Overview
Princeton's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering has played a leading role in fluid modeling and measurement, propulsion, combustion and aerospace dynamics over the past half century. By exploiting its multi-disciplinary character and stressing engineering fundamentals, the department seeks to educate the very best students for future positions of leadership in areas of rapidly evolving technology. Intellectual independence and creativity are fostered among undergraduate students through participation in research, design and other project opportunities. Graduate students explore the frontiers of science and technology through a wide range of scholarly activities. These include in-depth thesis level research, formal research presentations, and teaching.
The Department is a part of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and is located in the Engineering Quadrangle (E-Quad ) at the northeast corner of the Princeton campus. Research laboratories are in Duffield Hall, the J-Wing, the Energy Wing, and in the Von Neumann Building, all of which are interconnected portions of the Engineering Quadrangle complex. Larger facilities, principally associated with gas dynamics, as well as some of the computational and modeling facilities, are located in the Gas Dynamics Laboratory at the James Forrestal Campus, a short distance from the main campus.
The department maintains close ties with the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics, the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials, and the Princeton Environmental Institute.
The department specializes in:
- Combustion and Energy Conversion
- Computational Engineering
- Dynamics and Control Systems
- Environment and Energy Technology
- Fluid Mechanics
- Lasers and Applied Physics
We have long-standing interests in space exploration, satellite technology, pollution and alternative fuels, energy usage, propulsion systems, stability and control of vehicles, aircraft performance, bioengineering, instrumentation, laser technology and the materials on which they are based. We play a leading role in the technical challenges that face our society to help guide government policies and improve the quality of life. By maintaining strength in our core disciplines, we have shown great flexibility in helping to meet society's needs. We look forward to the new challenges brought by a shrinking world where food production, biotechnology, energy production and management, sustainability, transportation, communication, and health, safety and security will become even more crucial issues than they are today.
It is very clear that Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering can offer unique perspectives that are not likely to come from other disciplines. Our primary mission is to continue to integrate new technologies into systems that perform high-value functions, just as we have done in the past with new advances in, for example, propulsion, materials, and computational fluid dynamics.
Aerospace Education and Research at Princeton University 1942 -1975 (2.37m)