Our Point of View on Mechanical Engineering

Our department opened its doors in the Fall of 2009 admitting its first class of undergraduate and graduate students with an innovative curriculum, new faculty, and new facilities.

Mechanical Engineering, one of the classical branches of engineering, has undergone significant transformation in recent years to undertake the challenges in the modern world. Our new curriculum is designed to meet the needs of the future mechanical engineers in response to these changes. Mechanical Engineering plays an increasingly important leading role in industries that depend on high and innovative technologies such as space, automotive, defense, medicine and food production.

Mechanical Engineering education embraces both the fundamentals and practice; builds the procedural knowledge essential for the problem-solving engineer as well as the declarative knowledge of the applied scientist. Mechanical Engineering education emphasizes thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, dynamics, design and manufacturing. Topics from mechanical engineering practice, such as internal combustion engines, heat exchangers, automotive body structures and machine tools, are common applications of those fundamentals. Recent additions to these topics are applications that are based on advances in fields such as nanotechnologies and biological sciences. Examples include, bio-inspired design of systems and robotics, micro- and nano-scale manufacturing, brain-controlled prostheses, modeling of biological systems, and renewable and green energy applications.

The curriculum we offer is designed to prepare the future mechanical engineers. It covers the essential basics of mechanical engineering and adds to them the knowledge necessary for the modern engineer of the future.

These topics include molecular biology, solid-state chemistry, systems engineering, probability and statistics, and psychology of communications. Furthermore, the fundamental mechanical engineering courses are taught in an integrated manner, reflecting how such phenomena develop in real engineering problems. The curriculum also builds around design and manufacturing to relate the fundamentals to the ultimate goal of engineering: products and processes that present solutions to problems industry and society face.

The emphasis on both the fundamentals and applications in classical and new areas empower our students to apply their knowledge and skills in a variety of different industries and in emerging new technologies.

We view engineering as the profession that bridges fundamental sciences to the needs and welfare of individuals and society. As such, an educated engineer knows and understands how to apply the fundamentals, but a great engineer also understands the human needs and society, and is able to both articulate and solve their problems.

Our department is in the process of hiring more faculty members and admitting graduate students to its Master’s and Doctoral programs. Our research efforts are focused and leverages the strengths of Bilkent University. Among the research topics selected, MicroSystem Engineering takes advantage of nanotechnology centers and molecular biology research on the campus. New laboratory facilities have just been completed.

We would welcome potential students, parents, and interested visitors to come and see our new facilities and learn more about mechanical engineering.

Prof. Dr. İlker Temizer

Chair