Machine Elements

ME 443 is where the stress analysis and material behavior you learned in solid mechanics finally gets pointed at real hardware — you stop solving abstract beams and start sizing the shafts, bearings, gears, bolts, and springs that have to survive fatigue, wear, and combined loading in an actual machine. Expect to live in Shigley, work through five homework sets and a design project alongside the midterm and final, and spend most of your time deciding which failure criterion governs and what factor of safety you can defend. It's the capstone of the mechanical design sequence, and the habits you build here — picking components from catalogs, justifying every dimension — are exactly what senior design and industry will demand of you.