ME 383 – Modern Manufacturing Practices (2 Credit Hours)

Course Description: A survey of classical and modern manufacturing processes. Emphasis is on the selection of materials and manufacturing processes to meet design goals and the manufacturing ease. Specific components include

• Geometric and service attributes of manufactured products,
• Metal casting processes,
• Forming processes,
• Machining processes,
• Joining processes, and
• Manufacturing systems.

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

• Dr. Y. Kevin Chou

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:

• Basic Engineering Skills (DR125 or DR133)
• Perform geometric constructions, orthographic views, auxiliaries, sections, pictorials, and dimensioning
• Execute freehand sketches, and computer-aided drawing
• Use AutoCad software to produce two-dimensional engineering drawings such as multiviews, sections, and auxiliaries, as well as isometric and oblique pictorials and dimensional drawings

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

• ESM 250 - Mechanics of Materials I
• Recognize and analyze situations of uniaxial & biaxial stress/strain
• Compute stress and strain for pure tension/compression, bending, and pure torsion of round and rectangular cross-section members
• Describe material properties (modulus of elasticity, Poisson's ratio, yield strength) for steel and aluminum
• MTE 271 - Engineering Materials I: Structure and Properties
• Recognize basic structure of ceramics, alloys, composites, metals, and polymers
• Describe relationships between the structure of materials and their mechanical, electrical, magnetic, thermal, and chemical properties
• ME 283 - Modern manufacturing Laboratory
• Make engineering sketches and read blueprint of parts for manufacturing
• Use shop instruments to measure length, diameter, and other dimensions
• Operate manual lathes, milling and drilling machines
• Apply tolerance concept on fabrication and assembly of parts
• Recognize computer numerical control lathes and the programming features

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

• Describe the relationships between product design, material selections, manufacturing processes and systems, and environmental impact (h)
• Specify form accuracy, dimensional tolerances, surface finish of manufactured parts and describe principles of related measurements (p)
• Extract elasticity modulus, yield strength, tensile strength, elongation percentage, and fracture energy from tension test results (stress-strain curve), distinguish between brittle and ductile material behavior (b)
• Explain hardness and methods to measure hardness and describe tribological properties and wear mechanism (p)
• Define solidification process and describe nucleation and grain growth during metal casting
• Calculate composition of two phase solution upon solidification using level arm rule (p)
• Describe casting techniques, classify different casting processes and their applications (p)
• Describe casting mold design principles
• Draw an engineering sketch of casting molds with component specifications (p)
• Describe metal forming process and explain mechanics of plastic deformation (p)
• Specify material structures and properties changed by metal deformation processes (p)
• Classify various metal deformation processes and their applications,
• Describe hot, cold, isothermal and thermomechanical working processes (p)
• Specify principles on design aspects of metal forming processes (p)
• Describe mechanics of metal cutting and chip formation (p)
• Identify basic components of a machining process and specify process parameters and variables (p)
• Calculate material removal rate, specific cutting energy, and surface finish with a given set of process parameters (p)
• Design cutting experiments to evaluate machinability of workpiece materials and tool performance (b)
• Describe multipoint machining operations such as milling, drilling, and broaching, etc.; identify process parameters, applications and limitations (p)
• Characterize the basis of joining processes; classify and describe different joining processes, mechanical joining, solid state welding, and liquid state joining, etc. (p)
• Characterize metallurgical bonds resulting from welding and describe properties critical to weld quality (p)
• Describe and explain several competitive aspects in manufacturing systems; characterize elements needed in manufacturing systems (p)

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