Mechanical Engineering electives at TAU

The second thermodynamics course, where cycles give way to real substances, mixtures and combustion. It is the anchor of the energy track and the reason most energy electives are open to you at all.

Convective transport taken past the introductory course, with mass transfer added through the momentum-heat-mass analogy. The single most reusable course in the fluids group.

Differential fluid mechanics done properly: Navier–Stokes derived rather than quoted, potential flow, boundary layers, and a first look at turbulence. The gateway to every fluids group in the school.

Compressible and high-speed flow, where fluid mechanics and thermodynamics finally meet. If you want anything to do with propulsion or aerospace, this is not optional in practice.

From one degree of freedom to continuous systems, with modal analysis in the middle. It is the course that turns "the machine shakes" into a number you can design against.

The theory floor under every serious solid-mechanics result. Stress and strain as tensors, boundary-value problems formulated and solved, and the classical two-dimensional solutions.

The most transferable single course in the catalogue. Direct stiffness through weak forms to isoparametric elements and numerical integration, so that a mesh and a contour plot mean something.

The bridge from strength of materials to failure analysis. Yield criteria, unsymmetric bending, thin-walled torsion, energy methods, buckling. It counts toward three interest areas at once.

Linkages, cams and gears analysed and then synthesised. The course that makes a mechanism something you can specify rather than something you copy.

Design as a method rather than as taste. Requirements, concept generation, selection matrices, embodiment, and enough optimisation to justify the linear algebra prerequisite.

Neural networks, fuzzy logic and evolutionary computation, aimed at physical systems rather than at web data. The strongest bridge in the degree from mechanical engineering into a software or algorithm role.

Classical control rebuilt in state space, then observers, optimal control and the digital implementation. The course behind every guidance, navigation and motion-control job.

A computational fluid dynamics lab where you run the solver, not watch it. Mesh, boundary conditions, turbulence model, convergence, and then the part nobody teaches: deciding whether the answer is true.

Kinematics and control implemented on a real arm, with the sensors, calibration and failure modes that simulation hides. ROS experience out of this lab is directly hireable.

Tensile, hardness, impact and metallography, at one weekly hour. It is the cheapest way to clear the advanced-laboratory requirement, and it teaches you to read a fracture surface.

The experimental counterpart to the CFD lab: wind tunnel, turbomachinery and thermal systems, with uncertainty analysis treated as part of the result rather than an afterthought.

The entry course for the environmental-engineering direction: water treatment, air quality, contaminant transport and the regulation that governs all three.

The engine from thermodynamic cycle to emissions after-treatment. The market for it is narrowing in cars and widening in generators, propulsion and hybrid powertrains.

Solar, wind, storage and the economics that decide which of them gets built. Israel has the solar resource and the research base, so this is a thesis area with local pull.

Thermal design carried out in the tools the industry actually uses. Conjugate modelling, thermal networks, parametric studies, and a validation habit.

Plant-level thermodynamics: boilers, turbines, combined cycles, cogeneration, and the availability and heat-rate numbers a plant is actually judged on.

Rotor aerodynamics from the actuator disc to blade-element momentum theory, wakes and wind-farm effects. A small Israeli market and a strong export skill.

Pipe networks, pumps, transients and open-channel flow. It maps onto Israeli water infrastructure more directly than any other elective in the catalogue.

Keeping silicon cool, which in Israel is arguably the highest-paying direct application of mechanical engineering. Resistance networks, heat sinks, air and liquid cooling, and reliability against temperature.

Hydrostatics, resistance, propulsion and seakeeping. A small field in Israel with a defined set of employers, and the natural home of anyone who wants offshore or subsea work.

Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics: the reformulation that makes multibody dynamics, robotics and orbital mechanics tractable. It maps to no job title and improves your work in three tracks.

Plasticity applied to forming: forging, rolling, extrusion, drawing and sheet work, with the force models and the limits that decide whether a part can be made at all.

Indeterminate structures by hand and then by matrix methods. It is the bridge between the strength-of-materials way of thinking and the finite-element way.

The formal foundation under nonlinear solid mechanics: deformation measures, stress measures, and constitutive theory that has to obey thermodynamics. Effectively required for a solid-mechanics thesis.

The applied half of finite elements: nonlinearity, contact, plasticity and coupled fields, run on components rather than on textbook geometry. Take it after 0542-4223 and you are an FEA hire.

Design against buckling and fatigue rather than analysis for its own sake. It combines Mechanics of solids 2 with Theory of structures and points them at a real component.

Bioprocess engineering for mechanical engineers: transport, mixing and scale-up in systems where the working fluid is alive. A route into the Israeli biotech and food-tech sector without switching degrees.

Mechanics applied to tissue, blood flow and the musculoskeletal system. It aligns directly with the biomechanics research at the school and with the Israeli medical-device sector.

Spacecraft as a system: environment, subsystems, launch and mission analysis. The entry point to the space activity at the university and to the Israeli space industry.

Astrodynamics from the two-body problem to rendezvous and interplanetary transfer. The mathematical half of the space track, and the part that transfers straight to guidance work.

Microcontrollers, sensors, motors and real-time control on a bench. Practically every experimental thesis in the school needs this skill set, and most students who have it end up building the rig.

Kinematics, the Jacobian, trajectories and dynamics. It is also the mandatory gate to the robotics lab, so it has to be taken in the fall before the lab you want in the spring.

Micro-electromechanical systems from cleanroom process to device model. One of the genuine research strengths of the school, and the densest course in the catalogue at five hours.

The electronics literacy a mechanical engineer needs to instrument anything. Rarely a job title on its own, and a hard prerequisite for being useful in mechatronics, robotics or sensing.

Additive manufacturing and plastic part design in one course. Israel is a global additive-manufacturing hub, so the pipeline from this material to a job is unusually direct.

Medical device design under regulation: requirements, risk management, biocompatibility and the path to clinical use. A large and stable Israeli sector sits behind it.

Nanoscale physics, synthesis and characterisation, aimed at biomedical use. It is a materials course rather than a mechanics one, and it opens the nanotechnology research groups.

Acoustics, imaging physics and focused ultrasound therapy. Israel has two of the notable companies in the field, which makes this a small course with a specific destination.

Scaffolds, cell-material interaction and regenerative medicine. It aligns with the biomechanics track and with the Israeli cultivated-tissue and cultivated-meat companies.

Polymer science aimed at implants and delivery systems, with degradation and biocompatibility as the design constraints rather than footnotes.

Membrane mechanics, molecular motors and the cytoskeleton. It is the physics layer under a cell-mechanics thesis, and it is research-facing rather than design-facing.

CubeSats from the standard bus to the ground station, taught around real university satellite programmes. Three hours, no listed prerequisite, and a direct line into the Israeli NewSpace scene.

Control as it is implemented rather than as it is derived. Loop shaping, PID tuning, compensators and the hardware constraints that decide the design.

The single highest-leverage elective for crossing from mechanical engineering into software. Arrays through graphs, with complexity analysis that makes your simulation code defensible.

The Electrical Engineering version of the basic electronics course. Same ground as 0512-1206 at greater depth, and it needs EE approval plus a free place.

Semiconductor device physics: what is actually happening inside the transistor. The complement to MEMS for anyone aiming at micro-systems or the fabs.

The process half of micro-systems: lithography, etching, deposition and integration at the scale the fabs work at. It pairs with MEMS to cover both design and manufacture.

Flexible electronics, biosignal acquisition and energy harvesting. A narrow field with a real Israeli medtech and consumer-device market behind it.

Signals and systems, transforms and sampling. It is the prerequisite for anything diagnostic: vibration monitoring, sensor fusion, condition-based maintenance.

The digital half of signal processing: DFT and FFT, filter design, spectral analysis. It is what makes vibration and acoustic data into a diagnosis.

Linear and integer programming, network flows and dynamic programming. The formal machinery behind design optimisation, scheduling and logistics.

TRIZ: structured innovation built on contradictions and inventive principles. Two hours, no prerequisite, and it pairs neatly with the design courses.

Professional ethics and responsible conduct, taught through cases rather than principles. It matters most if your thesis will involve human subjects or your job will involve a safety case.

The honours research project, and the most direct on-ramp to a thesis in the catalogue. You pick a supervisor, produce results, and frequently continue the same problem into a masters.

The continuation of the honours project, where the results get deep enough to defend. Under the direct track this is already the first part of the masters thesis.

An industry-mentored project rather than a research one. Less thesis value, and it converts into an internship or a first job at the host company more often than anything else in the catalogue.