ME 350 – Static Machine Components (3 Credit Hours)

Course Description: The analysis of stresses of machine elements and topics of fatigue strength, wear, and failure criteria. Also includes the design of fasteners covering both bolted and welded joints.

Course Instructors: This course is typically taught by the following instructors:

• Dr. Steve Shepard
• Dr. Beth Todd

Sample Syllabus: A sample syllabus indicative of that typically used in the course can be found here.

Pre-Requisite Skills: Students entering this course are expected to have mastered the following skills:

• ESM 250 – Strength of Materials
• Compute stress and deflection under combined loading for rectangular cross-section members
• Compute stress and deflection under tension/compression and bending for any other cross-section members
• Use material properties (modulus of elasticity, Poisson's ratio, shear modulus) to relate stress and strain with Hooke’s Law
• Draw a 2-D Mohr’s Circle for a given stress state and determine the principal stresses and directions
• Identify situations of plane stress and plane strain
• Calculate stress, pressure, and dimensions for thin-wall pressure vessels
• Draw shear force and bending moment diagrams
• Draw correct Free Body Diagrams
• Calculate critical buckling load for Euler columns
• ESM 251 – Strength of Materials Lab
• Construct an engineering stress-engineering strain curve for steel
• Define terms related to specific locations on the stress-strain curve, e.g. elastic region, plastic region, strain hardening, necking, ultimate strength, yield strength, 0.2% offset method, yield limit
• DR 125 or DR 133
• Draw isometric pictorials and orthographic projections of simple designs on Autocad
• Label and dimension Autocad drawings

Co-Requisite Skills: Students taking this course are expected to be enrolled (or to have taken) courses that teach students the following skills:

• MTE 271
• Locate material properties of non-metals, such as polymers, glass, wood
• Define microstructure, non-linearity, nonhomogeneous, orthotropic, anisotropic as related to material properties

Course Objectives: Students who successfully complete this course can be expected to:

• Design a simple device on paper (c )
• List the steps of the design process and its iterative nature (c)
• Gather background information such as material properties and user/product limits (a2)
• Communicate their design effectively using Autocad, complete with labels and dimensions (g)
• Calculate stresses and deflections appropriate to the device under the guidance of the instructor for selecting among alternatives (e)
• Write a description of the device with its features and limitations (g)
• Present the device to a technical audience using PowerPoint (g)
• Calculate stress in curved beams, thick-walled cylinders, and spinning disks (e)
• Calculate stress along contact axis for Hertz contact stress problem for spheres and cylinders (e)
• Calculate strain energy for torsion, tension/compression, and bending using rectangular coordinates (e)
• Calculate deflections using Castigliano’s theorem (e)
• Calculate critical buckling load and stress for intermediate columns, eccentric loads, and struts (e)
• Define conditions of ductility and brittleness (a1)
• Identify situations to use the various failure theories (a2)
• Calculate factors of safety (e)
• Calculate factors which impact endurance limit, including stress concentration factors, and calculate endurance limit (e)
• Calculate the number of fatigue cycles under a finite life (e)
• Calculate factors of safety for infinite life for both fully reversed and fluctuating fatigue (e)
• Define standard weld symbols (a2)
• Define terminology related to sizing and selection of a threaded fastener (a2)
• Analyze and design a power screw ( c)
• Analyze primary and secondary load for and design a bolt group (c)
• Calculate the member stress in a bolted joint (e)
• Analyze and design a weld loaded in torsion or in bending ( c)
• Explain the working principle of gearing and list the basic types of gears (a2)
• Identify the fundamental geometry of gears and compute the design parameters based on a given transmission application (e)
• Compute the gear mesh forces for spur, helical, bevel and worm gears (e)
• Draw a free body diagram of a gear train system and compute the reaction forces on the shaft and bearing locations (e)

Sample Examinations: Examples of Examinations given in this course can be found here.

Downstream Users: This course serves as a pre-requisite to the following courses at The University of Alabama:

• ME 450 - Dynamic Machine Components
• ME 489 - Mechanical Engineering Design I