Original Article

International Journal of Mechanical

Engineering Education
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and vibration course

for the undergraduate
mechanical engineering
program

Na Zhu

Abstract
The content of noise, vibration, and harshness is an important part of the undergraduate
mechanical engineering program education to prepare students ready for their future
career, and it has received great attention from educators. Since course content in
noise, vibration, and harshness usually requires more mathematical background knowledge
and skills such as problem-solving in differential equations and linear algebra, students at
the undergraduate level usually experience difficulty in the problem-solving work in noise,
vibration, and harshness, though they have already completed the pre-requisite mathe-
matics courses. In this paper, a new schedule and course content design for noise and
vibration courses are introduced. By embedding active learning and design during projects,
the students were able to obtain a better understanding of the concept of acoustics and
vibration, as well as applying the knowledge from lectures to labs so they can connect the
learning to real-world applications. Four projects are introduced and explained. To eval-
uate the effectiveness of the course, student outcomes are assessed and discussed.

Keywords
Undergraduate, mechanical engineering, course development

Department of Computer Science, Engineering, and Physics, University of Michigan-Flint, Michigan, USA
Corresponding author:
Na Zhu, Department of Computer Science, Engineering, and Physics, University of Michigan-Flint, 207
Murchie Science Building, 303 E. Kearsley Street Flint, Michigan 48502-1950, USA.
Email: nazhu@umich.edu
Zhu 79

Introduction
The content of noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) is one of the essential parts
in the area of mechanical engineering and usually has a course offered at the
undergraduate level.1,2 However, introducing the noise and vibration theories
accompanies a large amount of mathematics knowledge, such as calculus,
problem-solving in differential equations, matrix calculation, and geometric anal-
ysis, which make NVH one of the most complicated topics in mechanical engi-
neering. The instructor usually needs to spend a large amount of time explaining
the theory with math review and practice during the lecture classes. However,
many of the students still experience difficulty in understanding the concepts in
NVH, as well as connecting the lecture contents to real-world applications.
Therefore, a gap exists between theory and application when students try to
learn NVH subjects.
On the other hand, various types of teaching-learning algorithms have been
introduced in the field of engineering education and have received satisfactory
student outcomes. For example, learning with simulation modeling has been prac-
ticed in several engineering programs.3 Zhou and Wang have introduced a practice
teaching system for undergraduate civil engineering program to improve student
outcomes.4 Research and professional practice are also embedded in engineering
education and have both received positive outcomes.5 Problem-based learning6
and design-based open-ended assignment7 are very popular approaches.
Research has shown that the active learning8 can improve the students’ perfor-
mance in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) areas; thus, it
is often adopted by engineering educators.9–11
A new teaching method/schedule customized for the NVH course is introduced
in this paper. The goal is to improve students’ performance and conquering the gap
between theory and practice. Active learning and design-based projects were
embedded in the class content to drive the students’ study throughout the semester.
Active learning is a student-centered instructional method to help students build-
ing new knowledge on top of their previous knowledge12 and have been widely
adopted in higher education.13–15 A design-based project16 focuses on problem-
based learning while asking students to work on the project from identifying the
problem, finding a solution, and designing a system for it, which is a good fit to
engineering students. Both of these teaching strategies aimed at increasing stu-
dents’ interests in the field of NVH and changing their stereotype of considering
NVH is full of calculus and not practical in engineering design. In this course,
instead of a semester-long lecture format class, the instructor only provided basic
knowledge and theories to students and then asked the students to start thinking
and preparing for the project. With open-ended projects, students needed to
research the necessary information and design their ways on how to conduct the
projects, while the instructor provided assistance during their active learning and
provided feedback or guidance for design activities. Four projects were scheduled
throughout the semester, which cover most of the course contents. The active
80 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 50(1)

learning activities assisted students better understand the basic theories in the area
of NVH. What is more, the design-based projects offered the students the oppor-
tunity to have hands-on experience, collect information from resources, analyze
the results, and solve problems. In this way, a bridge was built to connect theory
and application in the field of NVH, and students have shown more interest in the
course and better learning outcomes.
As an advantage of the learning activities during the class, students have
improved the problem-solving ability and hands-on skills on computer-aided
NVH analysis, which are in high demand today in mechanical engineering.17
Because all the equipment (microphones and accelerators) in this course were con-
nected to the computer by the data acquisition system, the experiments were
designed by the students and the test results were saved automatically and uploaded
online for further review and discussion. Adding the experimental design parts into
the course content also helped students better prepared for their future careers.

Course content and schedule

A course, entitled “noise and vibration” was designed for students in junior/senior
level in the undergraduate mechanical engineering program. Pre-requisite courses
are dynamics in engineering and differential equations from the math department.
The course aimed to give students broad information on both the noise and vibra-
tion topics, and the course contents were tailored to fit a one-semester schedule.
The instructor covered the topic of vibration in the first half-semester, followed by
the noise control subjects in the second half. A complete course content matching
with project topics is shown in Table 1.
Four active learning and design-based projects were assigned and two exams
were conducted throughout the semester. The schedule is shown in Figure 1.

Table 1. Course content and schedule.

Project Topics Course contents

Project 1. Cantilever beam Oscillatory motion, free-body-diagram, natural frequency

modal analysis
Project 2. What’s the best
design for automobile
suspension?
Project 3. How sound travels,
noise measurement
Project 4. How to improve
classroom acoustics?
SPL: sound pressure level.
Energy method, free vibration responses
Forced vibration responses, vibration transmission
The two-degree-of-freedom system, coupling, natural
frequencies, modal ratios, and mode shapes
Free vibration and forced vibration of the two-degree-of-
freedom system
Sound basics, SPL, A-weighting
Spectrum, octave bands, filters
Sound power, intensity
Reverberation time
Noise control methods
Zhu 81

Figure 1. Projects and exams schedule throughout the semester.

Projects
Four student projects were employed to drive the course. The topic of each project
was announced when the instructor started a new subject in class. The students can
start preparing for it while the instructor introduced basic concepts and theories,
which made the learning experience a project-driven one.

Project 1
Cantilever beam modal analysis first required some fundamental knowledge in
vibration such as the concept of oscillatory motion, natural frequencies, and free
vibration responses, etc. Therefore, the instructor started the lecture with such
subjects after giving a brief introduction to the goal of the project. Secondly,
when the necessary background knowledge was established, the students worked
in groups to measure the time-domain signals with an accelerometer on cantilever
beams made with different types of materials, including carbon steel, aluminum,
and brass. Students were required to build a LabVIEW program to calculate the
natural frequencies and damping ratios from the acceleration-time signals.
Therefore, the experimental results of natural frequencies and damping ratios
for each case can be obtained. On the other hand, the students also needed to
conduct measurements of the dimensions of the beams, check their physical prop-
erties such as density, and calculate their natural frequencies by theory. A com-
parison between the theory and experimental results was conducted, followed by
some discussion questions, such as “will the dimension of beam influence the nat-
ural frequency and why?”; “When the boundary conditions changed, will the nat-
ural frequency change?” etc.
An example of measurement results of an aluminum beam is shown in Figure 2,
where part (a) shows direct measurement conducted during class, using the data
acquisition system from National Instrument (NI) NI-9234 and cDAQ-9171 and
accelerometers ICPVR array microphone with integral preamplifier from PCB
PiezotronicsINC. Part (b) is from a student’s coding which automatically calculates
82 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 50(1)

Figure 2. Example of the measurement result of an aluminum cantilever beam in Project 1.

(a) Accelerator measurement during lab. (b) Data processed by the student.

the natural frequencies. Because the amplitude at first frequency stood out and
much higher than the following frequencies, here only the first natural frequency is
included in the figure, and frequency is in the unit of Hz. The hands-on experience
and analysis assignment let students collect data with accelerometers to identify the
free-vibration response; therefore, they can have a better understanding of the
natural frequency and the various parameters that influence it.

Project 2
What’s the best design for an automobile suspension, the project brought the
question to students and asked them to conduct a numerical simulation of a
half-car model in Matlab software. What is more, as part of the open-ended proj-
ect, students were asked to bring their solution to vibration reduction of the vehi-
cle. The project emphasized the lecture topics of two-degrees-of-freedom system
vibration. Similar to the first project, the instructor provided background knowl-
edge and then led students to the project of automobile suspension’s vibration
design. A half-car model was employed, assuming rigid body vertical displacement
x and pitch h direction. Students worked with the instructor to draw the free-body
diagrams, develop the equations of motion, and derive the formula of natural
frequencies and mode shapes. Meanwhile, numerical simulation in Matlab
Simulink was conducted and the impact of various parameters was discussed.
Students were required to change the values of several specific factors, such as
the dimension of the vehicle, front-wheel damping, pitch moment, and road height
as external stimuli. By the end of the project, each student concluded what they
have found and proposed their suggestions on vibration control in automotive
suspension design.

Project 3
How sound travels, noise measurement let students measure the noise environment
around a running cutting machine and asked students to search for the standards
and compared to their measurement results. The project was designed to provide a
Zhu 83

Figure 3. Measurement and results in Project 3. (a) Measuring noise from cutting machine. (b)
Selected measurement points. (c) SPL contour map in dB. (d) SPL contour map in dBA.

direct view of noise measurement and helped students have a better understanding
of basic acoustics knowledge. Concepts about sound pressure levels (SPL), spec-
trum, frequency bands, intensity, and power were first introduced in class. Next,
the students were asked to develop a way to measure the noise by a cutting
machine. With the noise measurement results, students evaluated the noise level,
for example, compare it to the OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health
Administration) standard, to see if operating on the machine was harmful to the
human’s ear. Because this was a design experience, there was no manual to guide
students on what to do in steps, but rather asking the students to develop their own
way to conduct the measurement. Figure 3 shows an example of the students’
group work. Figure 3(a) shows the measurement setup, including the laptop com-
puter, DAQ system, microphone, and the cutting machine, all in the machine shop.
Figure 3(b) shows the students selected 20 points to conduct the measurement.
By measuring, the 20 points with the machine on and off, the SPL values in dB
and dBA (A-weighting) were calculated and plotted in contour maps, showed in
Figure 3(c) and (d), respectively.
Meanwhile, some students worked on the frequency analysis, as seen in
Figure 4, to identify which frequency ranges had the most contribution to the
84 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 50(1)

Figure 4. Frequency analysis in Project 3.

SPL: sound pressure levels.

noise. Octave bands were selected in their work, and linear SPL at each frequency
band is identified separated.

Project 4
How to improve classroom acoustics was a problem-solving challenge for students.
The students needed to design and conduct measurement and analysis of the class-
room acoustics, evaluate it based on room acoustics standards and propose meth-
ods to reduce background noise and echo in the classroom to improve the acoustic
experience in the room. It was the last project in the noise part of the course and
asked students to apply their knowledge learned in the lecture to a practical prob-
lem. The classroom selected to be analyzed is a large room (about 1850 sqft), next
to the machine shop, which may sometimes introduce louder background noise.
When the classroom was used, students sometimes experience difficulty hearing the
instructor’s words, especially when they sit at the back of the room. The goal of the
student project was to evaluate the room acoustics, compare to standards, and
propose a plan to solve its problem. Similar to Project 3, it was an open question
and did not have a guideline for students, but requested the students to conduct
research and design their own ways to solve the problem. Some students investi-
gated the background noise levels and measured the SPLs across the classroom,
and others focused on the reverberation time test, as shown in Figure 5. Students
proposed solutions in their reports, such as adding blinds to the windows facing
the machine shop and redesigning the AC vent location.
Zhu 85

Figure 5. Reverberation time measurement.

Exams
Two examinations were scheduled, and questions were in the format of short answer,
multiple-choice, listing, mathematical problems, and schematic drawing and interpre-
tation. The exam in the middle of the semester covered topics in vibration and the one
at the end of the semester for noise control. Some example questions are as followed:

1. Will the natural frequencies of a TDOF system change with coordinates? Answer: No.
2. Consider the following system that consists of a mass m ¼ 10 kg, coil spring of
stiffness k ¼ 1000 N/m, and damping c ¼ 200 Ns/m. Suppose that the mass is
initially at rest and is given an initial velocity of 3 m/s. Find the free vibration
response of the mass. (Question from the textbook, Thomson18)
3. For a 1/3 octave band centered at 1000 Hz, what are the lower and upper fre-
quency? Answer: 890 Hz, 1122 Hz.
4. For sound pressure, power, and intensity measurement, is each of them indepen-
dent of measurement location? Answer: Pressure is position-dependent; Power is
position independent; Intensity is position-dependent.

Student outcome and discussion

The student outcome was measured by two exams and four projects in the fall
semester 2019 when the active learning and design-based projects were added to
the course, as shown in Table 2. For comparison, the table also includes a set of
86 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education 50(1)

Table 2. Assessment in grade result.

Grade in % Exam 1 Exam 2 Project 1 Project 2 Project 3 Project 4

Fall 2016 Mean 89 76 – – – –

Standard deviation 7 13 – – – –
Fall 2019 Mean 78 85 89 97 85 88
Standard deviation 16 10 7 5 15 20

data collected in the fall 2016 semester, when the course was offered by the same
instructor but no projects were in the contents. There were 18 students enrolled in
fall 2016 and 23 students in fall 2019. The university keeps a small classroom
teaching environment thus made the course capacity below 30. Exams 1 and 2
covers different contents thus are not comparable to each other, while some clues
can be found comparing the outcomes between fall 2016 and 2019. Exam 1’s mean
value in fall 2016 is higher than the one in fall 2019 because more calculation in
two-degree-of-freedom vibration was requested in fall 2019, which made the exam
more difficult. Exam 2 had the same contents during the two semesters, but stu-
dents in fall 2019 have shown a better outcome. This is because the projects have
encouraged student learning and helped students better understand the practical
application of noise control.
As mentioned before, four projects were introduced in fall 2019. The topics on
each project were independent of each other; therefore, there was no increase in the
tendency of grade values but consist at the same level, though project 2 shows a
slightly higher outcome. That is because Project 2 was a computer-based program-
ming project, and there are more ready-to-use resources available from the Matlab
software website (www.mathworks.com/help/simulink/slref/automotive-suspen
sion.html;jsessionid=104ad97f0f8952091e98d724caff).
The added projects also meet the criteria 6 and 7 in ABET (Accreditation Board
for Engineering and Technology) student outcomes for mechanical engineering
programs (ABET website: https://www.abet.org/accreditation/accreditation-crite-
ria/criteria-for-accrediting-engineering-programs-2019-2020/#GC3):

6. An ability to develop and conduct appropriate experimentation, analyze and inter-

pret data, and use engineering judgment to draw conclusions.
7. An ability to acquire and apply new knowledge as needed, using appropriate learn-
ing strategies.”

The assessment results in the fall semester of 2019 are shown in Table 3.
The ABET data was assessed based on students’ performance in the four projects
and evaluated by the instructor with rubrics. There are 91% and 87% of students
meet the practicing level or above in criteria 6 and 7, respectively. The outcome is
considered as satisfactory.
Zhu 87

Table 3. Assessment in ABET criteria 6 and 7.

% of students Missing Emerging Developing Practicing Maturing Mastering

In ABET criteria 6 0 0 9% 30% 39% 22%

In ABET criteria 7 0 9% 4% 30% 35% 22%
ABET: Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.

The student survey in fall 2019 has shown positive feedback on the active learn-
ing and design-based projects experience and received comments such as “this was
a fun and interesting class. Thank you for including hands-on projects. It was
helpful to see real-life applications.” “This course has both labs and in class. It’s
good to have both,” and “It gave me a good understanding of all the concepts.”
All the above-mentioned student outcomes will be assessed in the future thus the
instructor can conduct a year to year comparison and course improvement plan.

Conclusion
A course of noise and vibration was re-designed and new teaching methods of
active learning and design-based projects are introduced in the paper. The goal of
such a teaching algorithm was to provide students a better understanding of the
course content, bridge the gap between theory and practice, and improve students’
skills in hands-on and problem-solving. Four open-ended projects were embedded
in the course and led the lecture contents. Details of the projects are demonstrated
in the paper. The student outcome is analyzed and shows satisfactory results.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article: This work is supported by the Faculty Development
Teaching Grant from the Thompson Center for Learning and Teaching at the University of
Michigan-Flint.

ORCID iD
Na Zhu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9794-3130

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