The Active Materials Laboratory contains equipment to evaluate the coupled response of materials such as piezoelectric, magnetostrictive, shape memory alloys, and fiber optics sensors. The lab has manufacturing facilities to fabricate magnetostrictive composites and thin film shape memory alloys. Testing active material systems is performed on one of four servo-hydraulic load frames in the lab. All of the load frames are equipped with thermal chambers, solenoids, and electrical power supplies.

The Autonomous Vehicle Systems Instrumentation Laboratory (AVSIL) is a testbed at UCLA for design, building, evaluation, and test of hardware instrumentation and coordination algorithms for multiple vehicle autonomous systems. The AVSIL contains a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulator designed and built at UCLA that allows for real-time, systems-level tests of two formation control computer systems in a laboratory environment, using the Interstate Electronics Corporation GPS Satellite Constellation Simulator. The UCLA flight control software can be modified to accommodate satellite system experiments using real-time software, GPS receivers, and inter-vehicle modem communication.

The Beam Control Laboratory involves students, faculty and post doctoral scholars to develop novel methods for control of laser beams in applications including directed energy systems and laser communications. Algorithms developed at UCLA for adaptive and optimal control and filtering, as well as system identification, are being used in adaptive optics and beam steering. UCLA’s high bandwidth controllers correct both higher order wavefront errors and tilt jitter to levels not achievable by classical beam control methods.

The Boiling Heat Transfer Laboratory is involved in experimental and computational study of various phase change phenomena. It is equipped with various flow loops, state of art data equisition systems, holography setup, heavy elecrical gadgets, high speed imaging systems, gamma densitometer and scores of computers.

The Computational Fluid Dynamics Laboratory includes a cluster of graphic workstations and x-terminals for numerical simulation of transitional and turbulent flows with and without reaction. The lab has access to supercomputers at NASA, San Diego Supercomputing Center, and DoD High Performance Computing Centers.

The Design and Manufacturing Laboratory provides an environment for synergistic integration of design and manufacturing. The equipment available includes four computer numerically controlled (CNC) machines, two rapid prototyping machines, a coordinate measuring machine, an x-ray radiography machine, actuation devices, robots with vision systems, a variety of audio-visual equipment, and a distributed network of more than 30 workstations and several personal computers.

The MAE Energy & Propulsion Research Laboratory is centered in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. The group's approach to research and education involves the application of modern diagnostic methods and computational tools to the development of improved combustion, propulsion, and fluid flow systems. Thus our interests include aspects of fluid mechanics and chemistry, optics and numerical methods, as well as more traditional aspects of engineering such as thermodynamics, and heat transfer. Our research is directed towards development of fundamental engineering knowledge and tools for solving critical national problems, and in some cases towards development of proof of concept devices based on this knowledge.

The Fluid Mechanics Research Laboratory includes a full line of water and wind tunnels equipped with various advanced transducers (MEMS-based sensors and actuators, Particle Image Anemometer, Laser Doppler Anemometer, Hot-Wire Anemometers) and data acquisition systems.

The Fusion Research Center houses the Tokamak Research Laboratory. In the Tokamak Lab, studies center on a new tokamak confinement device, CCT. Fields of investigation include high-power RF heating, plasma transport phenomena, wall behavior, and magneto-hydrodynamics and heat transfer.

The Fusion Science and Technology Center includes a number of the state-of-the-art experimental facilities for conducting research in fusion engineering. The center includes experimental facilities for 1) liquid metal magnetohyrodynamic fluid flow, 2) thick and thin liquid metal systems exposed to intense particle and heat flux loads, and 3) metallic and ceramic material thermomechanics.

The Heat Transfer Laboratories are used for experimental research on heat transfer and thermal hydraulics. The laboratories are equipped with several flow loops, high current power supplies, high frequency induction power supplies, holography and hot wire anemometry setups and state-of-the-art data acquisition systems.

The Materials Degradation Characterization Laboratory is used for the characterization of the degradation of high strength metallic alloys and advanced composites due to corrosion and fatigue, determination of the adverse effects of materials degradation on the strength of structural components, and for research on fracture mechanics, and ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation.

The Micro-Manufacturing Laboratory is equipped with a fume hood, a clean air bench, an optical table, a DI water generator, a plating setup, a probe station, various microscopes, test and measurement systems, and CAD programs for mask layout. It is used for micromachining and MEMS research and complements the School of Engineering and Applied Science's Nanoelectronics Laboratory.

The Microsciences Laboratory is equipped with advanced sensors and imaging processors for exploring fundamental physical mechanisms in MEMS based sciences.

The Morrin-Gier-Martinelli Heat Transfer Memorial Laboratory is shared between Professors Catton and Pilon. It is used for investigating single and two-phase convective heat transfer in energy applications, various aspects of radiation transfer in biological systems, and for material synthesis and characterization. It is equipped with start-of-the-art optical systems, including optical tables, lasers, FTIR, photomultiplicator tubes, monochromators, nanosecond pulse diodes, lock-in amplifiers, spectrophotometers, light guides, fiber optics, lenses, and polarizers. It also has various flow loops, a wind tunnel, a particle image velocimetry (PIV) system. For material synthesis, the lab is equipped with two high temperature furnaces, a spin coater, a dip coating system, and UV curing lamps. The lab can perform optical, thermal, and electrical materials characterization using a Guarded hot plate thermal conductivity analyzer, a 3-omega method system for thin film thermal conductivity, a normal-normal reflection probe, and in-house electrical system for measuring dielectric constant and q-V curve of ferroelectric materials.

The Multifunctional Composites Laboratory is used for manufacturing and testing of composite structures and products, which include polymer matrix composites, metal matrix composites and electro-magnetically coupled material systems. Housed in this laboratory are an autoclave, a filament winder, an injection molding machine, a smart press, a resin transfer molding machine, a walk-in freezer, a long distance microscope, a Moire interferometer, three mechanical testing machines, and equipment for characterization and testing of electro-magneto-thermo materials and structures.

The Nanoscale Heat Transfer and Thermoelectric Laboratory is equipped with multi-purpose scanning probe microscope (atomic force, scanning tunneling, and scanning thermal), infrared microscope, probe station and optical microscope, optical table, various lasers (Ti-Sapphire, argon, He-Ne, diode), vacuum and variable temperature systems for thermoelectric and thermophysical property characterization, thin film thermal conductivity measurement systems (ac calorimetry, 3-w, scanning laser thermoelectric microscope), monochromator, analytical and optical equipment, fume hood.

The Plasma and Beam Assisted Manufacturing Laboratory is an experimental facility for the purpose of processing and manufacturing advanced materials by high energy means (plasma and beam sources). It is equipped with plasma diagnostics, two vortex gas tunnel plasma guns, powder feeder and exhaust systems, vacuum and cooling equipment, high power D.C. supplies (400kw), vacuum chambers, and large electromagnets. Current research is focused on ceramic coatings and nano-phase clusters for applications in thermal insulation, wear resistance, and high temperature oxidation resistance.

The 3 x 3-foot Subsonic Wind Tunnel is used for research on unsteady aerodynamics on oscillating airfoils and instruction.

The Thin Films, Interfaces, Composites, Characterization Laboratory consists of a Nd:YAG laser of 1 Joule capacity with three ns pulse widths, a state-of-the-art optical interferometer including an ultra high-speed digitizer, a sputter deposition chamber, a 56 Kip-capacity servohydraulic biaxial test frame, a walk-in freezer, polishing and imaging equipment for microstructural characterization, for measurement and control study of thin film interface strength, NDE using laser ultrasound, deicing of structural surfaces, and characterization of composites under multi-axial stress state.