrium and uncertainty.
Econ 537. Commodity Markets: Analysis and Strategy. Analysis of exchange-traded and over-the-counter commodity markets, their functions and performance. Evaluation of hedging, speculation, and arbitrage strategies. Commodity transformation over space and time. Valuation of derivatives and comparison with derivatives on financial assets. Efficiency and the role of information in commodity markets. Market regulation.
Econ 580. Intermediate Environmental and Resource Economics. Theories of natural resource utilization and allocation. Externalities, public goods, and environmental quality. Renewable energy, biofuels, land use change and life cycle analysis of carbon, and sustainability and resource conservation. Methodologies for analyzing natural resource and environmental problems and evaluating resource policies.
Econ 581. Advanced Environmental Economics. Interrelationships of natural resource use and the environment. Applied welfare and benefit-cost analyses. Externalities and pollution abatement. Nonmarket valuation of resources. Property rights. Legal and social constraints. Policy approaches.
JLMC 547. Science Communication. Reporting and writing about science and technology topics for general audiences. Outlets for stories include print, broadcast and online media. Story topics include reporting about basic, applied and social sciences, as well as ethical, political and policy issues related to science and technology.
JLMC 560. Risk Perception and Communication. Study of risk communication principles, models and theories applicable to any risk communication situation. Emphasis on science, technology and risk issues encountered in e.g., food, agriculture and veterinary medicine. Examines roles of scientists and communicators in cultivating a public informed about scientific and technological issues.
ME 510x – Economics and Policy of Engineered Energy Systems. Provides a broad view of economics and policy dimensions of existing and future energy systems in the US relevant for engineers. Review and apply techniques in economic and financial analysis necessary to understanding energy technology and energy systems to existing energy markets (oil, coal, natural gas, electricity), projections regarding important future technologies (wind, solar, bio-energy), and forecast energy demand (electricity, liquid fuels). Historical and current topics in energy policy, including motivating economic theories, observed outcomes, and forecasting tools including integrated assessment. Application through an independent research project.
Soc 415. Dynamics of Social Change. Examination of public responses to complex and controversial innovations, such as environmentalism, feminism, stem-cell research, same-sex marriage, large-scale hog lots, and others. Strategies for gaining adoption/rejection of controversial innovations. Applications to topics in agriculture, development, business, and marketing.
Soc 549. Sociology of the Environment. Social causes and social consequences of environmental problems. Interrelationship between social inequality and environmental inequality. Social construction and social experience of the environment. Contemporary developments in the social theory of the environment. International and domestic implications.