Information About

Catalog description

Modeling the dynamic behavior of physical systems. Concepts of causality, dependent and independent storages, and state. Introduction to bond graphs. Generation of state equations; analytical and computer simulation of system behavior. Application to problems of engineering interest.

Prerequisite: GEN ENG 205-4

Who takes it

Juniors and seniors in Mechanical Engineering take this course. Many first year graduate students in Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering also take it. Many students take ME 390 to become familiar with dynamic analysis and to prepare for ME 391, Feedback control systems.

What it's about

Many engineering components can be described in terms of energy. Resistors and dashpots dissipate energy. Springs, masses, capacitors, and inductors store energy but do not generate it or dissipate it. Still other components such as gears, levers and motors convert energy from one form to another. In this course you will learn how complex engineering systems can be described in terms of small number of basic energetic components. ME 390 considers especially the dynamic behavior of engineering systems, including descriptors such as time constants, natural frequency and damping ratio, and frequency response.

Minisyllabus:

• Models, dynamics, simulation
• Bond graphing
• Energy storages, Energy sources
• Laplace Transforms
• First and Second order response
• Bode plots

Textbook:

System Dynamics, 3rd edition, Karnopp, Margolis, Rosenberg (Wiley, 2000)

Contact:

Professor: J. Edward Colgate
e-mail: colgate@northwestern.edu

[ Course web site ]