Thomas F. Conry

Professor Emeritus

Thomas F. Conry, Ph.D., professor emeritus of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, joined the faculty in 1971, coming to the University of Illinois from the General Motors Corp. He graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a B.S. degree in engineering mechanics and received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

His research interests are in tribology, machine dynamics, mechanical design, railroad engineering, and modeling of engineering systems. He has published over 40 journal papers in addition to conference papers and technical reports.

He served as Head of the Department of General Engineering from 1987-1998. He was the first College of Engineering co-director of the Program in Technology and Management, a joint venture with the College of Business, with the responsibility for initiating and developing the program (1995-1998). He served in the UIUC campus senate for many years and chaired the Committee on Educational Policy in 1987-1988 during the first year of debate on the campus general education requirements. He was elected chair of the UIUC Senate Council in 1996-1997. He was elected to two successive three-year terms (1997-2003) on the University Senates Conference where he served as chair in 2001-2002.

He has been a summer faculty fellow at NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland and a staff consultant with Sargent & Lundy, Chicago and Caterpillar Inc., Peoria. During the fall of 1978 he was on sabbatical leave as a senior visitor at Cambridge University, England.

He is a registered professional engineer in Illinois and Wisconsin and a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Xi and ASME. He was chairman of the ASME Design Engineering Division in 1979-80. His subsequent ASME service includes membership on the Board on Communications (1989-1993, 1996-2000), chair of the Publications Committee (1990-1993) and was Technical Editor of the ASME Journal of Vibrations, Acoustics, Stress and Reliability in Design (1984-1989). He served on the ASME Committee on Finance and Investment (1999-2004) and the Honors and Awards Committee of the ASME Tribology Division (2000-2005, chair 2004-2005).

Contact Information
Office: 4 Transportation Building
Mailing Address:
117 Transportation Building MC-238
104 S. Mathews Ave.
Urbana IL 61801
Phone: (217) 244-3123
Fax: (217) 244-5705
e-mail: tconry@uiuc.edu

Education
The Pennsylvania State University
B.S., Engineering Mechanics, June 1963
The University of Wisconsin - Madison
M.S., Mechanical Engineering, January 1967
Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, January 1970

Areas of Research
Tribology, machine dynamics, mechanical design, railroad engineering, and modeling of engineering systems.

Representative Publications

“ Stack-up Forces for Normal and Abnormal Operating Conditions in a Railroad Roller Bearing Assembly,” ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, Volume 120, No. 4, 1998, pp. 707-713. (H. Wang, T. F. Conry, C. Cusano)

“ Thermally-Induced Failures in Railroad Tapered Roller Bearings”, STLE Tribology Transactions, Vol. 42, No. 4, 1999, pp. 824-832. (D. B. Kletzli, C. Cusano, T. F. Conry)

“ The Effect of Adapter Crown Wear on Rated Fatigue Life of a Railroad Tapered Roller Bearing,” STLE Tribology Transactions, Vol. 42, No. 4, 1999, pp. 874-880.
(R. A. Post, T. F. Conry, C. Cusano)

“ Detailed surface roughness characterization of engineering surfaces undergoing tribological testing leading to scuffing,” Wear, Vol. 255, 2003, pp. 556-568.
(A. Y. Suh, A. A. Polycarpou, T. F. Conry)

“ Effects of the substrate on the determination of hardness of thin films by the nanoscratch and nanoindentation techniques,” Journal of Materials Research, Vol. 19, No. 6, 2004, pp. 1791-1802. (N. Tayebi, A. A. Polycarpou, T. F. Conry)

“ Scuffing of cast iron and Al-390-T6 materials used in compressor applications,” Wear, Vol. 260, 2006, pp. 735-744. (A. Y. Suh, J. J. Patel, A. A. Polycarpou, T. F. Conry)