MANE-6970 Master's Project Suggestions for Selecting a Suitable Project The Masters Project is the final requirement for eligibility for the Master's degree. The Project represents the culmination of your Graduate experience and is a demonstration of your ability to understand and apply graduate-level, engineering concepts, theories and tools. The Project serves to show that you have acquired advanced skills in the discipline and that you are proficient in their use. Projects are graded just like regular courses using a letter grade scheme. The work you do in your project is meant to have a scholarly, archival character. The final deliverable consists of a written report using the official RPI Thesis Template. Paper copies as well as electronic copies of the report must be produced, approved and submitted together with any additional supporting material for ultimate addition to the RPI Cole Library collection. Although you may hold copyright on your final report, the document becomes available to the public at large through the RPI Library service. Work on your Project will be done as an "independent study". However, successful completion is critically dependent on you working closely with your assigned Project Advisor for the duration of the academic term. Projects advisors are full time faculty members of RPI. However, adjunct faculty can act as subject matter expert advisors upon departmental approval. If a student pursue a project under the advise of an adjunct faculty he or she must also secure the participation in the project as secondary advisor of a member of the full time faculty. Note that since 3 credits are awarded on successful completion of a Project (6 for a Thesis), it is expected you will devote at least some 135+ hours of your time to the development and completion of your project. Once you are ready to start work on your Project, selecting a suitable topic is your first and primary responsibility. A systematic and rational approach to selecting a topic ensures that the right topic is selected and significantly increases the likelihood of successful, timely completion of the requirement. Following are answers to some frequently asked questions regarding Project topic selection. Question Who is responsible for selecting a suitable topic for my Project? Answer Selection of a topic is your responsibility. However, RPI has many resources to help ensure you select the right topic. Question How do I choose a topic for my Project? Answer You must select a topic for your project based on your own personal and professional interests. Since you will devote much time and effort to the completion of your Project, it is crucial you work on something that interests you greatly. Since you have limited time and resources to complete your project, it is crucial that you select a topic that has high probability of being completed successfully with the time and resources at your disposal. Your Faculty Advisor will be happy to provide some guidance to help you select the right topic. Question Where can I get ideas for suitable topics? Answer Good, suitable Project topics can originate from multiple sources. For instance, if a certain course you took while enrolled in your program at RPI was particularly stimulating to you, you may consider doing your project on a topic related to that course. You should thus contact your instructor directly, he/she would be glad to help you determine a suitable topic and may even agree to become your Project Advisor. While you do this, you must also contact your Faculty Advisor as he/she will provide guidance about working on your Project with any of RPI's Instructors. Project topics inspired by a work-related problem often result in interesting, suitable Projects. However, work-related problems are also often complex and/or ill-defined, or maybe they are far too practice-oriented and fail to satisfy the scholarship requirement. Moreover, there may also be a risk of infringing into Intellectual Property issues. If you are considering a work-related problem as a topic for a project, it is best to approach your Faculty Advisor early on and have some discussion. You may well have to rightsize and right-scope your topic in order to make it feasible. Some students select topics for their Project from extracurricular activities or hobbies they have a passion for. Again, your Faculty Advisor would be glad to help you determine whether a candidate topic would be suitable for a Project, please contact him/her early to discuss. Successfully completed prior Engineering Projects can also serve to generate good ideas for new topics. You can consult the archival collection of Engineering Project Reports at the Cole Library for a comprehensive list or access Prof. Gutierrez-Miravete course page and click in the Student Portfolio links of his Engineering Project courses. If you are unsure about a topic, it is a good idea to browse through the multiple volumes of a Mechanical Engineer's Handbook (such as the 3rd edition of the one by Kutz available in full text to RPI students through the Knovel Link at the Cole Library Webpage). Looking through the various chapters of the handbook may help you identify a specific subdiscipline within Mechanical Engineering (such as Solid Mechanics, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, Manufacturing, etc) where you would like to do your Project. The RPI Cole Library makes available to students an extensive electronic informational database in your discipline. The database contains articles from scientific and technical journals as well as reports and reference books and textbooks. The electronic collection is readily available to RPI students from anywhere through an Internet connection by simply using their RPI login ID and password. This is a valuable benefit exclusively available to RPI students, you should take full advantage of this resource. Also, please note that expert Librarians at the Cole Library will be happy to help you find a suitable topic for your Project and/or to assist you in identifying and finding pertinent information. Please feel free to pay them a visit or contact them directly. Once you have some ideas, please proceed to contact your Faculty Advisor to narrow down your choices and define a suitable topic. Question How do I know that the topic I have in mind is the right one? Answer You must select a topic for your project based on your own personal and professional interests. Since you will devote much time and effort to the completion of your Project, it is crucial you work on something that interests you greatly. Moreover, contacting your Faculty Advisor is essential since official approval is required before you are allowed to register and/or begin work on your Project. Your Advisor will be happy to help you determine wether you have selected the right topic. Once you identify a suitable topic you like and receive approval from your Project Advisor you will be ready to start the work. Question What would be some good keywords to use to identify a suitable topic? Answer Following is a (non-exhaustive) list. Most useful when used in combination with additional terms. Elastic analysis of a structure Modal analysis of a structure Elasto-Plastic analysis of a structure Viscoplastic/Creep analysis of a structure Damage Mechanics Fracture Mechanics Fatigue Vibrations Internal fluid flow External Fluid flow Compressible flow Supersonic flow Two Phase Flow Flow-Structure interaction Capillary flows Lubricating flows Turbulent flows Physico-chemical hydrodynamics Granular Flow Thermodynamics (classical, statistical, irreversible,...) Conduction heat transfer Convection heat transfer Radiation heat transfer Diffusional mass transfer Convective mass transfer Heat transfer with change of phase Mass transfer with change of phase Stability/Instability Chaos Fractals Materials for aerospace systems Materials for energy systems Materials for infrastructure Composite Materials Functionally Graded Materials Microelectronic packaging Aqueous Corrosion Hot Corrosion Tribology Friction Wear Lubrication Bearings Manufacturing Processes Casting Forming Machining Welding and Joining Heat treating Surface treating Polymer/Composite Processing Design (machine, tool, product, process, material ...) Kinematics and Dynamics of Mechanical Systems Orbital Mechanics Combustion Detonation and Explosions Turbomachinery Propulsion systems Conventional energy systems (fossil fuel, nuclear, ...) Alternative energy systems Acoustics Electromagnetics Stochastic simulation of manufacturing systems Stochastic simulation of service systems Optimization (structural, flow, shape, process, materials ...) Reliability (structural, systems, processes, materials...) Modeling and Simulation of complex systems Physics/engineering of sports systems Physics/engineering of biological systems Technological change Decisions under uncertainty Risk Analysis History of technology Initial/Boundary Value Problems Eigenvalue Problems Matrix Analysis/Linear Algebra Nonlinear Equations Interpolation Methods Perturbation Methods Numerical Analysis Finite Difference/Finite Volume/Finite Element Methods Computational Fluid Dynamics Discrete Element Methods Smoothed Particle Methods Lattice Boltzmann Methods Large Eddy Simulation Detached Eddy Simulation Multiphysics Modeling Materials, Energy and Exergy balances Industrial Ecology Waste and Pollution Prevention Analysis Clean Technology Analysis Carbon Footprint Analyis Environmental Impact Assesment Ecological Footprint Analysis Life Cycle Assessment