Featured Faculty
Alfonso Fuentes
Kate Gleason College of Engineering
Alfonso Fuentes is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering. His main research interests lie in the development of computational tools for advanced gear design, simulation of meshing and contact, and finite element analysis of any type of gear drive.
Although gears are one of the oldest mechanical components, the technology of gear design and simulation is still facing many challenges and a constant pressure to achieve better designs with lower levels of noise and vibration with extended life or higher power density. In this regard, Dr. Fuentes accumulates more than twenty years of experience facilitating further understanding of the processes of gear generation and micro-geometry modi cations as well as providing the computational tools that gear designers need to improve existing designs or develop new ones with better conditions of meshing and contact.
Dr. Fuentes is involved in the development of improved gear transmissions applied in helicopter, marine, and automotive industries, development of enhanced design technologies for all types of gears, and the development of IGD — Integrated Gear Design — as the ultimate computer program for advanced gear design, analysis, and simulation of any type of gear drive. He maintains an active collaboration with the Enhanced Gear Drives Research Group (GITAE) of the Polytechnic University of Cartagena, which he founded in 2002. His research has been recognized with several awards, including a NASA Tech Brief Award in 2004 for the development of a new technology entitled “New Geometry of Face Worms Gear drives with Conical and Cylindrical Worms” and the Thomas Bernard Hall Prize in 2001 which was granted by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers of London to authors of outstanding papers dealing with invention, design, or research in Mechanical Engineering.
Dr. Fuentes has authored two research books and more than a hundred publications includ- ing journal articles, conference papers, and technical reports. He is coauthor of the book Gear Geometry and Applied Theory with Dr. Faydor L. Litvin, which has accumulated more than 2,400 citations so far. Since 2015, he has been the gear and cam subject editor for the journal Mechanism and Machine Theory.
Alfonso Fuentes
Assistant Professor
RIT Kate Gleason College of Engineering