Online courses directory (272)

Subject studies how and why machines work, how they are conceived, how they are developed (drawn), and how they are utilized. Students learn from the hands-on experiences of taking things apart mentally and physically, drawing (sketching, 3D CAD) what they envision and observe, taking occasional field trips, and completing an individual term project (concept, creation, and presentation). Emphasis on understanding the physics and history of machines.

This course covers the development of the fundamental equations of fluid mechanics and their simplifications for several areas of marine hydrodynamics and the application of these principles to the solution of engineering problems. Topics include the principles of conservation of mass, momentum and energy, lift and drag forces, laminar and turbulent flows, dimensional analysis, added mass, and linear surface waves, including wave velocities, propagation phenomena, and descriptions of real sea waves. Wave forces on structures are treated in the context of design and basic seakeeping analysis of ships and offshore platforms. Geophysical fluid dynamics will also be addressed including distributions of salinity, temperature, and density; heat balance in the ocean; major ocean circulations and geostrophic flows; and the influence of wind stress. Experimental projects conducted in ocean engineering laboratories illustrating concepts taught in class, including ship resistance and model testing, lift and drag forces on submerged bodies, and vehicle propulsion.

This course develops the theory and design of hydrofoil sections, including lifting and thickness problems for sub-cavitating sections, unsteady flow problems, and computer-aided design of low drag cavitation-free sections. It also covers lifting line and lifting surface theory with applications to hydrofoil craft, rudder, control surface, propeller and wind turbine rotor design. Other topics include computer-aided design of wake adapted propellers; steady and unsteady propeller thrust and torque; performance analysis and design of wind turbine rotors in steady and stochastic wind; and numerical principles of vortex lattice and lifting surface panel methods. Projects illustrate the development of computational methods for lifting, propeller and wind turbine flows, and use of state-of-the-art simulation methods for lifting, propulsion and wind turbine applications.

We live in real-time, technologically enhanced cities. Explore the sweeping changes that our cities are undergoing as a result of networks, sensors, and communication technology.

Are you considering a career in engineering? Are you fascinated by what engineers do? In this pre-college course, you will gain an understanding of the various fields of engineering and explore the engineering design process, from conceptual design and optimal choice evaluation to project construction.

This class investigates the use of computers in architectural design and construction. It begins with a pre-prepared design computer model, which is used for testing and process investigation in construction. It then explores the process of construction from all sides of the practice: detail design, structural design, and both legal and computational issues.

The course covers basic concepts of biomedical engineering and their connection with the spectrum of human activity. It serves as an introduction to the fundamental science and engineering on which biomedical engineering is based. Case studies of drugs and medical products illustrate the product development-product testing cycle, patent protection, and FDA approval. It is designed for science and non-science majors.

This course provides a broad theoretical basis for system identification, estimation, and learning. Students will study least squares estimation and its convergence properties, Kalman filters, noise dynamics and system representation, function approximation theory, neural nets, radial basis functions, wavelets, Volterra expansions, informative data sets, persistent excitation, asymptotic variance, central limit theorems, model structure selection, system order estimate, maximum likelihood, unbiased estimates, Cramer-Rao lower bound, Kullback-Leibler information distance, Akaike's information criterion, experiment design, and model validation.

2.51 is a 12-unit subject, serving as the Mechanical Engineering Department's advanced undergraduate course in heat and mass transfer. The prerequisites for this course are the undergraduate courses in thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, specifically Thermal Fluids Engineering I and Thermal Fluids Engineering II or their equivalents. This course covers problems of heat and mass transfer in greater depth and complexity than is done in those courses and incorporates many subjects that are not included or are treated lightly in those courses; analysis is given greater emphasis than the use of correlations. Course 2.51 is directed at undergraduates having a strong interest in thermal science and graduate students who have not previously studied heat transfer.

This course studies the fundamentals of how the design and operation of internal combustion engines affect their performance, operation, fuel requirements, and environmental impact. Topics include fluid flow, thermodynamics, combustion, heat transfer and friction phenomena, and fuel properties, with reference to engine power, efficiency, and emissions. Students examine the design features and operating characteristics of different types of internal combustion engines: spark-ignition, diesel, stratified-charge, and mixed-cycle engines. Class includes lab project in the Engine Laboratory.

This course provides ways to analyze manufacturing systems in terms of material flow and storage, information flow, capacities, and times and durations of events. Fundamental topics include probability, inventory and queuing models, optimization, and linear and dynamic systems. Factory planning and scheduling topics include flow planning, bottleneck characterization, buffer and batch-size analysis, and dynamic behavior of production systems.

This course presents principles of naval architecture, ship geometry, hydrostatics, calculation and drawing of curves of form, intact and damage stability, hull structure strength calculations and ship resistance. It introduces computer-aided naval ship design and analysis tools. Projects include analysis of ship lines drawings, calculation of ship hydrostatic characteristics, analysis of intact and damaged stability, ship model testing, and hull structure strength calculations.

Learn how to design, build, and program haptic devices that engage users through their sense of touch. This is a self-paced course.

An accessible but substantial introduction to quantum mechanics for anyone with a reasonable college-level understanding of physical science or engineering.

An accessible but substantial introduction to quantum mechanics for anyone with a reasonable college-level understanding of physical science or engineering.

This interdisciplinary course addresses a wide range of geomechanical problems that arise during the development of oil and gas reservoirs.

This course is an introduction to the fundamental aspects of science and engineering necessary for exploring, observing, and utilizing the oceans. Hands-on projects focus on instrumentation in the marine environment and the design of ocean observatories for ocean monitoring and exploration. Topics include acoustics, sound speed and refraction, sounds generated by ships and marine animals, sonar systems and their principles of operation, hydrostatic behavior of floating and submerged bodies geared towards ocean vehicle design, stability of ocean vessels, and the application of instrumentation and electronics in the marine environment. Students work with sensor systems and deploy them in the field to gather and analyze real world data.

This course provides an overview of robot mechanisms, dynamics, and intelligent controls. Topics include planar and spatial kinematics, and motion planning; mechanism design for manipulators and mobile robots, multi-rigid-body dynamics, 3D graphic simulation; control design, actuators, and sensors; wireless networking, task modeling, human-machine interface, and embedded software. Weekly laboratories provide experience with servo drives, real-time control, and embedded software. Students will design and fabricate working robotic systems in a group-based term project.

This course begins with a comparative review of conventional and advanced multiple attribute decision making (MADM) models in engineering practice. Next, a new application of particular MADM models in reliable material selection of sensitive structural components as well as a multi-criteria Taguchi optimization method is discussed. Other specific topics include dealing with uncertainties in material properties, incommensurability in decision-makers opinions for the same design, objective ways of weighting performance indices, rank stability analysis, compensations and non-compensations.

This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

This course is about maneuvering motions of surface and underwater vehicles. Topics covered include: derivation of equations of motion, hydrodynamic coefficients, memory effects, linear and nonlinear forms of the equations of motion, control surfaces modeling and design, engine, propulsor, and transmission systems modeling and simulation during maneuvering. The course also deals with stability of motion, principles of multivariable automatic control, optimal control, Kalman filtering, and loop transfer recovery. We will also explore applications chosen from autopilots for surface vehicles; towing in open seas; and remotely operated vehicles.

This course was originally offered in Course 13 (Department of Ocean Engineering) as 13.49. In 2005, ocean engineering subjects became part of Course 2 (Department of Mechanical Engineering), and this course was renumbered 2.154.