The department is the basic form of organization of educational-research unit at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering from Kragujevac. According to the current Statute on the Faculty, there is still a total of only five departments, whereby, the Department for applied mechanics and automatic control (PMAU).
Since the establishment of the University "Svetozar Markovic" in Kragujevac, on May 21st, 1976, (today's University of Kragujevac) and continuing until 1990, at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, there existed only a couple of Departments and a Group for general and fundamental disciplines, as a precursor of the Department for applied mechanics and automatic control. The Group mentioned included physics, mathematics and mechanics of stiff and elastic bodies, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics - mainly courses with general professional content.
Department for applied mechanics and automatic control was established during 1991. Namely, according to the Statute, the Faculty had implemented the curriculum of basic studies in the field of mechanical engineering, at five majors, whereby, the fifth major was a major for Automatic control. During the course of 1991, this major has changed its name into the major for Applied mechanics and automatic control. In this way, the appropriate department of the same name was established.
At the next stage, until 2001, the members of the Department for applied mechanics and automatic control have performed and are still performing the educational-research activities at the courses from COMMON STUDIES curriculum (common courses for all majors), from: Mechanics I, Mechanics II, Computer application, Electrical engineering with electronics, Fluid mechanics and Fundamentals of automatic control. Teachers and associates at the Department for applied mechanics and automatic control also carry out scientific-educational work from all areas of mechanical engineering thought within courses of the curriculum of Major for applied mechanics and automatic control.
In order to make the studies of mechanical engineering more attractive for prospective students, a new major for Informatics in engineering was formed at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering from Kragujevac, together with the major for Industrial engineering, in 2001. As the Department for applied mechanics and automatic control was the initiator and the promoter of implementation of this major, teachers and associates of the Department for applied mechanics and automatic control now run classes in almost all courses of the curriculum of Major for Informatics in engineering.
In the course of 2005, all members of the Department for applied mechanics and automatic control have been very active in the reform of the studies at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering from Kragujevac, in accordance with Bologna process and new Law on High Education. This activity is especially manifested through introduction of vocational studies, whereby the Department proposed the introduction of three new educational majors at vocational studies: Major for Automatics and Information Technologies, Major for CAE and Major for Informatics. The teaching plans for these and other educational majors were adopted by the professional bodies of the University of Kragujevac.
Members of the Department for applied mechanics and automatic control gave and are still giving an outstanding contribution to the current reform of academic studies at the Faculty of mechanical Engineering.
The council of the Department for applied mechanics and automatic control has 16 teachers and associates. There are: 6 full professors, 3 associate professors, 3 assistant professors and 4 teaching assistants.
All teachers and associates, conduct the scientific and the professional research, in addition to educational activities. There are several groups at the Department that are engaged in team research in certain scientific fields. Thus, the Department fro applied mechanics and automatic control is recognized by the scientific results from the wider field of mechanics, biomechanics, construction calculation, fluid mechanics, composite materials, the wider field of automatic control, robotics, mechatronics and other fields. Members of this Department were and still are the managers of several projects, of which the TEMPUS projects are of special importance.
When the wider field of Automatics is concerned, scientific-teaching workers of the Department were engaged in research related to design, simulation analysis and software implementation of control algorithms for slow industrial processes and electric motor drive, as well as in research pertaining to the modelling and identification of biological systems. One group of teachers and associates is engaged in a wide spectrum of problems of calculations of electromagnetic fields during consideration of different electromagnetic systems. These researchers have solved a class of problems of air ducts above the real earth, taking into account earth's finite conductivity.
At the Department for applied mechanics and automatic control, a scientific research is done, also from a wider field of automatic control and the narrow fields of modelling, simulation analysis, design and implementation of algorithms for control and making decisions, in terms of different control objects: industrial robots, slow industrial processes and control of electromagnetic drives. Control algorithms based on fuzzy logic and neural networks and their application in robot control are especially developed. Research has been started on implementation of fuzzy logic and neural tracking networks and of control of statistical processes in systems and plants.
In the framework of the so-called "Belgrade school of boundary layer", researchers from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering from Kragujevac have achieved remarkable results in the field of boundary layer of compressible fluid. The work related to the boundary layer of dissolved and ionized gas on non-porous or porous contour of the streamed body should be particularly emphasized.
Especially distinguished are the international projects, that members of the Department for applied mechanics and automatic control had been working on for European Commission for Atomic Energy, as well as the work of several teachers of this Department within multidisciplinary projects in Biochemistry. It is emphasized that the majority of scientific projects, in which the teachers and associates of the Department for applied mechanics and automatic control are included, are related to basic research.
Extremely important are the results of the researchers of the Department for applied mechanics and automatic control obtained within the framework of international and domestic projects that relate to materials and their non-elastic deformations with fatigue and anisotropy, to non-elastic metal and composite materials, to the diffusion and localized instabilities, etc. These researchers have published a large number of scientific papers with the results related to the application of general evolutional equations on problems of multiple axle dynamic experiments, creeping and a low-cyclic fatigue of austenite non-corrosive reactor steel, on the constituent theory of micro-morphous non-elastic poly-crystals, on stochastic theory of dislocations and other.
Members of the Department for applied mechanics and automatic control were and still are very active and in the field of publishing. In accordance with the personal preferences and obligations under the previous Law on University, each professor has printed publication for the course for which he has been elected. Thus, the studies at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering have been made easier. In terms of publishing, the teachers of Mechanics of the stiff and elastic body (textbooks for Statics, Kinematics, Dynamics...), Automatics, Informatics and Fluid mechanics have been specially active. Textbooks and monographs of the authors from this Department are used at other faculties of mechanical engineering and at other technical faculties. Some publications have been published in English and abroad.
It may be concludes, that almost all teachers and associates of the department for applied mechanics and automatic control were very active within educational, scientific-research and publishing activities. Thus, they have undoubtedly hepled the affirmation of the Faculty of mechanical Engineering from Kragujevac in the country and abroad.
Head of the Department: Dr Miroslav Živković, professor
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