Frederick C. Nelson
Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Bray Laboratory, rm 205
(617)627-2552
Fax: (617)627-3058
frederick.nelson@tufts.edu

Professor Nelson graduated from the Tufts College of Engineering in 1954 and received his Ph.D. in applied mechanics from Harvard University in 1961. He joined the Tufts faculty in 1955. His teaching and research interests are in the dynamics of rotating structures, structural damping, and the control of machinery noise and vibration. He has reported his research in fifty papers and has been a consultant to a dozen companies. Dr. Nelson became chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1969, Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1971, and Dean of the College of Engineering in 1980. He returned to the Mechanical Engineering falculty in 1994.

Dr. Nelson has spent one term in England at the Institute for Sound and Vibration Research at the University of Southampton, two terms in France as Visiting Professor at the Institut National des Sciences Appliquees de Lyon, and one term as a Research Scholar at Harvard University.

Professor Nelson is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a past associate editor of Applied Mechanics Review, and a registered professional engineer in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Vibration Institute.

He has received the Centennial Medal of ASME, the King Seijong Medal of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, the Anniversary Medal of INSA de Lyon, the Distinguished Service Medal of Tufts University, and the Career Achievement Award of the Mechanical Engineering Department of Tufts University.

Courses Taught 1997-1998:
Fall

• ME-37 Dynamics and Vibrations
• ME-43 Design of an SAE Racing Car

Spring

• ME-136 Noise and Vibration Control
• ES-7 Thermodynamics

Recent Research Publications:

"A Review of the Origins and Current Status of Rotor Dynamics" presented at IFToMM 2002, Sydney, Australia.

"A Review of Vibration Control Methods" with D.S. Nokes, presented at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the Vibration Institute, Pittsburgh, PA.

"Rotor Dynamics: Critical Speeds", published in Sound and Vibration, May 2002.

"Rotor Dynamics: Instabilities" published in Sound and Vibration, September 2002.

"Rotordynamic Modeling and Control System Design for an Aircraft Gas Turbine Rotor Suspended on Magnetic Bearings", with B.M. Antkowiak and J.R. Scholten, presented  at the 1998 IFToMM Conference in Darmstadt, Germany.