History

The University of New South Wales (originally called The University of Technology) was founded in 1949, with the School of Mechanical Engineering being one of its original units. In 1963, the School was moved from its original site in Ultimo, a suburb of Sydney, to the present buildings on the Kensington Campus. These consist of a main building, which houses offices, lecture rooms and computer laboratories, and a separate laboratory building connected by a walkway on the 2nd floor.

Although the outside of the buildings still shows the architecture of the 1960s, on the inside the laboratories and computing facilities have recently undergone major refurbishment. New mezzanine floors have been added to most laboratories in order to obtain better integration of academic staff, research students and laboratory staff and much new, large-scale equipment has been added. Laboratory equipment is listed elsewhere but some major items are a supersonic wind tunnel, a large subsonic wind tunnel, a major test facility (controlled ambient chambers) for air conditioning, large IC engine test cells, universal materials testing machine, full-scale reverberation chambers, laser and water jet cutting equipment and fluid power test rooms. Computer facilities include CAD workstations, PC laboratories and research computer workstations.

The name of the School was originally simply The School of Mechanical Engineering. Degrees were offered in Mechanical Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering and Naval Architecture. With the introduction of Production Engineering, later to become Industrial Engineering, the name of the School was changed to Mechanical and Industrial Engineering in 1966. Then in 1990, to reflect a new emphasis on Manufacturing, Industrial Engineering was changed to Manufacturing Engineering and Management and the name of the School was altered to Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. Finally, after adding a new degree program in Mechatronic Engineering in 1995, the School is now known as the School with the flexible degrees, indicating a free choice between the five disciplines.