General Information

Automation and Manufacturing lab

Location

Courses

The Laboratory is equipped machine tool and machining engineering including ABB stationary industrial robot, 3-D printer, pendulum robot, and National Instruments data acquisition systems.

Asphalt lab

Location

Courses

The asphalt laboratory is an integral part of the Pavement design and analysis course ENGR 453. There are many types of equipment associated with the following laboratories and AASHTO standards:  

• Asphalt tests: Brookfield rotational viscometer, Flash tester
• Marshall Mix design: Marshall compactor, Marshall stabilometer and flow testing frame, molds and extractor, mixer
• SuperPave Mix design: SuperPave Gyratory compactor, Vacuum and regulator, shaker table and rice test setup, molds and extractors, ovens.

Computer lab

Location

Courses

The Engineering department has two computer labs that are used to support courses having software related labs: ENGR 101: Engineering Graphics, ENGR 301: Computer Aided Engineering/Design Tools, ENGR 472: Kinematics/Dynamics of Machines, and ENGR 476: Applied Finite Element Analysis Lab. The labs contain a total of 43 computers that are equipped with state-of-the-art engineering analysis and design software including AutoCAD, I-DEAS, NX, NASTRAN, Adams, RSlogix, Matlab, and GeoPack. The computers are upgraded every three years and are available to students during the evenings and weekends in addition to the normal daytime hours.

Electrical Lab

Location

Courses

This electrical lab provides 16 stations with the essential electronic measuring instruments. Each station includes

• PB-503 Global Specialties Protoboard
• GDM-8245 Dual Display Digital Multimeter
• GFG-8216A Function Generators
• 1760A Dual DC Power Supply
• TDS 1002 Digital Oscilloscope.

The lab allows students to work on building and testing analog and digital circuits. Each station also includes a PC installed with modern engineering software, e.g. Labview, Multisim, Matlab.

Electrical and Computer Research lab

Location

Courses

This lab provides 10 stations to our students to work on their research projects funded by both the government agencies and outside companies. The lab includes

• NI data acquisition
• 8-bit microcontroller AVR, PIC, 16-bit ARM, DSP processor kits
• PCs and G5 Macs
• Robot kits, sensors, and motors.

The previous projects include 1) autonomous robots, 2) Assitive Technology for children, 3) Advanced ultrasonic range finder, 4) digital audio mixer, 5) Labview based automated testing for test equipment, and 6) Wireless monitoring system on iPhone.

Engineering Development lab

Location

Courses

This lab is used to fabricate components for student design and faculty research projects. The lab is equipped with a variety of hand tools, machine tools and welding equipment including a manual/CNC mill, lathe, vertical and horizontal band saws, tube bender, grinders, presses, oxyacetylene torch, and MIG and TIG welders.

Mechanical lab

Location

Courses

The lab contains a 120,000 lb tensile test machine, hardness tester, heat treatment furnaces, Charpy V-notch tester, rotating beam fatigue tester, and workspace for preparing, fabricating and testing concrete or soil samples.

Metallography lab

Location

Courses

This lab is used to examine the microstructure of metals using an Olympus GX71 inverted metallurgical microscope system. Sample prep equipment includes a sectioning saw, encapsulation press, and semi-automatic grinder/polisher. The microscope includes a PAXcam digital video camera and PAX-it imaging analysis software. A large LCD screen is used to enable several people to view microscope images at the same time.

Soil lab

Location

Courses

The soils’ laboratory is an integral part of the Geotechnical Engineering course ENGR 451. There are many equipment associated with the following laboratories and ASTM standards:  water content, specific gravity, sieve analysis, hydrometer analysis, liquid limit, plastic limit, classification of soils, sand cone method, proctor test, Consolidation test, direct shear test. 

Study room

Location

This room is designated for students to study, relax, or work on their assignments. There are lockers reserved for students to store their books and equipment. We encourage students to have discussion and work as the team using this setup.

Vibrations, Control, and Measurement lab

Location

Courses

This lab is used for the Vibrations course, the Instrumentation and Experimental Methods course, and the Linear Control Systems Design course.  The lab provides six stations which accommodate groups of up to four students each to perform the laboratory experiments in Vibrations and Instrumentation.  There are also demonstration labs/project capabilities for use in Control System Design.  The lab includes

• PCs with NI data acquisition capability
• Vibration test apparatus, including instrumentation such as accelerometers and displacement transducers
• Vishay® linear amplifier/filters for signal conditioning for use with strain gauges, accelerometers, and linear displacement transducers
• Linear shakers used to excite structures
• Dynamometer used to characterize viscous damping devices
• Suite of Quanser® laboratory equipment with a number of linear and rotational experiments, as well as the recently purchased Shake Table II with two-story structure and active mass damper.

This lab is also used to support Senior Research/Design projects involving structural control and dynamics. The PC at each station is equipped with Matlab and LabVIEW, and there are dedicated PCs to control the Quanser® equipment and the dynamometer.