The Department of Applied Physical Sciences (APS) is developing a variety of courses that will integrate into our undergraduate academic programs and make engineering and making concepts accessible to all UNC students. Beginning Fall 2020, students will be able to minor in Applied Sciences and Engineering. An undergraduate major will be offered beginning Fall 2022.*

*The undergraduate division of the Applied Physical Sciences department timeline is tentative.

APPL 101 — Exploring Engineering
3 Credits. Taught by Richard Goldberg T/Th 2:00 – 3:15 p.m.
Engineers help to design and build solutions to the world’s problems. This course will explore some of the fundamental skills and tools in engineering. You will get experience using engineering tools, and you will also develop a mindset so that you can “”learn how to learn”” because technology changes rapidly and the tools that you use today may be obsolete in 20 years. There will be an emphasis on developing strong professional skills, including work in a group setting and effectively communicating your efforts.

In addition, a goal of this class is to help you develop an entrepreneurial mindset so that you will understand the bigger picture. For example, while it may be easy to develop an engineering solution to a problem, what are the economic and ethical considerations of various solutions? These concepts are important to help engineers build a better world.

This will be an “”active learning”” class in which we spend much of our class time working. For example, we will write computer programs to model and simulate real world systems. We will debate the ethical issues that are associated with engineering innovations. Students should be prepared to come to class and participate in these activities!
Prerequisites: COMP 110, 116, or other programming experience.

APPL 110 — Intro to Design and Making: Developing Your Personal Design Potential
3 Credits. Taught by Richard Goldberg T/Th 9:30 – 10:45 a.m.
Design thinking is a popular buzz term in this age of Kickstarter, instant turnaround, and short time-to-market. But what is design thinking really all about? In many ways, it is a process that most of us were quite familiar with in our preschool years. Observe an opportunity. Take an action. Assess the results. Laugh at the failures. Repeat. Design is not just for artists and engineers – we are all designers!

But how do we get back to that pure form of design thought? In this class we will explore design through active making, discussion, presentation, and self-evaluation. Starting with the most basic of materials, we will exercise our latent creativity muscles and exorcise the constrained thinking and other obstacles engrained in us by “”traditional”” education. In this class, “”failure”” is an important concept that will be embraced and even celebrated. Science, entrepreneurship, and life itself is a process of try and try again. We must accept and learn from failure in order for “”try”” to become “”do”” and for “”do”” to lead to success.

Students from any major are welcome and encouraged to take this class. There are no course pre-requisites but Orientation training at one of the BeAM makerspaces is required.

APPL 280 – Fluid Relationships: An Intuition Building Approach to Fluid Mechanics
3 Credits. Taught by Glenn Walters T/Th 9:30 – 10:45 a.m.
Fluids are literally all around us.The air we breathe, the water we drink, our bodies themselves — all primarily fluid.The purpose of this course is to lead you to an intuitive understanding of the fundamental properties and behaviors of fluids.This is an immersive treatment of the concepts and methods of fluid mechanics – the study of behavior of fluids at rest and in motion.

This course will provide students with solid grounding in the fundamentals and applications of fluid mechanics through extensive use of hands-on exercises. Areas covered will include pressure, pressurized flow, gravity flow, viscous flow, boundary layers, system losses, microfluidics, and measurement techniques. Equations of state for both liquids and gases will be explored as well as conservation of mass and momentum for moving fluids.The course will include exposure to standard fluid appurtenances such as pumps, blowers, gauges, valves, ducts, pipes, and fittings.
Prerequisites: APPL 110 and PHYS 118.

APPL 465 – Sponge Bob Square Pants and Other Soft Materials
3 Credits. Taught by Daphne Klotsa T/Th 9:30 – 10:45 a.m.
What kind of material is Sponge Bob made of? What about the slime of his pet snail, Gary? We are taught that there are three states of matter: solid, gas, and liquid. However, in our daily lives we encounter materials that challenge this simple description such as foams, pastes, gels, soap, and rubber, as well as our skin, hair, nails, and cells. These are Soft Materials and in this course we will learn about their special properties and how to describe them mathematically. This class is an active one, everyone participates and everyone learns from and helps one another. We will use various in-class activities to make the class more engaging. We will discuss, take quizzes, and do presentations. We will also evaluate each other¿s homework. Be prepared to come to class and participate in these activities! The technical material that you will learn will provide you with a valuable skillset. In addition, a goal of this class is to help you develop an entrepreneurial mindset so that you will understand the bigger picture; draw connections between the material in this class and what you have learned in other classes; recognize opportunities; and learn from mistakes to create value for yourself and others.

APPL490-002 — Engineering Materials: Properties, Selection, and Design
3 Credits. Taught by Zijie Yan M/W/F 1:25 – 2:15 p.m.
This course will cover both fundamental and applied aspects of modern materials science. We will discuss how to select materials based on their properties and how they can be processed into products that you encounter in everyday life. A strong focus will be on the relationship between processing, structure (development), and properties of solid materials, such as metals, ceramics and polymers. Topics include crystal structures, imperfections, diffusion, mechanical properties, deformation mechanisms, phase diagram, phase transformations, material characterization techniques, and electrical, magnetic, optical and thermal properties of materials. In-class demonstrations and class projects will be a critical part of this course and involve the use of the UNC makerspace (BeAM) and the Chapel Hill Analytical and Nanofabrication Laboratory (CHANL). One of the goals of this class is to bridge materials science and engineering disciplines and to make connections to real-world applications.

MTSC 755 – Polymer Processing
3 Credits. Taught by Theo Dingemans T/Th 2:00 – 3:15 p.m.
How does one process ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene into ultra-strong fibers or how would you design a polymer shape-memory actuator? Polymer chemistry is important but equally important is the way how polymers are processed. In this course we will discuss the relationship between polymer chemistry, processing and the final, after processing, properties. We will discuss different processing methods that are currently in use) and which parameters play a role in controlling the final properties.

MTSC 780 – Advanced Materials Science
3 Credits. Taught by Jinsong Huang M/W 2:30 – 3:45 p.m.
This course covers the physical fundamentals of material science with an in-depth discussion of structure formation in soft and hard materials and how structure determines material mechanical, electrical, thermal, and optical properties. Topics include amorphous and crystal structures, defects, dislocation theory, thermodynamics and phase diagrams, diffusion, interfaces and microstructures, solidification, and theory of phase transformation. Special emphasis will be on the structure-property relationships of (bio)polymers, (nano)composites, and their structure property relationships.