Thomas A. Dow

Position

• Director, Precision Engineering Consortium
• Dean F. Duncan Distinguished University Professor in Mechanical Engineering
• Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Education

• BS, Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Polytechnical Institute, 1966
• MS, Engineering Design, Case Institute of Technology, 1968
• PhD, Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University, 1972

Areas of Interest

• Precision machining systems
• Real-time control
• Metrology

Background

After receiving his PhD degree from Northwestern University in 1972, Dr. Dow joined the Tribology Section of Battelle Columbus Laboratories and worked there for ten years. His research interests were in the areas of friction and wear and included studies on a wide variety of topics from lubrication of cold-rolling mills using oil-in-water emulsions to wet braking effectiveness of bicycle brakes to elastohydrodynamic lubricant film generation in ball and roller bearings. He developed experimental apparatuses, established analytical models, and corroborated those analyses with experimental measurements.

Dr. Dow joined the faculty at North Carolina State University in 1982 and was instrumental in developing the academic and research program in precision engineering. His current research interests include the design of precision machining systems, real-time control, and metrology. He was one of the founders of the American Society for Precision Engineering and currently acts as its Executive Director.

Contact Information