About ME
Building National Prominence (1905-1940)
ME had already established a powerful presence in the university under Cooley, and in the coming decades, the department would rise to national prominence and influence. Drawing students from across the United States and throughout the world, the department grew tenfold in forty years, adding a respected program in graduate studies and embracing new tools as the field became increasingly grounded in the hard sciences and rigorous experimentation. The department's laboratories kept pace with the explosion of American industrial power, and research joined instruction as the two key functions of the department. Important new areas of instruction– such as internal combustion and industrial and automotive engineering– also began to emerge. By 1940, the undergraduate curriculum had grown to include fifty-four courses, and a student needed seventy-four semester hours of preparatory work, fifty hours of secondary and technical work, and sixteen hours of electives to obtain a bachelor's degree. In Mortimer Cooley's era as ME chairman, the department had graduated four or five students each year. By World War II, some seventy students were acquiring degrees annually.
ME Under Construction
Much of the department's work was conducted in the new West Engineering Building, built in 1904 at the corner of South and East University Streets. Five labs in that landmark building eventually were devoted to ME: the General Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, with its steam engines, internal combustion engines, air compressors, and apparatus for refrigeration, heating, and ventilation; the Hydraulic Laboratory, with the first naval architecture tank ever built by an educational institution; the Physical Testing Laboratory, where materials were tested for strength; the Highway Lab, devoted to road materials; and the Automotive Laboratory, which was equipped with a full range of equipment for cars, trucks, and tractors.
Riding Automotive Growth
The automotive engineering program developed in concert with the rise of the automobile industry in nearby Detroit. The department offered its first automotive course titled "Gasoline Automobiles" in 1913, when Henry Ford's Model T was in its heyday. In 1916, Walter Lay joined the faculty with a mandate to create a laboratory and an entire slate of automotive courses. (His first lab course featured a full day's road test of a motor vehicle.) When the U.S. entered World War I, Michigan faculty members trained more than a thousand soldiers in automotive engine repair. In the years after the war, Professor Lay launched the department's tradition of research in cooperation with manufacturers in Detroit. Michigan engineers were among the first to demonstrate the advantages of streamlining in auto design. They helped to determine optimal highway grades, and balanced the cost of construction against the operational costs of cars and trucks climbing the grades. Other important studies included engine heat balance, car safety, car noise, and riding comfort.
The rise of the automobile was in fact the main force behind the revolution in industrial practices and processes maintained among all branches of manufacturing. To help lead that trend, ME faculty launched a pioneering program in industrial engineering. The first course in scientific shop management was offered in 1915. During World War I, the course was expanded to accommodate the training of Army ordnance officers, the first such training ever offered in the U.S. In the 1920s, under Professor Orlan Boston, an ME alumnus, the department developed courses that coordinated the disciplines of design, metallurgy, and production. Under Boston's leadership, the emphasis of instruction shifted from manual training to principles of modern industrial practice. Boston also led important research in the machining of metals. In 1934, he became chairman of the new Department of Metal Processing within ME, with courses that became so popular that they had to be offered twice each day.
Timoshenko: Renowned Researcher and Leader
Another key figure during this period was Professor Stephen Timoshenko, who became a world-renowned authority in applied mechanics, and introduced scientific and mathematical approaches to mechanics instruction. Timoshenko's research at Michigan formed the foundation of the theory of the elastic behavior of solid matter. Other research included the use of the energy method in problems of structural stability and buckling, and the formulation of the differential equation for lateral vibrations of beams. He was also the first to formulate the basic differential equation for the problem of torsion of structural sections, and the first to obtain the shear center of a beam.
Under Timoshenko's leadership, Michigan became the first university in the country to offer both bachelor's and doctoral programs in engineering mechanics. By 1940, the department was firmly established as one of the most prestigious mechanical engineering programs in the nation.