Facilities
The Department of Mechanical Engineering provides a variety of facilities and technical services to support students, faculty, and affiliates. Tech Spark is our newest set of collaborative workspaces for creative problem solving.
Laboratories
Mechanical Engineering faculty members maintain state of the art laboratories to explore research questions, innovate new technologies, and collaborate across disciplines.
Shared facilities
The department prides itself on the facilities it maintains for research and testing. University and outside researchers may access these facilities:
Tech Spark
The Tech Spark is the cornerstone of the College of Engineering's maker ecosystem, an integrated set of resources where faculty and students create and develop new ideas, concepts and products for courses and research.
Rates:
- Pro Rate: $75/hr
- Machine Shop Independent Usage: $25/hr
- Partnered courses: $135/enroll
- 3D Print Group 1: $0.48/gram
- 3D Print Group 2: $1.24/gram
- Stockroom: At cost
Visit the Tech Spark website for details about equipment, hours of operation, contact information, and more.
Machine Shop
The Mechanical Engineering professional machine shop offers prototype design and fabrication services for the Mechanical Engineering Department as well as the campus at large.
Contact: 412-268-2516
Air Quality Lab
The Air Quality Lab contains a wide array of equipment and instrumentation used to conduct laboratory experiments and field measurements related to air pollution, air quality, atmospheric chemistry, and investigate the impacts of particulate matter on human health and on climate change. Two environmental chamber reactors and associated equipment are the major facilities present. These are used to simulate atmospheric processing of gases and particles. Numerous analytical instruments are also available to characterize key gas-phase and particle-phase components and properties during these experiments.
Rate: $293.85 per user per month
Contact: Ryan Sullivan, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Chemistry
The Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies Mobile Lab
The Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies (CAPS) mobile laboratory is a facility for conducting air quality research off of Carnegie Mellon’s campus. The CAPS mobile laboratory 1 is a custom-outfitted Ford E350 van. The CAPS mobile laboratory 2 is a custom-outfitted Ford E150 van. When fully equipped, they contain the same instrument suite as the Air Quality Laboratory located in Doherty Hall.
Rates:
- Mobile Lab 1, 2008 Ford E350 Box Van: $109.10
- Mobile Lab 2, 2007 Ford E150 Van: $0.607 per mile
Contact: Albert Presto, Research Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Nano X-Ray Computed Tomography Facility
The Nano X-Ray CT facility provides user access to the Xradia UltraXRM-L200 nano-scale resolution X-ray computed tomography instrument and its associated sample preparation equipment and image processing software. The instrument is used to image the three-dimensional, internal structure of material samples.
Rates:
- CMU & Federal Customers: $110 access fee + $50/hour with a daily billing cap of access fee + 15 hours
- External Academic Customers: $200.20 access fee + $91/hour with a daily billing cap of access fee + 15 hours
- Industry Customers: $379.50 access fee + $172.50/hour with a daily billing cap of access fee + 15 hours
- Personnel fee for incidental costs for customers not self-operating the facility: $130.58 per hour
Contact: Shawn Litster, Professor of Mechanical Engineering