Ismail Orabi, Ph.D.

Ismail Orabi Headshot
Professor, Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department
Tagliatela College of Engineering
Education

Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, Clarkson University, NY

M.S.  Mechanical Engineering, State University of New York at Buffalo

B.S.  Mechanical Engineering, Helwan University, Helwan, Egypt

About Ismail

Dr. Orabi joined the faculty of the Mechanical Engineering Department in 1986.  Professor Orabi received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Cairo Institute of Technology (now Helwan University), in 1975, his M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from , in 1982, and  his Ph.D. degree from , in 1987. Prior to joining the University of New Haven, he  taught at Clarkson University as an Instructor for two years in the department of mechanical engineering and two years at the Cairo Institute of Technology. 

Professor Orabi has received a number of research awards from the  State of Connecticut and Untied Technologies and NSF. In 2010 he was awarded an NSF grant proposal (in collaboration with eight colleges) to Improved Learning for Undergraduate Engineering Programs  ($600k).   He has established two Laboratories: the Materials Testing laboratory sponsored by the , and the Engineering Multimedia Laboratory funded by AT&T.  Professor Orabi was awarded the ASEE Instrumentation Division Best Paper Award  in 2000. Dr. Orabi was a Visiting Professor at (RPI) (1996-1998).  He is a member of and .

Research Activities

Dr. Orabi conducts theoretical and computational research in mechanical vibrations and dynamic systems and control.  His more than 25 papers span a wide spectrum of problems in the dynamics of systems and structures. Dr. Orabi has also been involved in developing schemes for vibration control of space structures during the lift off and in orbit.

Teaching Activities

Professor Orabi has taught courses in both undergraduate and graduate level Mechanical Vibrations and Multimedia Engineering Analysis, and undergraduate level thermodynamics, Measurement Systems, Engineering Mechanics and Introduction to Engineering.  One of Professor Orabi's most recent projects involves the development of  learning modules.  These modules provide undergraduate engineering students with improved learning of basic, conceptually-difficult engineering concepts in the context of a basic knowledge of finite element analysis.

Honors and Awards
  • Awarded an NSF grant proposal (in collaboration with eight colleges) to Improved Learning for Undergraduate Engineering Programs  ($600k)
  • Awarded Externship NSF’s Advanced Technological Education Program at Hamilton sunstrands, Summer 2009
  • Awarded Externship NSF’s Advanced Technological Education Program at Cavidien sunstrands, Summer 2007
  • Awarded 1999 LOCTITE Summer Faculty Summer Fellowship
  • Awarded Yankee Ingenuity Initiative Research Grant, Connecticut Innovations Inc, in collaboration  with Hamilton Standard of United  Technologies, 1994-96 ($300,000)
  • Awarded Yankee Ingenuity Initiative Research Grant, in collaboration with the State of  Connecticut, 1993 ($100,000)
  • Awarded NSF Equipment Matching Grant, 1990-92 ($127,078)
  • Awarded NASA Research Grant, summer 1991 ($5000)
Selected Referee Publications
  • Hysteretic Column Under Earthquake Excitations," J. Engng. Mech. Div, ASCE, 1989. 
  • "Nonstationary Earthquake Response of a Sliding Rigid Structure," Int. J. Engng Sci., Vol. 26, No. 9, pp. 1013-1028, 1988. 
  • "Response of the Duffing Oscillator to a Non-Gaussian Random Excitation", J. Appl. Mech., Trans. ASME, Vol 55, pp. 740-743,1988.
  • "Response of Structures Subjected to Horizontal-Vertical Random Earthquake  Excitations," Soil Dynamics & Earthquake Engineering, pp. 9-14, 1988.
  • "Nonstationary Earthquake Analysis of a Duffing Oscillator by the Wiener-Hermite Expansion Method", J. Appl. Mech., Trans. ASME, vol. 109, pp. 434-440, 1988.
  • "A Functional Series Expansion Method for Response Analysis of Non-linear Systems Subjected to Random Excitations", Int. J. Non-Linear Mechanics, Vol. 22, No. 6, pp. 451- 465, 1987.
  • "An Iterative Method for Non-stationary Response analysis of Nonlinear Random Systems", J. Sound and Vibrations. Vol. 119(1), pp. 145-157, 1987.
  • "Equivalence of Single-Term Wiener-Hermite and Equivalent Linearization Techniques", J. Sound and Vib., Vol. 118(2), pp. 307-311, 1987.
  • "An Efficient Method for Computing The Critical Damping Condition", J. Appl. Mech., Trans., ASME, Vol. 50, pp. 679-681, 1983. 
Selected Presentations
  • "Enhancement of capstone Mechanical Engineering Design Courses with Strong Industrial Participation," presented and published in the proceedings of the 2010ASEE Annual Conference, June 21  – 23,2010, Louisville, KY
  • "Gender Differences in Student Academic Performance and Attitudes in an Introductory Engineering Course, "presented and published in the proceedings of the 2007ASEE Annual Conference, June 23 – 27,2007, Honolulu, Hi
  • " Assessment of Modes shapes of Space Structures," presented at the13th International Congress on Sound and Vibration (ICSV13), July 2 to 6, 2006, Vienna, Austria
  • " Assessment of NASA Research into Undergraduate Engineering Education," presented and published in the proceedings of the 2006 ASEE Annual Conference, June 16 – 19,2006 Chicago, IL
  • "Teaching an Engineering Course Online Using Blackboard," presented and published in the proceedings of the 2005 ASEE Annual Conference, June 16 – 19,2005, Portland, Oregon
  • "Are Attitudes Toward Engineering Influenced by a Project-Based Introductory Course," presented and published in the proceedings of the 2005 ASEE Annual Conference, June 16 – 19,2005, Portland, Oregon
  • "A Comparison of Student Performance in an Online with traditional Based Entry Level Engineering Course, "presented and published in the proceedings of the 2004 ASEE Annual Conference, June 20 -23, 2004, Salt Lake City, UT.
  • "Designing Buildings to Resist a Variety of Potential Threats," presented and published in the proceedings of 16th ASCE Engineering Mechanics Conference, July 16 – 18, 2003, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
  • "Application of LabView for Undergraduate Lab Experiments On Materials Testing," presented and published in the proceedings of the 2002 ASEE Annual Conference, June 16 – 19, 2002, in Montreal, Canada.
  •  "Structural Response in the Frequency Domain using LabView," presented and published in the proceedings of the 2001 ASEE Annual Conference, held June 24 – 27, 2001, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
  • "Prediction and Measurement of Joint Damping in Scaled Model Space Structures," presented and published in the proceedings of the 2000 Engineering Mechanics Annual Conference, ASCE, Austin, TX.
  • "Application of LabView for Undergraduate Experiments," presented and published in the proceedings of the 2000 annual ASEE Conference, June 2000, St. Louis, MO.
  • "Outcomes Assessment Results of Multi-disciplinary First-year Engineering at the University of New Haven," presented and published in the proceedings of the 1999 annual ASEE Conference, June 1999, NC.
  • "Assessment of Linear Joint Effects on Space Structures," ??presented at the International Conference of Sound and Vibrations, July 1999, Denmark.
  • Computer- Aided Instruction in the Undergraduate Mechanics Laboratory, presented at the 1998 annual meeting of ASEE, in a poster session # 2566, June 28 - July 1, 1998, Seattle, WA.
  • Stochastic Response of a Hysteretic System under Nonstationary Excitations, proceedings of the 7th Specialty conference, Probabilistic Mechanics & Structural Reliability, pp. 392- 395,1996.
  • Dynamics of a Free Play Type of Nonlinearity System under Deterministic and Random Excitations? presented at the 15th Biennial Conference of Mechanical Vibration and Noise, September 17-21, 1995, Boston, MA.
  • A Modern Universal Materials Testing System for undergraduate Laboratories,? presented and published in proceedings of the 1995 ASEE annual conference, Anaheim, CA, June 25-28, 1995.
  • "Dynamics of Space Structures under Random Excitations,? Proceedings of the 15th Canadian Congress of Applied Mechanics, vol.2, pp. 394-395, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, May 28- June 01, 1995.
  • "Dynamics Response of a Hysteretic Structure Under Random Excitations," proceedings of the 14th Biennial Conference of Mechanical Vibration and Noise, Albuquerque, NM, Sept 19- 22, 1993.
  • "Horizontal-Vertical Response Spectra of El-Centro 1940 Earthquake,? Proceedings of the 14th Canadian Congress of Applied Mechanics, vol.1, pp. 205-206, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, May 30- June 4, 1993.
  • "A New Approach for Response Analysis of Nonlinear Systems Under Random Excitations", Proceedings of the ASME Conference on Mechanical Vibration and Noise, 22 DE-Vol. 37, pp. 147-151, Miami, FLA, September 22-25, 1991.
  • "Response of a Sliding Structure to Earthquake Excitation, "Proceedings of CSME Mechanical Engineering Forum 1990, Vol. IV, pp. 133-138, Toronto, June 1990.
Courses Taught
  • EAS107 Introduction to Engineering
  • ME 344 Mechanical Vibrations
  • ME 431/ME 432 Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design
  • ME 300 Dynamics
  • ME 315 Mechanics Lab