文章基本信息

标题：SIM CENTRAL
作者：Gardner, Robert
期刊名称：ASEE Prism
印刷版ISSN：1056-8077
电子版ISSN：1930-6148
出版年度：2004
卷号：Summer 2004
出版社：American Society for Engineering Education

SIM CENTRAL

Gardner, Robert

INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH is blooming with the magnolias. At Mississippi State University's Computational Simulation and Design Center (Sim Center) the work of over 30 students, researchers, and professors in fields ranging from art to aerospace engineering flourishes. Sim Center uses high-performance computing to develop technology that can be used by designers to study the interaction of fluids with engineering systems. Ship and airplane designers, for example, would use the technology to study the drag effect of water on a ship hull or of air on the body of an airplane. The work is cutting edge and involves everything from torpedoes and rockets to automobiles and blood pumps. "Some of our technology was used to study what happened during the recent shuttle disaster," says David L. Marcum, mechanical engineering professor and director of the center.

Along with technology development, engineering education is part of the center's mission. Indeed, as an outgrowth of NSF's Engineering Research Center program, integrating education with research and industry has been an overarching goal. Marcum says the center's employees include more than 20 master's and doctoral students and 10 undergraduate students.

"A lot of these undergraduate students had CAD experience and they knew something about geometry and physics," Marcum says. "They've been able to make a big impact on the research." The students draw, among other things, pictures of the propellers, rudders, and automobile shells. They even work animating the fluid flow around them. Animation itself has grown to become a significant part of the center, and the university. "There is now an animation degree you can get that originated in the center," Marcum says.

Christopher Martin, a sophomore aerospace engineering major, has been doing animation work for technology that simulates airflow around a moving automobile. "It's been challenging," he says. "But I've enjoyed it." Martin credits the center with helping him find some direction within his discipline. "When I started, I didn't know what field of aerospace engineering I wanted to get into. Now I do."