Department snapshot: Mechanical Engineering
Photos: M. Scott Brauer and Jin Suntivich (images 1-3) This is part of an occasional series of features profiling academic departments at MIT. What does ketchup have to do with mechanical engineering? Well, it turns out that if you want the condiment to garnish your burger in a timely fashion, principles of mechanical engineering can speed an otherwise stubborn, slow-moving pour. The key, as MIT mechanical engineers have found, is at the interface. Faculty and students in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering (MechE) are examining these boundaries, manufacturing new textured coatings that, at the nanoscale, interact with liquids in surprising and often innovative ways. This relatively new field, called interfacial engineering, combines the study of mechanical forces, physical texture and materials chemistry to generate novel solutions to a host of problems: clearing pipelines, cooling electronics, optimizing battery efficiency, sorting cell samples, defogging windshields and, yes, unclogging ketchup bottles. Indeed, in...