Mechanical Engineering Degree Research Articles

Form innovation: investigating the use of generative design tools to encourage creativity in product design

ABSTRACT In a competitive market, where engineering design skills are mandatory, the capacity to be creative, and make innovative forms, represents the distinctive element that can offer the added value for that specific product. The product’s aesthetics, in fact, play an ever more decisive role especially where different products have similar functions and performances. In this context, the paper investigates the adoption of Generative Design (GD) as a tool for creating new concepts and encourage creativity in product design. Since GD automatically explores a large number of solutions in search of the best functional forms, this could offer designers the opportunity to focus on the aesthetic aspects by using its results as a trigger to explore new forms. To this end, the paper presents a pilot experiment in which, using generative design tools, some conceptual furniture design solutions have been generated. In particular, the paper compares the design concept of stools made, with and without the support of generative design, by students enrolled in the last year of the Master’s Degree in mechanical engineering. The concepts have been evaluated in terms of design creativity, with particular reference to novelty and aesthetics, by involving the general public and a group of experts.

Application of Hydraulic Energy-Saving Technology in the Teaching, Research, and Practice of Mechanical Engineering

To cope with the current resource, energy, and environmental problems faced by the manufacturing industry, energy conservation has become a long-term national development strategic policy. Specifically, the problems of high energy consumption and low energy efficiency in hydraulic systems have received considerable attention. Based on previous research on hydraulic energy-saving technology, this paper discusses the problems and challenges faced by such technology in higher education, the methods of integrating this technology into the curricula of mechanical majors, and the implementation of teaching reform. In the selected case study, hydraulic energy-saving technology was incorporated into the hydraulic experiment and practical training course of our school, focusing on the integration of energy-saving and emission-reduction concepts in the field of mechanical engineering teaching and research. Integrating hydraulic energy-saving technology into teaching and research not only enriches the content of mechanical engineering degree courses but also integrates professional knowledge with future work practice, provides methods and technical support for future research by teachers and students, and stimulates new ideas for the teaching reform and talent cultivation of mechanical engineering majors.

More Students Going Into Petroleum Engineering Programs as Research Work Tilts to Alternative Energy

Oil companies are eagerly hiring petroleum engineering graduates, but the steep falloff in petroleum research funding is forcing a shift to alternative energy work. On the plus side, those connected with programs said most seniors have lined up jobs well in advance of graduation and some are getting multiple offers. Companies are competing for a small pool of talent, with 660 seniors expected to graduate this year, down from a peak of 2,615 in 2017, according to the annual SPE survey of colleges with petroleum engineering programs by Lloyd Heinze, professor emeritus at Texas Tech, who predicts that number will drop to 572 in 2025 based on the number of juniors. After that, enrollment looks likely to rise. There has been a 13% increase in the number of freshman and sophomore students, which is attributed to the strong demand for petroleum engineers. “Probably word of mouth is seniors getting jobs, and junior and sophomore internships is a big factor in the rise,” Heinze said. Another plus is that undergraduate enrollment is up at seven of the 10 largest programs surveyed in the US and the Middle East. “Almost everyone is up,” said Mashhad Fahes, an associate professor at The University of Oklahoma (OU), who reports that nearly all those approaching graduation have jobs in hand, often with multiple job offers. Internships were so widely available that OU had no takers for a summer program created to provide an alternative to paid internships a couple years back when those opportunities were scarce. Similar evaluations of the job market were offered by sources from Texas A&M University and The University of Texas Permian Basin (UTPB). In all cases, the jobs were mostly in oil and gas exploration and production. “They know that if they get a degree from our program, they can easily find a job in the area,” said Ahmed Kamel, an associate professor who is the department coordinator at UTPB. UTPB, which now has more PE students than OU and LSU, draws a large percentage of its students from west Texas who have grown up around the oil business before enrolling, and Kamel said many are working in the industry while in college. In addition to knowing the business, he said they offer another benefit: “Oil and gas companies want people from here who will stay here.” The program, started in 2011 as part of the business school, is now part of UTPB’s College of Engineering offering degrees in mechanical, chemical, and civil engineering. Its growth plan includes a petroleum engineering graduate program in the future, which will require increasing its research work. Kamel said that it currently has the research support it needs for teaching undergrads.

Evaluating the learning performances for CNC machine practice in mechanical engineering degree courses based on students’ mental workload

This study evaluates the performance of learning CNC machining in mechanical engineering degree programs by assessing students’ mental workload (MWL). Both subjective (NASA-Task Load Index) and objective (increasing ratio of heart rate, IRH) evaluation methods were employed to assess the MWL of 46 students randomly assigned to two groups: a traditional training group and a combined simulation training group. The results demonstrate the significant impact of the training method on students’ MWL. Specifically, the MWL and IHR values of the combined simulation training group were 54.3 and 9.2, respectively, while those of the traditional training group were 58.3 and 13.2. Additionally, the correlation analysis showed a significant correlation between the IHR value and the MWL score of NASA-TLX. These findings suggest that implementing simulated software and the combined simulation training method effectively reduces students’ MWL, thereby promoting active knowledge acquisition. Consequently, students’ MWL can be utilized to evaluate the effectiveness of technical education with the aim of enhancing training efficiency and quality.

Trading rights to consume wind in presence of farm-farm interactions

Michiel Kenis is a PhD researcher at the Energy Systems Integration & Modeling Group at the University of Leuven with a doctoral mandate from the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO). He was a visiting researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on cross-border electricity markets. He holds a MSc in energy engineering and a MSc in policy economics, both from the University of Leuven. Luca Lanzilao completed his MSc degree in mathematical engineering from Politecnico di Torino in 2018. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD at KU Leuven. His research focuses on studying the response of the atmospheric boundary layer to wind farm forcing, with particular emphasis on meso-scale phenomena, such as gravity waves. Kenneth Bruninx received a MSc degree in energy engineering in 2011, a MSc in management, and a PhD degree in mechanical engineering in 2016, all from the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium. Currently, he is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Technology, Policy, and Management of TU Delft, Netherlands and a research fellow at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, KU Leuven, Belgium. His research interests include market design, policies, and regulation for integrated energy systems. Johan Meyers is a professor of mechanical engineering at KU Leuven since 2009. His research focuses on the simulation of turbulent flows and the atmospheric boundary layer with applications in wind energy. In 2012, he obtained an ERC grant on wind farm control and has been involved in various European projects on wind energy since. He served as the vice president of the European Academy of Wind Energy from 2017 to 2019 and as its president from 2019 to end of 2021. He has been active as an associate editor for Computers & Fluids and is currently an associate editor for Wind Energy Science. Erik Delarue received MSc and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Leuven, Belgium, in 2005 and 2009, respectively. He is currently an associate professor with the University of Leuven, TME Branch (energy conversion) and active with EnergyVille. His research focus and expertise are on quantitative tools, supporting an efficient operation of, and transition toward, a low-carbon energy system (mathematical modeling of energy systems). Applications relate to flexibility through energy systems integration, market design, and energy policies. Michiel Kenis is a PhD researcher at the Energy Systems Integration & Modeling Group at the University of Leuven with a doctoral mandate from the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO). He was a visiting researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on cross-border electricity markets. He holds a MSc in energy engineering and a MSc in policy economics, both from the University of Leuven. Luca Lanzilao completed his MSc degree in mathematical engineering from Politecnico di Torino in 2018. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD at KU Leuven. His research focuses on studying the response of the atmospheric boundary layer to wind farm forcing, with particular emphasis on meso-scale phenomena, such as gravity waves. Kenneth Bruninx received a MSc degree in energy engineering in 2011, a MSc in management, and a PhD degree in mechanical engineering in 2016, all from the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium. Currently, he is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Technology, Policy, and Management of TU Delft, Netherlands and a research fellow at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, KU Leuven, Belgium. His research interests include market design, policies, and regulation for integrated energy systems. Johan Meyers is a professor of mechanical engineering at KU Leuven since 2009. His research focuses on the simulation of turbulent flows and the atmospheric boundary layer with applications in wind energy. In 2012, he obtained an ERC grant on wind farm control and has been involved in various European projects on wind energy since. He served as the vice president of the European Academy of Wind Energy from 2017 to 2019 and as its president from 2019 to end of 2021. He has been active as an associate editor for Computers & Fluids and is currently an associate editor for Wind Energy Science. Erik Delarue received MSc and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Leuven, Belgium, in 2005 and 2009, respectively. He is currently an associate professor with the University of Leuven, TME Branch (energy conversion) and active with EnergyVille. His research focus and expertise are on quantitative tools, supporting an efficient operation of, and transition toward, a low-carbon energy system (mathematical modeling of energy systems). Applications relate to flexibility through energy systems integration, market design, and energy policies.

Aplicación de una metodología de PBL y clase inversa al laboratorio de asignaturas en ingeniería Mecánica

Elasticity and Strength of Materials is an elementary discipline across many engineering degrees. Students perceive it as very difficult and abstract and students’ active participation in the learning process is needed, due to its complexity and importance during the whole degree years. Hence, the main difficulty in teaching them is maintaining students' motivation and keeping their participation in the learning process. This is the reason to use new tools, such as problem-based learning (PBL) and flipped classroom, to help students understand and study the subject. In this work, we present the application of a problem-based learning to the lab in the Mechanical engineering degree, in of one the most time-consuming and difficult subjects of its program. Moreover, to enhance students’ enthusiasm and motivation, these sessions included an innovative manufacturing technology, 3D printing, and digital image correlation (DIC). Before each practical session, the students are encouraged to watch an online video with the fundamental aspects. In order to assess the success of this laboratory course, after finishing the lab sessions, the students answered a non-formal quantitative survey. The results showed that the proposed project-based learning had the ability to help integrating the knowledge and improve the skills included in the main competences. Although these results are encouraging, there are still parts of the lab activity that should be improve in order to make the activity less time consuming and the most difficult part being easier for the students.

Performance evaluation of mechanical engineering degrees using Partial minimum squares and Data Envelopment Analysis

Performance evaluation of mechanical engineering degrees using Partial minimum squares and Data Envelopment Analysis

Guest Editorial: Learning, optimisation and control of cyber‐physical systems

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are engineered systems with built-in seamless integration of physical and cyber components. Fundamental developments in sensing, communication, control, and computing technologies endow CPS with flexibility, adaptability, scalability, and robustness. The availability and size of input-output data generated along with the control of CPS bring a unique opportunity for machine learning techniques to advance the theory of dynamical control systems, by learning control rules directly from data. Integration of input-output data into adaptive, robust, predictive, and distributed control policies holds the key to exploiting the potential of learning and optimisation in the CPS designs. There are several challenges related to sampling, transmission, synchronization, as well as associated cyber security when merging contemporary data-based and traditional model-based control techniques for CPS. The overarching goal of this special issue is to bring together innovative developments on the interface between learning, control, and optimisation targeting cyber-physical opportunities emerging from power, transportation, and manufacturing systems. Through a rigorous peer review process, three articles have been accepted, which are summarised below. In the study, “Learning-based distributed adaptive control of heterogeneous multi-agent systems with unknown leader dynamics”, the authors develop a distributed adaptive tracking control method for heterogeneous multi-agent systems with unknown leader dynamics in a directed graph. In contrast to the reported leader-following consensus studies, the prior knowledge of the leader is supposed to be cognised by some or all of the followers, the situation that the leader's dynamics are totally unrecognised but can be learned for each individual follower is considered. A data-driven learning algorithm using the system’s data is developed to reconstruct the unknown systems matrix. Then, an adaptive distributed dynamic compensator is exploited to provide the leader's state estimation in a directed graph. Afterwards, a dynamic output feedback control law for each agent is projected. Theoretical analysis shows that the proposed algorithms not only ensure that all followers can identify the unknown system matrix but also guarantee that the distributed output leader-following consensus control with heterogeneous dynamics is achieved without any global information. In the study, “Sampled-data synchronisation of singular Markovian jump system (SMJS): application to a DC motor model”, the authors consider the sampled-data synchronisation problem for SMJSs subject to aperiodic sampled-data control. Firstly, by constructing mode-dependent one-sided loop-based Lyapunov functional (LBLF) and two-sided LBLF, two different stochastically admissible conditions are suggested for error SMJSs with aperiodic sampled-data. It is guaranteed that the slave system is stochastically synchronised to the master system on the basis of the proposed stochastically admissible conditions. Secondly, two corresponding mode-dependent aperiodic sampled-data controller design approaches are provided for error SMJSs based on two different conditions, respectively. Finally, the validity of these approaches is demonstrated by a DC motor model. It also demonstrated that the two-sided LBLF method possesses a larger upper bound of the sampling period than the one-sided LBLF method. In the study, “Predefined-time distributed event-triggered algorithms for resource allocation”, the authors propose a predefined-time distributed algorithm and analyse its convergence by using the Lyapunov stability theory in which the local constraint is ensured by a differential projection operator. Thus, a predefined time is obtained using a time-varying time-based generator. In addition, to reduce the communication consumption between agents, the authors develop a static as well as a dynamic-based event-triggered control scheme, where the information broadcast only occurs at some discrete time instants. Moreover, the three proposed algorithms converge precisely to the global optimal solution. Besides, the Zeno behaviour is excluded in the above static and dynamic event-triggered mechanisms. The guest editors would like to thank the Editor-in-Chief of the IET Cyber-Physical Systems: Theory & Applications, Prof. Shiyan Hu, and the Editorial Office for their great support of our special issue. In addition, we thank all the authors who submitted their quality papers to this special issue, and special thanks go to all anonymous reviewers for their great efforts and time to accomplish their review tasks. Data sharing not applicable. Jian Sun is currently a professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, China. He received the bachelor’s degree from the Department of Automation and Electric Engineering, Jilin Institute of Technology, Changchun, China, in 2001, the master‘s degree from the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Changchun, in 2004, and the Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Automation, CAS, Beijing, China, in 2007. He was a Research Fellow with the Faculty of Advanced Technology, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, U.K., from 2008 to 2009. He was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, from 2007 to 2010. In 2010, he joined the School of Automation, Beijing Institute of Technology, where he has been a Professor since 2013. His current research interests include networked control systems, time-delay systems, and security of cyber-physical systems. He is also an Editorial Board Member of the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, the Journal of Systems Science and Complexity, and Acta Automatica Sinica. Qing-Long Han is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Quality) and a Distinguished Professor at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. He held various academic and management positions at Griffith University and Central Queensland University, Australia. He received the Ph.D. degree in Control Engineering from East China University of Science and Technology in 1997. He has been conducting research in the areas of networked control systems, cyber physical systems, time-delay systems, multi-agent systems, smart grids, offshore structure, unmanned surface vehicles, cyber security, and neural networks. Since 2001, as of 12 August 2021, he has authored or co-authored three hundred and thirty-nine (339) fully-refereed high quality journal articles including one hundred and seventy-six (176) articles in the most prestigious IEEE Transactions, and thirty-seven (37) articles in Automatica. He has also authored or co-authored one hundred and eighty-four (184) international leading conference papers, five (5) monographs, one (1) research-based book chapter, and edited four (4) conference proceedings and ten (10) special issues. His research work has been cited 32,886 times with an h-index of 102, an i10-index of 296 according to Google Scholar. He is a Highly Cited Researcher in the Essential Science Indicator (ESI) field of Engineering (2014–2017), in the ESI Cross-Field (2018) and in both the ESI fields of Engineering and Computer Science (2019–2020) by Clarivate Analytics (Thomson Reuters). He is one of Australia’s Top 5 Lifetime Achievers (Research Superstars) in the discipline area of Engineering and Computer Science by The Australian’s Research Magazine (2019-2020). He is one of Australia’s Top 5 Researchers in Computer Science and Electronics by Guide2Research. He was the recipient of The 2021 M. A. Sargent Medal (the Highest Award of the Electrical College Board of Engineers Australia), The 2020 IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) Society Andrew P. Sage Best Transactions Paper Award, The 2020 IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics Outstanding Paper Award, and The 2019 IEEE SMC Society Andrew P. Sage Best Transactions Paper Award. He was the recipient of The 2020 IEEE SMC Society Best Associate Editor Award and The 2020 IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica Outstanding Associate Editor Award. Professor Han is a Member of the Academia Europaea (The Academy of Europe). He is a Fellow of The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and a Fellow of The Institution of Engineers Australia. He has served as an AdCom Member of IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IES), a Member of IEEE IES Fellows Committee, and Chair of IEEE IES Technical Committee on Network-based Control Systems. He has served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics (2022–2024), Co-Editor of Australian Journal of Electrical & Electronics Engineering, an Associate Editor for 12 international journals including IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica, Control Engineering Practice, Information Sciences, and a Guest Editor for 13 Special Issues. Guo-Ping Liu is currently a chair professor with the Southern University of Science and Technology, China. He received the BEng and MEng degrees from Central South University of Technology (now Central South University, China) in 1982 and 1985, respectively, and the PhD degree from University of Manchester in the UK in 1992. He did the postdoctoral research in the University of York in 1992–1993. He worked as a research fellow with the University of Sheffield in 1994-1996. During 1996–2000, he was a senior engineer with GEC-Alsthom and ALSTOM, and then a principal engineer and a project leader with ABB ALSTOM Power. He was a senior lecturer with the University of Nottingham in 2000–2003, a visiting professor with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2001-2005 and with the Harbin Institute of Technology in 2008–2013, and a professor with the University of South Wales in 2004–2019 and with Wuhan University in 2019–2021. Prof Liu’s research interests include networked control systems, multi-objective optimal control, nonlinear identification and control, and industrial advanced control applications. He has completed more than 70 research projects as a principal investigator. He is an author of 10 books, 2 edited books, over 330 journal papers and 320 conference papers, and has 14 patents, 34 software copyrights and 2 software products. He was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship in 1992. He was named a Highly Cited Researcher by Thomson Reuters in 2014 and 2015, by Clarivate Analytics in 2016–2018, and by Elsevier in 2014–2020. He received the second prize of Chinese National Science and Technology Awards in 2008 and 2015. Prof. Liu was the general chair of the 2007 IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control, the 2011 International Conference on Intelligent Control and Information Processing, and the 2012 UKACC International Conference on Control. He has served as an Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Automation and Computing in 2004–2021 and an Honorary Editor-in-Chief of the journal “Advances in Internet of Things” since 2011. He is a Fellow of IEEE, a Fellow of IET and a member of the Academy of Europe. Yajun Pan is currently a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Dalhousie University, Canada. She received the B.E. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Yanshan University, P.R. China, in 1996, the M.E. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Zhejiang University, P.R. China, in 1999 and the Ph.D degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National University of Singapore, in 2003. After receiving the Ph.D. degree, she was a post-doctoral fellow of CNRS in the Laboratoire d'Automatique de Grenoble, France from 2003 to 2004. In 2004, she held post-doctoral position in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Alberta, Canada. She is currently an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics (2019 Present), IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics (2016-Present), and IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (2015–2020). She has been the Associate Editor for the Journal of Franklin Institute (2007–2013), International Journal of Advanced Robotics Systems (2014–2018), and the International Journal of Information and Systems Sciences (2009–2017). She is the Editor of the special issue on Advances in Methods for Control over Networks for the Journal of Control Science and Engineering; and the guest editor for the special issue in Advanced Modelling and Control of Complex Mechatronic Systems with Nonlinearity and Uncertainty for IEEE Access (2017–2018). She is a Fellow of Engineering Institute of Canada (FEIC - 2021), a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME - 2017), a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a member of Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineering (CSME) and a Registered Professional Engineer in the Province of Nova Scotia, Canada. Dr. Pan was awarded the Research Excellence Award (Junior Category, Academic Year of 2008–2009) in the Faculty of Engineering, Dalhousie University. She has served as the evaluation group member for NSERC Discovery Grant (2017–2020) and also the selection committee member for NSERC RTI grant in 2016–2017. She has served as the Vice-President, Atlantic Region, for Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineering (CSME) from 2018–2020. Tao Yang is a Professor at the State Key Laboratory of Synthetical Automation for Process Industries, Northeastern University. He was an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of North Texas, Denton, USA, from 2016–2019. He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Washington State University in 2012. Between August 2012 and August 2014, he was an ACCESS Post-Doctoral Researcher with the ACCESS Linnaeus Centre, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. He then joined the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as a postdoc, and was promoted to Scientist/Engineer II in 2015. His research interests include industrial artificial intelligence, integrated optimization and control, distributed control and optimization with applications to process industries, cyber physical systems, and networked control systems. He is an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology and IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica. He currently is a member of the Technical Committee on Nonlinear Systems and Control, the Technical Committee on Networks and Communication Systems, and the Technical Committee on Smart Grids of the IEEE Control Systems Society, a member of the IEEE Control Systems Society Conference Editorial Board, and a member of the IFAC Technical Committee on Large Scale Complex Systems. He received Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award and Best Student Paper award (as an advisor) of the 14th IEEE International Conference on Control & Automation in 2018. Jiahu Qin is currently a Professor with the Department of Automation, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. He received the first Ph.D. degree in control science and engineering from the Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 2012, and the second Ph.D. degree in systems and control from the Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia, in 2014. His current research interests include multi-agent systems, cyber-physical systems, and complex dynamical networks. Dr. Qin serves as the Deputy Director of Youth Committee of Chinese Association of Automation. He is currently an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, Journal of The Franklin Institute, Neurocomputing, Acta Automatica Sinica, IET Cyber-Physical Systems: Theory & Applications, etc. He is a recipient of the 2017 IEEE IES (Industrial Electronics Society) Best Conference Paper Award.

An EMI lecturer’s assessment practices with engineering laboratory reports

Abstract EMI assessment research designed to compare academic achievement in EMI and L1-medium courses aims to examine language and content learning outcomes (Dafouz & Camacho-Miñano, 2016; Hernández-Nanclares & Jiménez-Munoz, 2015; Yang, 2015). However, these studies provide little insight into learning processes. A genre analysis perspective, in contrast, can offer a deeper understanding of the development of student disciplinary literacy. Based on genre analysis studies on student writing (Nesi & Gardner, 2012; Parkinson, 2017; Swales, 1990), we aim to describe the written genre in student laboratory reports from an EMI course on a Mechanical Engineering degree programme. Seven students’ laboratory reports as well as the lecturer’s instructions, the assessment rubric, and written feedback were examined using genre analysis. This case study contributes to the emerging literature on assessment in EMI by foregrounding the advantages of genre analysis as an analytical methodology and shedding light on students’ development of literacy in disciplinary writing.

Tools for simultaneous online and in‐person teaching in a Linear Circuit Analysis subject

AbstractDuring the first semester of 2020–2021, classes for Linear Circuit Analysis subjects (Mechanical Engineering Degree, Miguel Hernandez University of Elche, Spain) were taught in a dual way because of the COVID‐19 pandemic: students were able to attend in‐person or online, as long as the in‐person attendance limit was not surpassed. The same strategy was used for exams: each student decided whether to take the exam in‐person or online. Specific software tools were used for the in‐advance seat reservation and simultaneous online and in‐person class attendance, and examination tools and strategies, with a special emphasis on avoiding online cheating. Online attendance was preferred by students (averaging 64.9% of global attendance for lectures and 84.5% for exams), with abrupt increases during the worst episodes of the pandemic. Video recordings of the lectures were made available to all of the students, with the most viewed video being accessed over 200 times. Concerning evaluation, no statistically significant differences were found between in‐person or online average examination marks (p = .133), which may be an indicator of low online cheating. Student feedback showed their satisfaction with the dual teaching strategy, despite their initial doubts at the beginning of the course.

Legends of Artificial Lift (July 2022)

Legends of Artificial Lift This year, the SPE Artificial Lift Conference and Exhibition–Americas will be held 23–25 August in Galveston, Texas, with the theme “Modern Artificial Lift–Adapting to a Changing Industry.” The event provides opportunities for technical professionals to gain insights into current trends and field experiences and explore innovative solutions. A special Legends of Artificial Lift Luncheon on 23 August will celebrate three individuals for their outstanding contributions to the technical knowledge in this field: Norman Hein Jr., Ken Nolen, and Gabor Takacs. Norman W. Hein Jr. Norman W. Hein Jr. has worked for 45 years in upstream production, his distinguished career spanning from research, development, and testing to ventures in production engineering, manufacturing, onshore and offshore project management, industry standardization, and the principles of artificial lift. Hein joined the industry in 1977 as a research scientist with Continental Oil Company, where he learned about oil and gas production materials, failures, fatigue, and offshore construction. He then worked for Conoco and later ConocoPhillips in various engineering positions. In 2010, he joined the sucker-rod division of Norris Production Solutions as director of research, development, engineering, and quality; later at CONSOL Energy he was promoted to chief technology professional and senior advisor. Currently, Hein is president and managing director of Oil and Gas Optimization Specialists Ltd., which he established in 2003. Kenneth B. (Ken) Nolen Kenneth B. (Ken) Nolen for 62 years has been a key contributor to what he calls “the art and science of artificial lift.” “My college degree in mechanical engineering was largely devoted to science,” he explains, “and that’s a branch of knowledge dealing with the physical world of facts and principles. Art, on the other hand, uses science to create new technology and products—in my field, that is to enhance artificial lift.” His career in optimizing this art and science began after graduating from Texas A&M and serving his country in the US Air Force for a 3-year tour. Nolen joined Shell Oil Company as a production engineer before teaming up with Dr. Sam G. Gibbs to become co-founderand vice president of Nabla Corporation in Midland, Texas—a technical service company that specialized in artificial-lift diagnosis, optimization, design, training on pumping wells, and manufacturing pumpoff controllers and fluid-level sounders. “It was at Nabla that I pursued my long-held passion for optimizing production from artificially lifted wells.” Gabor Takacs Gabor Takacs joins the Legends of Artificial Lift as an internationally recognized consultant with more than 35 years of consulting and teaching experience in the fields of production engineering, with a concentration in artificial lift. “The great honor of being nominated is an absolutely thrilling sensation for me,” he said. “It gives me a special satisfaction to be the first foreigner to join those wonderful people whom I have been privileged to meet and cooperate with during my career.” Takacs is a professor emeritus at the University of Miskolc, Hungary, where he led the petroleum engineering department from 1995 to 2012.

Design and assessment of a project-based learning in a laboratory for integrating knowledge and improving engineering design skills

Mechanical Design is a subject usually included in Chemical Engineering Degrees. In this work, we present the application of a project-based learning to the lab in two different engineering degrees, in of one the most time-consuming and difficult subjects of their programs. These two degrees, Mechanical and Chemical engineering degrees, were selected in order to compare the learning outcomes and satisfaction with the activity in the degree more related to mechanical concepts and the Chemical engineering degree. Moreover, to enhance students’ enthusiasm and motivation, these sessions included an innovative manufacturing technology, 3D printing, and digital image correlation (DIC). Before each practical session, the students are encouraged to watch an online video with the fundamental aspects. In order to assess the success of this methodology, after finishing the lab sessions, the students answered a non-formal quantitative survey. The results showed that the proposed project-based learning had the ability to help integrating the knowledge and improve the skills included in the main competences. Although these results are encouraging, there are still parts of the lab activity that should be improve in order to make the activity less time consuming and the most difficult part being easier for the students.

Society Awards 2021.

The ASME Journal of Biomechanical Engineering has a tradition of annually publishing papers contributed by winners of the medals offered by the ASME Bioengineering Division, namely, the Lissner, Woo, Nerem, Mow, and Fung medals. Four of these papers appear in this special issue, with one to follow (for the Lissner medal) in the future. Here, we describe these medals and briefly introduce the winners.The H. R. Lissner Medal recognizes outstanding achievements in the field of bioengineering. These achievements may be in the form of (1) significant research contributions in bioengineering; (2) development of new methods of measuring in bioengineering; (3) design of new equipment and instrumentation in bioengineering; (4) educational impact on the training of bioengineers; and/or (5) service to the bioengineering community, in general, and to the Bioengineering Division of ASME, in particular. The Bioengineering Division of ASME established the H. R. Lissner Award as a divisional award in 1977. It was upgraded to a society award in 1987, made possible by a donation from Wayne State University, and is named in honor of Professor H. R. Lissner of Wayne State University for his pioneering work in biomechanics that began in 1939.The winner of the H. R. Lissner medal for 2021 is Dr. C. Ross Ethier, Ph.D. Dr. Ethier holds the Lawrence L. Gellerstedt, Jr. Chair in Bioengineering and is a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University School of Medicine. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, he was Head of the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College, London for 5 years, and Director of the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto for 2 years before that. He received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1986, his S.M. from MIT in 1983, his M. Math from Waterloo in 1982, and his B.Sc. from Queen's University in 1980. Dr. Ethier is a Fellow of ASME, AIMBE, IAMBE, ARVO, BMES, and the City and Guilds Institute.His research is in the biomechanics of cells and whole organs, with specific emphasis on ocular biomechanics. He works on developing treatments for glaucoma, the second most common cause of blindness, and for SANS, a syndrome affecting astronauts which is a major NASA human health concern. He has developed a new paradigm of how pressure within the eye is regulated and how the sclera plays a major and unexpected role in influencing vision loss in glaucoma. He has published approximately 220 refereed journal articles and two books and received both Steacie and Humboldt Fellowships. His work has attracted approximately 15,000 citations and has an h-index of 73 (Google Scholar). Dr. Ethier has been active in the Bioengineering Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for many years, including as Chair of the Division and, currently, as co-Editor of the ASME Journal of Biomechanical Engineering. He is recognized for his outstanding contributions to ocular biomechanics, specifically the biomechanics of intraocular pressure regulation and optic nerve head biomechanics in glaucoma; for mentoring and training the next generation of biomechanical engineers; and for internationally recognized leadership within the biomechanics community.The Savio L.-Y. Woo Translational Biomechanics Medal was established in June 2015 as a society-level award and recognizes a sustained level of meritorious contributions in translating bioengineering research to clinical application, to improve the quality of life. This award is named in honor of Savio Lau-Yuen Woo, Ph.D., a distinguished University Professor of Bioengineering and the Founder and Director of the Musculoskeletal Research Center (MSRC), a diverse multidisciplinary research and educational center in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh. Beyond pioneering and world-renowned scholarly contributions, Professor Woo has made an enormous impact in 40 years of translational research that has significantly contributed to the delivery of healthcare. Any member of ASME who has demonstrated a sustained level of outstanding achievement in translating bioengineering findings to the clinical community may be eligible for this medal.The 2021 Woo medal awardee is Dr. Danny Bluestein, Ph.D., a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Stony Brook University. Dr. Bluestein received a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Israel, and a Master of Science degree in fluid mechanics and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Tel Aviv University, Israel.Prof. Bluestein's research interests include the elucidation of physical forces that regulate cellular function in flowing blood, and translation of this knowledge to numerical and experimental strategies aimed at optimizing the thromboresistance of Mechanical Circulatory Support (MCS) devices, multiscale modeling of thrombosis, and enhancing clinical diagnostics of cardiovascular diseases processes and progression for developing strategies to achieve better clinical outcomes of procedures and devices for patients who suffer from these diseases. He is the author of ca. 150 peer-reviewed scientific articles. He serves as an associate editor and a member of the editorial board of several bioengineering journals, is an active member of the Biomedical Engineering Society, Bioengineering Division of the ASME, and served as the chair of the BED Biofluids technical committee and the Steering Committee of the NIH Multiscale Modeling (MSM) Consortium. Previous awards include the Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association (AHA) and the Quantum award from the NIH-NIBIB. He is a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Dr. Bluestein is inducted into the National Academy of Inventors, and he is dedicated to training the next generation of biomedical engineers. He is recognized for his international leadership in the study of cardiovascular biomechanics, thrombosis, and the thrombogenicity of medical devices that have illuminated the subtle processes at play when blood and platelets are subjected to turbulent or highly disturbed flow fields; and for translation of this knowledge to optimization of blood recirculating devices for improved thromboresistance.The Robert M. Nerem Education and Mentorship Medal is given to an individual who has demonstrated a sustained level of outstanding achievement in the education and mentoring of trainees. Examples of meritorious activities include leadership within the nominee's institution, mentoring activities that are above and beyond those expected from others employed in similar positions, mentoring activities tailored to meet the needs of the trainees, and innovative mentoring activities.Dr. Maury L. Hull, Ph.D., is the 2021 winner of the Nerem medal. Dr. Hull is a distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California Davis where he holds appointments in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and the Department of Orthopedic Surgery. He received his B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1969 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees also in mechanical engineering from the University of California Berkeley in 1970 and 1975. He became a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California Davis in 1976. Dr. Hull's research activities encompass orthopedic biomechanics with emphasis on the human knee, musculoskeletal system modeling and simulation of movement, and sports biomechanics and equipment design. In recognition of his research achievements, he has received various awards including the Giovanni Borelli Award from the American Society of Biomechanics in 1989, the H. R. Lissner Medal from the Bioengineering Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2007, and honorary membership in the Personalized Arthroplasty Society in 2020.During his distinguished career, he introduced seven new undergraduate and graduate courses and developed unique experiments for existing laboratory courses. As a result of teaching these courses and others, he received the UC Davis Engineering Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award in 2002. He has mentored 90 graduate advisees and research orthopedic residents who are lead authors on most of his 240 papers published in scientific journals. From 1993 until 2000 he served as Chair of the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program and played a leadership role in creating a new Department of Biomedical Engineering launched in 2001. This department now has 35 full-time faculty members, 400 undergraduate students, 100 graduate students, and annual research expenditures in excess of $17 million. Also, while serving as Graduate Program Chair, he spearheaded the creation of the annual University of California Systemwide Biomedical Engineering Symposium. This symposium typically attracts upwards of 200 attendees from the 10 UC campuses with large participation by students. Dr. Hull was active in the Bioengineering Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in various leadership positions for 15 years including Chair of the Division in 2003. As Division Chair, he led the formation of the annual Summer Bioengineering Conference (now the SB3C conference) typically attended by 800 participants including a large proportion of students.The Van C. Mow Medal is bestowed upon an individual who has made significant contributions to the field of bioengineering through research, education, professional development, leadership in the development of the profession, as a mentor to young bioengineers, and with service to the bioengineering community. The individual must have earned a Ph.D. or equivalent degree between 10- and 20-years prior to June 1 of the year of the award. The award was established by the Bioengineering Division in 2004.Dr. Rafael V. Davalos, Ph.D., is the 2021 recipient of the Mow medal. He is the L. Preston Wade Professor in the Virginia Tech—Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences and the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics. He is Director of Virginia Tech's Center for Engineered Health, and Co-Leader of the Signaling and Biotechnology Program for the Wake Forest Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Davalos serves on the executive committee as treasurer of the ASME Bioengineering Division and as treasurer on the council for the International Society for Electroporation Based Technologies and Treatments. He currently serves on the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Bioelectricity, Cancers, and Electrophoresis. Previously, he has served on the editorial board for the ASME Journal of Medical Devices, as the information chair for the Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering, and Biotransport Conference, and as vice-chair of the biotransport group within the Bioengineering Division.Dr. Davalos' research interests are in microfluidics for personalized medicine and developing technologies for cancer therapy. He is most recognized for co-inventing irreversible electroporation (IRE), a nonthermal minimally invasive surgical technique for soft tissue ablation which preserves major blood vessels, nerves, and the extracellular matrix. This form of cancer therapy received the Expedited Pathway Designation in 2018 and has been used to help thousands of patients worldwide. He is further developing an advanced form of the technology with potential for immunotherapy, and also as a new method to treat brain cancer. Dr. Davalos has authored more than 125 peer-reviewed articles, 16 book chapters, 10 journal/book covers with an h-index of 59 (>12,000 citations), and has 36 issued patents. Dr. Davalos is an ASME and AIMBE Fellow.The Y. C. Fung Early Career Award is given to young investigators who are committed to pursuing research in the field of Bioengineering and have demonstrated significant potential to make substantial contributions to the field of Bioengineering. Such accomplishments may take the form of but are not limited to, the design or development of new methods, equipment, or instrumentation in bio-engineering; and research publications in peer-reviewed journals. The award was established by the Bioengineering Division in 1985 and operated as a division award until 1998 when it was elevated to a Society award.Dr. Kristin S. Miller, Ph.D., an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Tulane University, is the recipient of the 2021 Fung Award. After receiving a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Texas A&M University, she completed her Ph.D. in Bioengineering under the mentorship of Dr. Louis J. Soslowsky at the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation research focused on quantifying how collagen fiber alignment changes during mechanical testing in developing tendons. She then moved to Yale University as a postdoctoral fellow under the mentorship of Dr. Jay D. Humphrey. At Yale, her work focused on mathematical modeling frameworks that predict the salient features of tissue-engineered vascular graft evolution following implantation in murine vasculature, with particular consideration to loss of the polymeric scaffold and subsequent production of neotissue.Since 2014, Dr. Miller has directed the Biomechanics of Growth and Remodeling Laboratory. Dr. Miller and colleagues have (1) assessed the biaxial mechanical function, extracellular matrix composition, and residual strain in the murine female reproductive system, (2) evaluated the role and interaction of elastic fibers and smooth muscle contractility in the murine vagina, and (3) advanced understanding of structural and mechanical processes during pelvic organ prolapse progression. Dr. Miller has published more than 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and more than 60 conference abstracts. Her team's research is supported by the NIH, NSF, and foundations. Dr. Miller is immensely grateful to her mentors, colleagues/collaborators, and trainees, including the ASME Summer Bioengineering Conference and the SB3C community. She has been active in the Bioengineering Division since 2009 and currently serves as the co-chair of the other solids theme and on the student paper competition committees. Dr. Miller received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award in 2018.

AWWA Water Science Author Spotlight

Having recently published an article in AWWA Water Science, Caroline E. Scruggs answered questions from the publication's editor-in-chief, Kenneth L. Mercer, about the research. Mapping Potable Reuse Survey Data Using Spatial Statistics to Inform Tailored Education and Outreach Maurice P. Cruz, Caroline E. Scruggs, and Lauren N. Distler Caroline and her son ski in Santa Fe, N.M. I went to Virginia Tech for a mechanical engineering degree, thinking I would work on innovations in wind and solar energy. However, I changed majors a few times and was ultimately drawn to civil engineering because of concerns about environmental degradation, and eventually I decided to pursue a master's degree in environmental engineering. From there it was a bit serendipitous—Professor Clifford Randall was looking for a research assistant for an interesting wastewater treatment project, which became my thesis project. I think my superpower is being organized. I was also raised with a strong work ethic, which has served me well. Perhaps most importantly, I'm fortunate to get to work on problems that I'm genuinely interested in; the great thing about academia is that I'm more or less free to pursue thought-provoking research questions that I enjoy digging into. The hills are lit with the gold of aspen in Angel Fire, N.M. My coauthors and I noticed that the water reuse literature did a good job of describing the reasons that residents in some communities have opposed potable water reuse projects, and some studies even included an investigation into the demographic characteristics of those who are opposed to (or accepting of) water reuse. While this information might be generally useful, it is not necessarily user friendly; it doesn't help water planners and utilities figure out how to tailor their programming to the segments of the population that need particular kinds of education, outreach, and trust-building to allow residents to make informed decisions about water resources and reuse. We were aiming to develop an approach that would enable targeted public engagement and input on future water resource planning. The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta started in 1972. It is scheduled each year for the first week in October. Broadly, I care deeply about passing down a healthy planet to future generations. More specifically, with my water research I hope to contribute toward allowing communities in arid areas, such as the one in which I live, to continue to thrive in the face of climate change. With my chemicals research, I want to minimize people's exposure to hazardous chemicals, and I hope to contribute toward common-sense chemical-related policies that better prioritize health and the environment. I see two challenges as research at this intersection progresses. First, people don't want to give up conveniences that they currently enjoy. Whether we're thinking about moving away from flush toilets to alternatives that save water, or removing chemicals from consumer products that are found to be hazardous, there will be resistance to change. Second, as we move toward direct potable reuse of wastewater in more communities, we will need to consider whether and how current drinking water standards should be modified to account for potentially hazardous chemicals and/or if their upstream uses should be reduced or restricted through chemical policy changes. I moved a lot growing up, so I don't really have deep roots in one place. Perhaps a benefit was getting exposure to so many different parts of the United States, each with its own unique natural environment, water challenges, pollution issues, and other inspiration for a budding environmentalist. I spend as much time with my kids as possible, and in New Mexico we're lucky to have amazing outdoor activities at our doorstep—we take advantage of the skiing, walking in the bosque (river forest), and everything in between. I also enjoy painting and music, and recently started drum lessons with my older son. To learn more about Caroline's research, read the article, available online at https://doi.org/10.1002/aws2.1197. This article is part of the Topical Collection on Potable Reuse. Visit https://news.awwa.org/reuse-collection to learn more about this collection.

Investigating students’ eco-misperceptions in applying eco-design methods

This study collects and discusses the misperceptions about eco-design, renamed eco-misperception, emerged from a group of students while applying common eco-design methods. We define eco-misperceptions as erroneous interpretations of the novice eco-designers, about the environmental sustainability of design solutions, according to more experienced eco-designers. They are detectable by qualitatively or quantitatively analysing how the novice eco-designers present the proposed or identified design solutions. To obtain the eco-misperceptions, the end-of-year projects and the interviews of 61 students attending the master's degree in mechanical and management engineering from two Italian universities were considered. These projects concern the reduction of the environmental impacts of three real industrial products, supported by existing eco-design methods. The systematic analysis of the proposed solutions showed that students committed different eco-misperceptions, not related to the comprehension of eco-design but to its practical application and involving different aspects: the psychological inertia leading to address a given problem in a habitual way, the selection of the not appropriate examples to inspire, a limited consideration regarding the life cycle of the product, the difficulty in selecting the appropriate level of detail during eco-design and eco-assessment, and the difficulty in dealing with problems presented in a descriptive way rather than through a precise mathematical formulation. Unlike other contributions in the literature, in this study the collected eco-misperception are in greater number, more heterogeneous, more detailed in definition and contextualised through examples that can be used to improve eco-design courses.

Performance evaluation of mechanical engineering degrees using partial minimum squares and data envelopment analysis

Performance evaluation of mechanical engineering degrees using partial minimum squares and data envelopment analysis

Howard Rachlin (1935-2021).

Memorializes Howard Rachlin (1935-2021). Rachlin was born to Irving and Gussie Kugler Rachlin in New York City on March 10, 1935. He died 86 years later of cancer, leaving his wife Nahid, daughter Leila, and grandson Ethan. He received numerous recognitions: the Med Associates Distinguished Contributions to Basic Behavioral Research award from Division 25 of the American Psychological Association, the Impact of Science on Application award from the Association for Behavior Analysis, a James McKeen Cattell Fellowship, continuous funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Mental Health (from which he received the MERIT award), visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, and invited speaker at the Nobel symposium on Behavioral and Experimental Economics. Of himself Rachlin wrote: "He obtained a bachelor of mechanical engineering degree from Cooper Union in New York City [1957], where he learned to treat all scientific and practical questions as asking for answers rather than for self-expression; masters in philosophy and psychology from The New School of Social Research in New York City [1962], where he learned that the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts; and a PhD from Harvard University [1965], where B. F. Skinner and Richard Herrnstein taught him how to be a behaviorist." After teaching at Harvard, he joined Stony Brook University in New York in 1969, rising to the position of Distinguished Research Professor. Rachlin studied choice and decision-making; he was one of the founders of behavioral economics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Flipped Classroom and gamification in Automated Manufacturing lab classes

There is an increase in Higher Education initiatives focused on educational innovation and the Flipped Classroom paradigm are emerging as an increasingly expanded option. This paper deals with the implementation of the Flipped Classroom methodology in the laboratory practice sessions of the subject Automated Manufacturing of the Mechanical Engineering Degree. This methodology has been combined with questionnaires through Kahoot, a simple and versatile freeware platform. To carry out this study, additional audio-visual material was developed to illustrate the content of the practices so students could prepare them in advance. Once recorded and edited, the videos were made available through the Virtual Campus. Doing questionnaires at the beginning, and repeated at the end of the sessions, has been an element of reinforcement of learning while stimulating active participation during the classes. It was also a motivating element to work on skills such as proactivity, work organization, teamwork and time management. The students knew beforehand that the result of the questionnaires would influence the grade corresponding to the continuous evaluation. The result of this research concludes that the Flipped Classroom paradigm combined with gamification allows the students to reach good learning outcomes getting them engaged.

In Memoriam: Linda Catherine Schmidt

Abstract Professor Linda Schmidt, a pioneering leader in engineering design research and education, passed away on March 12, 2021. She was born in Blue Island, Illinois on November 27, 1958, and received her B.S. degree (1989) and M.S. degree (1991) in Industrial Engineering from Iowa State University before going on to complete her Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1995. She was one of Professor Jonathan Cagan's early Ph.D. students. Her dissertation entitled “An Implementation Using Grammars of an Abstraction-Based Model of Mechanical Design for Design Optimization and Design Space Characterization” was foundational to her early investigations.

Functional Materials and Devices for XR (VR/AR/MR) Applications

The “Metaverse” (meaning “beyond universe”) is the next big subject in the online world and it is essentially a shared virtual space in which virtual life and reality interact, co-exist, evolve together, and various cultural, social, and economic activities take place within them to create value. It combines an enhanced physical reality with a virtual space to encompass them with special technology; XR (eXtended Reality) which includes VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Reality) and MR (Mixed Reality). Steven Spielberg's recent science fiction action-adventure film, “Ready Player One” (2018) well illustrated a possible future metaverse society. Beyond this science fiction vision of the future, we are already entering the era of the metaverse, where the current COVID-19 pandemic situation and the associated demands for remote forms of social interactions are accelerating factors. The technical issues in XR (VR+AR+MR) lie in development of the software and the hardware system as well. We are currently witnessing a remarkable development in XR software engineering, while XR devices and materials development remain in the very infancy stage. XR hardware systems are expected to artificially reconstruct various human feelings and transmit the information to the human sensory systems to make them believe they are really feeling the virtual world. Oculus (Facebook), Vive (HTC), Index (Valve) are the popular commercial VR devices, but they are limited to specific feelings originating mainly from visual and auditory cues and realized only in rigid forms of materials and devices. Compared with visual and auditory senses, less advancement has been made in tactile senses (haptics) including temperature, texture, pressure, and touch. At the same time, rigid material and devices deteriorate the immersion in haptic feedback systems because intimate contact between haptic device and skin is very important to replicate the faithful haptic feedback. By introducing new soft skin-like materials and devices to the XR research field, various next-generation haptic feedback systems are under development. Among various tactile senses, vibro-haptic (mechanical feeling by vibration) and thermo-haptic (thermal feeling by heating or cooling) are being studied. Vibro-haptic relies on the electrical/mechanical components to stimulate the skin to deliver sensations of physical touch in the virtual world. Rogers and colleagues (article number 2008805) review the full range of research activities in skin integrated vibro-haptic interfaces. Shea and colleagues (article number 2006639) demonstrate feel-through haptics that are ultra-thin and soft for more faithful feeling delivery directly to the skin with sufficient force to make virtual objects feel tangible, or to change the perceived texture of a physical object. In addition to the mechanical sensation, thermal sensation is very important to generate a more realistic artificial feeling in XR since heat carries fluent information on the surrounding environment. Ko and colleagues (article number 2007376) and Lee and colleagues (article number 2007952) review the fundamental mechanism, design strategies, and the rational guidelines for the adoption of thermo-haptic technology in XR application. Multifunctional and high-resolution sensors are another integral part of natural and continuous interactions between human and XR devices. Especially, skin-compatible soft sensor development is important for implementing the user comfort and immersive feeling of feedback. Yeo and colleagues discuss packaging strategies, specific device designs and physiological sensors for XR application (article number 2005692). Javey and colleagues (article number 2008087) and Takei and colleagues (article number 2007436) review the important factors for materials and structures of wearable sensors, and their power sources and data communication. Skin electronics are one of the most promising platforms for sensing and actuation in future VR/AR devices. The detailed engineering aspects of e-skin devices such as input/output device, energy source and integrated systems are discussed by Someya and colleagues (article number 2009602). In addition to elastomer material, fiber and fiber assembly-based sensors are discussed for interactive textile electronics for XR application by Tao and colleagues (article number 2007254). Two new types of e-skin type sensors for XR application are demonstrated by Makarov and colleagues (article number 2007788) for a magnetosensitive E-Skin type sensor that can track motion and orientation in 3D and by Tee and colleagues (article number 2008650) for a predictive materials design system consisting of a capacitive micropyramidal structure sensor and its augmented reality application in surgical training. The haptic feedback and sensor technology can be integrated to make more complex XR devices. Bae and colleagues (article number 2007772) develop a new multimodal sensor with a printed liquid metal circuit and two modes of haptic feedback (vibro-haptic + thermo-haptic) device is demonstrated to deliver temperature and tactile feeling in virtual reality. Majidi and colleagues (article number 2007428) discuss soft materials based on-body devices for wearable sensors and haptic feedback, as well as their current challenges and future perspective. Robotic research is very closely related to XR technology such as robotic surgery or soft robotic teleoperation. Shepherd and colleagues (article number 2009364) review the recent advances in soft actuators and sensors for application in haptic feedback and sensing for soft robotics in XR application. The interface between machine and user is discussed by Chen and colleagues (article number 2008807) for the fusion of emerging stretchable electronics and machine learning technology and by Cheng and Colleagues (article number 2008347) for nanowire-based soft wearable HMI sensors and haptic feedback systems. Soft actuators for soft robotics are reviewed by Yi and colleagues (article number 2009835) for liquid crystal soft actuators for mixed reality applications and by Liu and colleagues (article number 2007437) for soft multifunctional tensile and torsional actuators. Optical components are also important for head mound display. New characteristics of image sensors and displays for developing future XR systems such as transparent or deformable display are discussed (article number 2009281). Lee and colleagues (article number 2104105) present a study on azopolymeric optical Fourier surfaces for AR. Lastly, three extensive reviews on the material for haptics technology are presented for polymeric material design and chemistry by Lipomi and colleagues (article number 2008375), the current trends in and perspectives for active materials in haptic technology by Kim and colleagues (article number 2008831), and haptic perception, mechanics, and material technologies for VR by Visell and colleagues (article number 2008186). As with radical advances in any new technology, ethical issues must be considered. Although such topics lie outside of the scope of a journal like Advanced Functional Materials, in this editorial, we provide some comments. As James Spiegel[1] discussed, XR technologies have the following potential hazards: “First, XR poses potential mental health risks, including depersonalization/derealization disorder. Second, XR technology raises serious concerns related to personal neglect of users’ own actual bodies and real physical environments. Third, XR technologies may be used to record personal data which could be deployed in ways that threaten personal privacy and present a danger related to manipulation of users’ beliefs, emotions, and behaviors. Finally, there are other moral and social risks associated with the way XR blurs the distinction between the real and illusory.” Beyond the excitement around technological advancements in functional materials and devices for XR applications, these issues should be kept in mind in the process of XR development. We believe that this collection of research articles and reviews provides a thorough outline of the recent progress, challenges, and future opportunities in functional materials and devices for XR (VR/AR/MR) and, furthermore, that this issue of the journal can serve as a guideline and inspiration to current and next generation researchers in this rapidly expanding field. Seung Hwan Ko is a professor in Applied Nano & Thermal Science (ANTS) Lab, Mechanical Engineering department., Seoul National University, Korea. Before joining Seoul National University, he had been a faculty at KAIST, Korea since 2009. He received his Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley in 2006. He worked as a postdoc at UC Berkeley until 2009. His current research interests are stretchable/flexible electronics, transparent electronics, soft robotics, wearable electronics, laser-assisted nano/micro fabrication, and crack assisted nanomanufacturing. John A. Rogers is the Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Medicine at Northwestern University, with affiliate appointments in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Chemistry, where he is also Director of the recently endowed Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics. He received his Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry from MIT in 1995. He was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard University Society of Fellows from 1995–1997. From 1997–2002 he was on the staff at Bell Laboratories, and from 2003–2016 he was on the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. His current research interests are in advanced materials for bio-inspired and bio-integrated systems.