MSc Mechanical Engineering

This module is designed to equip you with the essential management skills and knowledge necessary for success in the engineering industry. The focus lies on key areas such as project management, leadership, team building, motivation, and legal considerations. While the automotive and motorsports sectors are emphasised, the knowledge and skills gained are widely applicable across the broader engineering landscape.

Upon completion of this module, you will possess a comprehensive understanding of management practices vital in engineering contexts. You will develop a systematic comprehension of the prerequisites for crafting a successful business plan within engineering domains. Additionally, you will master the skill of presenting compelling business plans to potential stakeholders. This involves proposing well-reasoned strategies for organizations seeking industry funding.

This module explores material, component, and structural responses to medium to high impact events in this module. Dive into crashworthiness design, testing, and modelling for motorsport and automotive vehicles, with a focus on using the Finite Element Method (FEM) to predict crash effects. The module establishes the theory behind explicit numerical modelling to assess the validity of numerical results.

By the end of this module, you'll exhibit a profound and methodical grasp of material behaviour, explicit FEM, and the design, manufacture, and testing of impact-resistant vehicles and structures. Your ability to select, evaluate, and justify manufacturing processes aligned with your design criteria will be evident. Additionally, you'll be able to critically appraise design concepts, handling incomplete or contradictory data with expertise.

In this module, you'll delve into the intricate world of fatigue and fracture analysis. You'll learn to predict failure conditions, estimate component life, and enhance designs' resistance against such failures. From establishing fatigue strength-life relationships to conducting advanced fatigue analyses using FEM, you'll gain the skills to assess components under various loading scenarios. With a focus on safety and reliability, you'll also explore fracture prediction for cracked components and develop strategies to bolster designs against fractures.

By the end of this module, you'll possess the skills to establish fatigue strength-life relationships tailored to different surface finishes, loading scenarios, sizes, and notch sensitivities.

This module consolidates and refines your ability to tackle advanced and complex interdisciplinary design projects based on the principle of 'Theory of Inventive Problem Solving' or known as the TRIZ principle.

This module looks at the analysis, quantification, characterization and diagnosis of the noise, vibration and harshness of automotive components and assemblies.

This module addresses the low-level embedded systems aspects of robotic development. Embedded systems are based on small scale controller boards with a variety of input/output mechanisms. The integration of low-level control with actuators and sensors requires the specific understanding of the commonly used controllers and their interfaces.

The Dissertation (core, triple credit) is an individual project on a topic from mechanical engineering, offering an opportunity to specialise in a particular area of your choice. In addition to developing a high level of expertise in a particular area of mechanical engineering, including use of industry-standard software and/or experimental work, the module will also provide you with research skills, planning techniques, project management. Whilst a wide range of industry-sponsored projects are available (e.g. Far-Axon, Clayex/Dymola, Tranquillity Aerospace, Norbar, etc.), students are also able undertake their own projects in the UK and abroad, to work in close co-operation with a research, industrial or commercial organisation.