Mechanical and Materials Engineering (MME) 

Undergraduate Research Projects Showcase (URPS)

Particle Imaging Velocimetry and shadowgraphy are two methods used to understand fluidic environments and their behaviors. Both methods isolate particles by illuminating them with bright light from either a laser or a high-powered LED and capturing their positions with a camera.

These images can be used to create velocity vectors of the particles across successive images, producing a velocity field that demonstrates fluid flow.

This MQP demonstrated the technique by using shadowgraphy in a small flow channel, or wind tunnel, to understand the dynamics of particle flow around a small cylindrical object. The resulting velocity field demonstrated the flow pattern around the cylindrical object.

As the use of concrete continues to expand and the world becomes increasingly conscious of the material’s environmental impacts, calls for a shift away from traditional cast concrete are growing louder.

3D-printed reinforced concrete (3DPRC) has begun to emerge as a solution that addresses market demands for reductions in cost, emissions, and design limitations.

This project explored the effects of vibration on injected reinforcements to close the voids between steel and concrete and increase interlayer bond strength. Using a device designed and constructed by the team, steel staple reinforcements were injected into concrete samples printed with an auger-based 3D concrete printer.

The voids formed during reinforcement injection with vibration were then compared with those formed without vibration.

This report details the in-house design, fabrication, and preliminary evaluation of a Schmidt-Boelter (SB) heat flux gauge at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

This project addresses the critical need for cost-effective, high-precision instrumentation by developing a water-cooled sensor capable of measuring incident heat flux up to 100 kW/m².

The design employs an anodized aluminum wafer wrapped with a custom-manufactured thermopile consisting of constantan and copper-plated constantan wire. A water-cooled copper housing and aluminum flange assembly were engineered to ensure survivability in extreme environments.

This research demonstrates the feasibility of university-scale manufacturing, enabling a significant reduction in cost from several thousand dollars to under $200 per unit.

The project identified crucial manufacturing bottlenecks, specifically the mechanical vulnerability of ultra-fine thermopile wiring.

Ultimately, this work provides a comprehensive technical framework and modular design, including an optional sapphire window for radiometry, that establishes a foundation for future iterations of a low-cost, high-fidelity fire research instrumentation.

With a projected shortage of millions of senior caregivers in the coming decades, robotic solutions offer a vital boost to senior care. With several organizations developing humanoid robots for assistance and companionship, previous WPI teams created a 3D-printable, open-source, child-like robot to improve development accessibility.

Notable features include swappable hands and a specialized hub cart for storage and charging. This year’s further development improved mechanical rigidity, hand swapping and storage, and assembly.

Joint redesigns featuring planetary gearboxes and topology optimization increased the robot’s strength and rigidity while walking. The hand-mating system now features automatic latching and improved alignment, with compact vertical storage for alternative hands integrated into the cart.

Additionally, standardized hardware tolerances and improved electronics accessibility streamline the assembly process. These refinements bolster the robot’s core functionality while providing a more robust and flexible platform for future development.

Through design and development, this project’s previous MQP team advanced silicone 3D-printing capabilities for the consumer market. This project builds on that system by adding additional printing axes and moving away from an oven-based heating approach.

Evaluating various Liquid Silicone Rubber (LSR) compounds and testing their mechanical properties and curing behavior showed that localized heating could replace the oven, providing sufficient curing for supportless printing.

With improved rigidity of the extruded silicone, two rotational degrees of freedom were introduced: a 180° rotating nozzle axis and a 360° rotating print bed.

These modifications expand the potential of supportless Fused Deposition Modeling while challenging traditional slicing profiles and requiring more advanced G-code. The resulting system enables supportless printing of complex LSR geometries while maintaining user accessibility.

This printer demonstrates the feasibility of silicone additive manufacturing for rapid prototyping in applications such as soft robotics, medical components, gaskets, and speakers.

A polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic device was designed, simulated, and fabricated to generate polydisperse droplets through pinch-off junctions.

A single-chip design was developed as the primary approach for direct, on-demand polydisperse droplet generation through the manipulation of squeeze valves. A three-chip monodisperse configuration was also created as an alternative method to ensure variable droplet generation if the single-chip device proved ineffective.

ANSYS simulations were conducted to assess flow, pressure distribution, and interfacial breakup behavior during stable droplet formation across three channel widths. Each channel contributed distinct droplet-size populations, producing a broadened overall distribution.

The optimized layout was fabricated using 3D resin printers, allowing precise replication of microscale features and reliable bonding to a glass substrate. Experimental results aligned with simulation trends, confirming that the chip geometry could create droplet-size diversity.

Overall, this project offers a low-cost and scalable method for emulsification, drug delivery, and material synthesis.

HydroFlex polishing utilizes a high-speed flexible spindle to finish complex internal channels for heavy-industry applications.

Significant challenges exist in a HydroFlex system, including driving the spindle at speeds of up to 100,000 RPM, delivering coolant through the spindle, and maintaining consistent feed during operation. The previous system lacked reliability, manufacturability, and a compact form factor.

In this MQP, the system was redesigned to improve overall performance and robustness through the development of a hydrodynamic high-speed sealing system, a continuous pressure-driven spindle-feed mechanism, and a self-guiding spool for flexible-spindle containment.

The redesigned system resulted in a significant reduction in moment of inertia and system noise, along with improved heat dissipation and more reliable feed operation, enabling a robust, industry-ready implementation of the HydroFlex process.

This project involves the fabrication of a mechanical arm capable of performing a precise 180-degree sweep around patients’ heads while maintaining stability.

Developed in collaboration with Imetric, the arm supports the ICam camera during intraoral imaging for dental implants.

The arm must be dynamically stable, easily adjusted with applied force, and mobile to ensure that it can be moved between rooms when needed.

The objective of this project was to design a set of coils to improve the magnetic-field uniformity of the Helicon Plasma Device in the Plasma Nuclear Diagnostics Laboratory.

The requirement was to obtain a 100 G magnetic field with less than 5% deviation while respecting temperature limits during one hour of operation.

Biot–Savart and finite-volume solver codes were developed in MATLAB to study magnetic-field and thermal performance, respectively. These results were validated using COMSOL simulations.

To optimize the design, parameters were varied in MATLAB, including the number of coils, coil axial positions, coil radii, windings in each coil, wire gauge, current, and packing type. Their effects on cost, magnetic-field production, and thermal behavior were analyzed.

The results yielded a variety of designs that meet the project requirements. Designs with fewer coils, smaller radii, and smaller-gauge wires reduce the overall cost.

This MQP focuses on designing and building a drone for agricultural farming that can spray water, pesticides, or fertilizers over crops.

The drone weighs approximately 20 pounds without its payload and approximately 30 pounds when fully loaded. Its components include the main body, payload system, camera system, landing system, propellers, motors, motor controllers, flight controllers, a Raspberry Pi 5, and batteries.

These components were specifically selected to support precision-agriculture tasks such as crop monitoring, targeted payload delivery, terrain mapping, AI-generated flight paths, and field-data collection.

The drone is capable of flying at sufficient altitude to spray a designated area of farmland.

The second part of the project modifies the existing drone body and landing-gear system and introduces a newly fabricated water tank to reduce weight, optimize the existing drone, and improve waterproofing.