Mechanical Engineering

Sandia mechanical engineers design and develop advanced components and systems for national-defense programs, homeland security, and other applications.

Mechanical engineers at Sandia work on design, analysis, manufacturing, and test activities in many areas, including nuclear weapons and power, renewable energy, intelligent machines, robotics, pulsed power, missile defense, remote sensing, advanced manufacturing, and micro- and nanosystems. Sandia mechanical engineers are an integral part of multidisciplinary teams that employ state-of-the-art technologies, such as sophisticated software tools for design, analysis, modeling, and simulation; micro- and nanotechnologies; and advanced materials, materials processing, and fabrication.

Our mechanical engineers support Sandia’s mission organizations with fabrication, assembly, testing, materials technology, and process development services. For example, Sandia mechanical engineers have provided flight hardware for various satellite programs, boosters and targets for the Missile Defense Agency, and aerodynamically controlled hypersonic glide bodies and their respective boosters for the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. They also analyze and field-test penetration systems for various Department of Defense customers.

Key areas for mechanical engineers at Sandia

• Applied mechanics
• Modeling and simulation
• Conceptual and mechanical design definition
• Material selection and fabrication oversight
• Stress, dynamic, and thermal analysis
• System assembly and infrastructure analysis
• Product integration during field testing
• Heat transfer and fluid mechanics, including microfluidics
• Destructive/nondestructive testing