The Mechanical Engineering (ME) faculty at Western Kentucky University (WKU) have developed and implemented a Professional Plan to assure that graduates of the program will have experienced key areas of the engineering profession and demonstrated their abilities to perform in a professional manner. This Professional Component has been divided into Engineering Design, Professional Communications, Computer Skills Tools, and Engineering Ethics, with students receiving instruction and practice in each area at least once per academic year.Engineering Design experiences combine a structured approach to solving problems with an appreciation for the art of engineering. Professional Communications and Computer Skills Tools are introduced and then required throughout the four-year sequence to support the execution of design projects. The Engineering Ethics component provides students with a framework for understanding professional expectations and techniques for clarifying the ambiguity that is common in ethical dilemmas.The primary purpose of the Professional Component course sequence is to link all these skills to engineering design and to assess the progress of student capabilities through the curriculum. The integrated structure of the Professional Component courses provides a framework for building upon previous coursework, assessing student progress often, and more quickly adjusting course coverage based on prior assessments to effectively assure that graduates of the program are capable of practicing as engineers upon graduation.

The present study involves application of an open system entropy generation formulation to analyze human thermal stress responses. The time-series human thermal stress response data are obtained by conducting a simulation using a validated finiteelement human thermal model (FEHTM). These simulated human thermal response data are used as an input to the entropy generation expression to obtain human entropy generation (HEG) values. The effects of variables such as air temperature, relative humidity, physical activity, and clothing on entropy generation are examined. A design of experiment (DOE) approach is utilized to study the interaction effects of air temperature and relative humidity on entropy generation. The study establishes the importance and utility of entropy generation as a holistic measure of human thermal physiological reaction to external and internal changes. This novel study has great potential for use in military medicine, rehabilitation, sports, and related applications.

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Caitlyn Clark is a first year graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Notre Dame. Her research involves using particle image velocimetry techniques for various flow analyses. She is also a recent alumni of Western Kentucky University where she served as a thermo-fluids research assistant. During her undergraduate career she carried out multiple research projects funded through internal grants and industry sponsorships. Secondly, an internal student grant was awarded to allow a student researcher to develop a relationship between leakage areas, pressures, and flow rates. Understanding how these elements correlate will provide an understanding of energy consumption in residential, commercial and industrial settings due to building envelope construction and maintenance/aging flaws.Halton Company manufactures kitchen ventilation hoods, which are sized for commercial kitchen use. This being the case, it was impractical to obtain a hood sized for use in the university laboratory. Therefore, a scaled-down model was designed and built so that the results from laboratory research could be correlated to commercial sized applications. All kitchen ventilation systems require two main parts; an exhaust air moving device (AMD) and effluent collection hood. In order to recreate these items, before testing of the scaled-down hood could begin, an air flow bench was developed and characterized to replicate the exhaust AMD system, which was then coupled to the scaled down version of the kitchen ventilation hood.To study the effects of leakage areas on energy consumption in building envelopes, a "blower door" simulation test bed was purchased with the grant funds. This test bed included "windows" or "apertures", which allowed for various leakage geometries to be placed in the envelope of the structure. Along with this, the exterior structure and its cover included different pressure taps so that the internal static pressure within the structure may be determined at various locations. To complete the test bed, all of the instruments required to conduct a blower door test -an air moving device, differential and flow measuring device, blower door frame and covering -were included in the performance measure.An important aspect of these projects was the ability of the ME Program to provide an undergraduate student valuable learning experiences by managing and executing these projects as an extracurricular activity. The learning experiences, present throughout the projects, consisted of both project management and technical aspects. Assessment of outcomes of student learning from these real world energy applications was also performed.

was a Mechanical Engineering undergraduate student when this project was undertaken. He received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering in May 2006 at Western Kentucky University. Chris Kruckenberg, Western Kentucky University Chris Kruckenberg was a Mechanical Engineering undergraduate student when this project was undertaken.