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Oleg Zikanov, PhD
Dr. Oleg Zikanov is a professor and chair of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. He earned his MS in mechanics from Moscow State University and his PhD in fluid dynamics and plasma physics from the Institute for Problems in Mechanics.
Before joining the faculty at UM-Dearborn, Dr. Zikanov conducted research at TU Darmstadt, TU Dresden, and Florida Atlantic University. His areas of research interest include computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer; magnetohydrodynamics; liquid metal technologies in energy applications; thermal convection; and hydrodynamic instabilities and transition to turbulence. He is the author of Essential Computational Fluid Dynamics.
Jie Yin, PhD
Dr. Jie Yin is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at North Carolina State University. He earned his MS in solid mechanics from Tsinghua University and his PhD in engineering mechanics from Columbia University.
Before joining NC State, he worked as a postdoctoral associate at MIT and an assistant and associate professor at Temple University. He received the Cozzarelli Prize from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), an NSF CAREER Award, and an Extreme Mechanics Letters (EML) Young Investigator Award. Dr. Yin’s group’s research is on both fundamental mechanics and functionality of novel materials and structures at all scales.
The automobile has changed enormously since Henry Ford rolled out his quadricycle in 1896. Even the car of the 20th century, with its gas-powered engine, is fading into the rearview mirror. Next-generation vehicles are a symphony of cutting-edge technology, and they come with renewed concerns about how they’re designed and powered.
“Some people may think of mechanical engineering as only relating to the internal combustion engine,” Dr. Zikanov says. “Not at all. The automobile still has a structure—the metals, composites, plastics, whatever you use—and it has to be designed by mechanical engineers.”
The mechanical engineer’s fingerprints are all over an automobile’s design, from the way its chassis resists vibration in motion to the pleasing feel of one of its doors being shut to the car’s elegant and efficient flow of energy. Finding ways to balance sustainability, affordability, efficiency, safety, and capability requires a complex calculus. But it also opens the door for innovation: what does a vehicle look like, for example, if it doesn’t have a large internal combustion engine in its nose?
The contemporary car battery takes up significant design space. In addition to being large, it’s also extremely heavy: that of a Tesla Model 3 weighs around half a ton, while longer-range electric SUVs and trucks can weigh over a full ton. Working with materials scientists and electrical engineers, mechanical engineers need to find a way to make batteries that are light but also tough and safe. The structural design of battery casings is exceptionally important, contributing to temperature management.
“With battery packs, if you could maintain the proper temperature, keep them structurally solid and safe, and at the same time so that they wouldn’t weigh hundreds of kilograms, that’d be a major breakthrough in the automotive industry,” Dr. Zikanov says.
Right now, electric vehicle batteries typically take up the floor of a vehicle. But breakthroughs in battery structure and design could change that. Engineers are already beginning to rethink how batteries look and how they fit into future vehicles. This is no small area of concern: Dr. Zikanov’s graduate mechanical engineering students at the University of Michigan-Dearborn are offered five separate courses on different aspects of battery design.
“Maybe you don’t have to have a single block of battery, but rather you could distribute the batteries all over the vehicle, like in the walls,” Dr. Zikanov says. “That’s a completely new idea. Nobody knows yet how to do it.”
A stable fusion reactor is the Holy Grail for scientists and engineers across many different disciplines. Unlike nuclear fission, which splits apart atomic elements and is in use today, a stable fusion reactor would mimic the process of stars, combining atomic elements together to release enormous amounts of energy. Fusion uses isotopes of hydrogen, such as deuterium and tritium. If done in a stable environment, it would provide a safe and plentiful energy source, sparking a new paradigm.
“Many of those working on building and developing fusion reactors are people with a mechanical engineering or similar background,” Dr. Zikanov says.
Fusion is not a theoretical idea: it exists across the universe. But recreating the environment necessary for it to occur on Earth is a major engineering challenge. It requires extraordinarily high temperature and high pressure inside an enclosed reactor, creating conditions in which it’s unclear how devices will behave. Designing an overall structure that can withstand those conditions, as well as absorb and direct the resultant energy, is the domain of mechanical engineers.
“Some people say that even if this reactor is built, it is going to include several million parts, and one of those parts will always be broken,” Dr. Zikanov says. “That’s the main issue.”
As a field, soft robotics subverts the assumption that robotics must be rigid. Using innovative materials, soft robots can move in new and complex ways, offering a wide-open design space for mechanical engineers. The materials used in soft robotics are sometimes softer than the human skin and can include elastic flexibility and surprisingly robust properties.
Applications in soft robotics typically come in two categories: manipulation and motion. Grippers, which perform the function they’re named after, fall into manipulation. They grip, scoop, enclose, drag, and pinch with care and grace, adding a layer of safety to the interactions and interfaces between biomatter and machine.
“For any robotic gripper, you want to imitate the human hand,” Dr. Yin says. “The human hand is so powerful, so agile. It can do so many things.”
Mechanical engineers working in soft robotics may seek designs that are as instant and as intuitive as flesh—indeed, grippers could be used to improve and adapt human prosthetics. Grippers can also be used in medicine, agriculture, and manufacturing. But grippers, in many ways, surpass their human counterparts. Dr. Yin has been working on grippers that build on old kirigami designs and go further, exemplifying great strength and grace. From picking up a water drop to turning a page to lifting 16,000 times its weight, a universal gripper can offer incredible utility.
“Grippers can be heavy, gentle, or precise, and there’s trade-offs between all of them,” Dr. Yin says. “But we want to unify all those characteristics into a single gripper. That’s the challenge.”
So much of life is made of soft materials, and soft robotics specialists always look for new ways to make their creations more alive. This multidisciplinary area involves engineers, material scientists, chemists, and even artists.
Dr. Yin recently contributed to creating a “butterfly bot,” which moves similarly to human arms when performing a butterfly stroke. It’s the fastest-swimming soft bot yet, at a rate of 3.74 body lengths per second. The design borrowed from the biomechanics of the manta ray and other marine animals.
“We draw a lot of inspiration from nature,” Dr. Yin says. “But we don’t want to just mimic it. Our ambitions go further.”
Significant challenges remain. Integrating rigid and bulky components—power sources and controllers, for example—can be vexing. Currently, those rigid elements are often put off-board, but building more of them into the structure itself would be a breakthrough. Mechanical engineers and other professionals working in soft robotics are exploring the possibility of stretchable and flexible batteries and sensors that could help, possibly incorporating new soft materials, like liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs).
If done right, more autonomous soft bots have intriguing applications in drone design, marine and space exploration, and environmental monitoring. When soft bots merge with next-generation grippers, the possibilities start to sound like science fiction. And so does this: Dr. Yin and other soft robotics experts are looking for ways to encode intelligence into their creations, so they can make decisions and determine their own motions. Dr. Yin recently created a “brainless” soft robot that can autonomously escape complex mazes without human or computer guidance. But while seeking to surpass nature, Dr. Yin is still largely in awe of it.
“The octopus is the master of soft robotics,” Dr. Yin says. “Their adaptivity, their capability, the way they change shape—it’s really amazing. Right now, we can’t beat it. But it gives us hope.”
Matt Zbrog is a writer and researcher from Southern California. Since 2018, he’s written extensively about a wide range of engineering disciplines, with a particular focus on the potential impacts of major technological breakthroughs. His work largely centers around conversations with engineering faculty at top universities, highlighting their research in areas such as nuclear power, artificial intelligence, soft robotics, and semiconductor design. He’s also worked with leaders and subject matter experts at the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE).
By reading a select number of engineering blogs, university students can gain access to the thoughts of some of the best engineers in the world, and get on the path to becoming one themselves.
The best gifts for mechanical engineers are tools that help them activate their engineering spirit and build their own creations. Those tools can be knowledge-based, they can be practical, or they can be plain old fun. We’ve gathered a list of potential mechanical engineering gifts that fit every budget and personality.
Bachelor’s and master’s level mechanical engineering students who secure internships will earn exceptional early work experience, learn which areas of mechanical engineering they like and dislike, and find themselves more likely to be hired by their target companies post-graduation.
Engineers might be the only group of people where you can give them a problem—and they can consider it a gift. The engineering mind thrives on hunting for elegant solutions to complex tasks. That doesn’t mean you should give an engineering student a homework assignment for the holidays, but it does mean you can have some fun with the gift you eventually select.
Engineering internships are an increasingly important part of the transition from student to engineer. Internships provide an opportunity to put theoretical skills to work in hands-on environments. They also give engineering students valuable work experience, networking opportunities, and future career options.
