MAE 4141 - [Mechanics of Lightweight Vehicles]

(CU-SBY)

Fall. Next offered 2016-2017. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

Prerequisite: MAE 2120, MAE 3250, and MAE 3272 or equivalent. Prerequisite or corequisite: MAE 4300. Enrollment limited to: senior standing or permission of instructor. Fulfills Senior Design requirement. Co-meets with MAE 4140.

P. Dawson.

Combined lecture and laboratory course covering fundamentals of vehicle mechanics for several classes of vehicles (bicycles, light cars, airframes). Topics include: summary of types of vehicle structures; review of pertinent aspects of mechanical behavior including elastic and inelastic responses; static and dynamic behavior of vehicles under elastic loading; and mechanics of crashworthiness. Lectures cover essential background material for understanding of vehicle mechanics; laboratories provide hands-on experiences in the major components of the course.

Outcome 1: Perform analyses of the mechanical responses of tubular and semimonocoque vehicle structures under static and dynamic loadings.

Outcome 2: Perform bound analyses of the inelastic collapse behavior of vehicle structures associated with crashworthiness.

Outcome 3: Conduct experiments to measure the collapse vehicle structures, the mechanical response of vehicle structures under static and oscillatory loading, and the mechanical properties of materials used to build vehicle structures.