Department of Mechanical Engineering, TIMA

Department of Mechanical Engineering

The Department of Mechanical Engineering is one of six departments at the Faculty of Engineering.

Head of Department: Johan Wall
Department coordinator: Lena Brandt Gustafsson

The department is a vital part of BTH and has been so ever since its start in 1989. Our work is focused on activities that build competence for a modern product development and thus support the development of innovative and sustainable products.

In research and education, we work in a broad spectrum. From basic mechanical engineering via modelling / simulation / experimental analysis to innovative product-service system development.

We successfully integrate our research and education with both local and national / international corporate and social development efforts, enabling us to continue to build up our and our partners’ capabilities. We have great visibility of our operations and a clarity in the external collaboration.

We want to support companies and organizations both in being more efficient in their development (i.e. incremental improvements) and in finding entirely new solutions for the market (i.e. radical innovation). Our students are an important resource, both during ongoing education (project and degree work) and after completed studies (staff).

We work extensively within BTH’s profile “Applied IT and innovation for sustainable growth” and with the motto “In real life” and have in our laboratories modern equipment and systems to support product development, prototyping and visualization.

News

Congratulations Yan Zhang, Licentiate in Mechanical Engineering!

Yan Zhang presented his licentiate thesis entitled “Value co-creation for sustainable product service system design” in front of a crowd of local audience and online listeners. Yan made a popular presentation […]

BTH teacher on the top 50 list of women leaders in education

Tamara Carleton is recognised in the American “Women We admire” magazine, in their Top 50 Women Leaders in Education of 2023. Tamara is a professor at the department of mechanical […]

Research

The research area has mechanical engineering as scientific foundation and drive product development capability for innovation in a sustainable society as a comprehensive focus.

Perspective areas are engineering design methodology, simulation-driven design, and model-based development, which requires methods and tools that enable product developers to efficiently, and in as early stage as possible, be able to predict, describe, assess, and improve product characteristics. Design, development, analysis and simulation methods are needed for the prediction of technical product properties as a function of different combinations of design variables of the product life cycle. Broad or specialized engineering skills in a number of disciplines, and simulation is needed for the prediction of technical product properties as a function of different combinations of design variables as well as for the prediction of economic and socio-ecological impact of product life cycle.

An overarching objective is that when needed, be able to integrate all the relevant methods and tools for product development capability in business leaders and product developers ordinary working environment. Advanced IT tools, for example, analysis, modeling, simulation, visualization, optimization, product data management, and distributed engineering related to experimental methods are characteristic of the research.

Examples of special areas currently being studied and used for product improvements are value-driven development models, knowledge engineering methods, mechanical and mechatronic systems; structural dynamics; and fracture mechanics.

Find more info on our research here.

Education

Our educations are given in close symbiosis between research and collaborating companies, to make sure students get a “in real life” experience and that the “engineers desktop” is modern and updated with methods and tools.

Our researchers and teachers are active and in several of BTH’s educational programmes, and these are the ones that are particularly close to us, to be found here.