Facilities

COMPUTING, VISUALIZATION & SIMULATION EQUIPMENT (HTUCOE COMPUTING LINKUTH)

CAVE (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment) [ Manufactured by Fakespace Systems Inc.]

• Windows 2000 operating environment

• 4-wall system with 4 projectors

• 8ft X 8ft X 8ft cube of physical space

• Flock of birds tracking system

CAE Network

The Computer Aided Engineering Network (CAEN) provides the College of Engineering with one of the world’s premier computing environments for engineering-related research and education. CAEN’s integrated network spans more than 100 faculty and staff offices, laboratories and classrooms. The network in the Pinchback Engineering building provides connectivity to more than 500 workstations and servers, including Dell, Gateway, IBM, and Hewlett Packard computers. The backbone of CAEN’s network consists of an Extreme Networks Black Diamond 6808 chassis with Gigabit copper and fiber line cards. All servers and the Advanced Computing Laboratory are connected directly to the backbone of the network, thus eliminating network bottlenecks. Ten of Extreme Network’s Summit48si layer 3 10/100Mb switches connect student computer laboratories and faculty offices via 1000Mb multimode fiber optic cable to the Black Diamond 6808 chassis. The only protocol in use is TCP/IP; all other protocols have been disabled including NetBIOS over TCP/IP. This allows us to have a pure TCP/IP network with minimal network chatter.

Advanced Computing Lab

Our state-of-the-art workstation laboratory contains 20 Dell Precision 530 workstations with 1.8GHz CPUs, DUAL 19” digital flat panel monitors and Wildcat 6110 digital video cards. The Wildcat 6110 digital video cards have a total of 206MB RAM to quickly solve complicated graphic problems. A HP Designjet 5000PS 42 inch plotter is used to print CAD drawings, posters, and other large format output. Students also have access to a HP 4600 color LaserJet and a HP 4200 monochrome LaserJet printers. The following applications are installed for student use: Windows 2000, Office XP Suite, Publisher XP, I-deas 7, Matlab R12, Algor, Adams, AutoCAD 2002 Suite, SPSS 10.1, Acrobat Reader 5.1, Internet Explorer 6, QuickTime 6, PSpice 9.2.3, FEMap 8.1, Xilinx 5.1i Suite, Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition 7.6, Direct X9, Visual Studio.Net Suite and Windows Media Player 9.

CAD Laboratories

Three CAD laboratories contain a total of 90 computers (30 in each lab) for student use. Two of the CAD labs contain Dell Optiplex GX240 computers which contain 1.8GHz CPUs, 40GB hard drives, 512MB RAM, and 19” monitors. The following applications are installed for student use: Windows 2000, Office XP Suite, Publisher XP, I-deas 7, Matlab R12, Algor, Adams, AutoCAD 2002 Suite, SPSS 10.1, Acrobat Reader 5.1, Internet Explorer 6, QuickTime 6, PSpice 9.2.3, FEMap 8.1, Xilinx 5.1i Suite, Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition 7.6, Direct X 9, Visual Studio.Net Suite and Windows Media Player 9. The remaining CAD lab has Dell Precision 530 workstations with 1.8GHz CPUs, 19” digital flat panel monitors and Wildcat 6110 digital video cards. The Wildcat 6110 digital video cards have a total of 206MB RAM to quickly solve complicated graphic problems. The workstations have the same software installed as the computers in the before mentioned labs.

3D Printers

CAEN is also unique in that it has two 3D printers which allow faculty and students to print physical 3D representations of their models. The Thermojet 3D printer is located in the

Courseware Studio

The Courseware Studio offers a multitude of equipment that allows faculty and students to work with various forms of media. A Dell Precision 530 workstation with 3 36GB, 15,000 RPM SCSI hard drives, Wildcat 6110 digital video card, and two 20” flat panel monitors is the heart of the Courseware Studio. A Sony TRV900 digital camcorder is available to record classes, labs, presentations, and etc. The footage is then imported to the Dell workstation and edited with Adobe Premiere 6.5 editing software. The resulting video can be exported to any or all of the following: CD, DVD, VCR, LAN, or web site (at various connection speeds: 56k, 100k, and 300k). A CD/DVD duplicator/printer is used to mass produce and print material onto the appropriate format (CD and/or DVD). A wide format color printer (HP Designjet 50) is used for color output, while a HP LaserJet 2200 is used for monochrome material. Other devices offered are a Nikon D100, 6.1 mega pixel digital camera with standard and wide angle lenses and a HP 5450 wide format scanner. . The following applications are installed on the workstation: Windows 2000, Office XP Suite, Publisher XP, I-deas 7, Matlab R12, Algor, Adams, AutoCAD 2002 Suite, SPSS 10.1, Acrobat Reader 5.1, Internet Explorer 6, QuickTime 6, PSpice 9.2.3, FEMap 8.1, Xilinx 5.1i Suite, Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition 7.6, Direct X 9, Visual Studio.Net Suite, Adobe Premiere 6.5 and Windows Media Player 9.

MATERIALS CHARACTERIZATION EQUIPMENT

• Rheometric Solid Analyzer Model 3 (RSA) - Used for controlled strain solids testing of films, fibers, foams, composites, ceramics, and others. Capabilities include testing at cryogenic temperatures. Rheometric Solid Analyzer

• Ultrasonic NDE System - Used for non-destructive evaluation of composite panels, metal plates and other parts. Tests for voids, cracks, on materials without damaging the material.

• A multi-specimen fatigue machine.

• Solartron SI 1280 electro-chemical measurement equipment and corrosion monitoring interface.

• Differential Scanning Calorimetry.

• Ultrasonic Joining Equipment.

• Scanning Electron Microscope for fractography and microstructure analysis.

• Furnace for Fire Endurance Studies

• Temperature Control System for Furnace