Postgraduate Engineering 2020-2021

Advanced Structural Engineering Individual Project is a compulsory course for the programme MSc Advanced Structural Engineering. This course offers the student the opportunity to put acquired technical knowledge and skills into practice by delivering an independent project. The dissertation should contain a degree of original work.

The dissertation is an independent piece of work on an offshore engineering topic. The students are encouraged to focus their dissertation on a problem confronting the offshore industry, and demonstrate how the design, operational fundamentals and skills they have learned during the taught programme can be put into practice to provide solutions towards addressing the problem. The dissertation should contain a degree of original work and demonstrate in-depth knowledge and application of concepts acquired throughout the MSc programme.  

This course aims to develop a broad understanding about the basic concepts in electrical engineering and power systems with emphasis on renewable power generation techniques.

The course provides an understanding of the flow of hydrocarbon fluids through reservoir rocks and the interplay between the fluid and rock properties and reservoir performance.

This course provides students with an understanding of the fundamentals of well fluids and reservoir testing and the implications for reservoir characterisation and field development. The theory of reservoir pressure testing is introduced, testing methods examined and some of the standard analysis techniques are explored using both hand calculations and industry standard software.

With growing demand on energy, there is increasing need to maximise the production of oil and gas, especially from depleting reservoirs. This course examines the methods and processes of enhanced recovery of oil and gas and provides students with the knowledge and understanding required to develop, acquire and safely integrate enhanced oil recovery technologies into field development plan and field operations.  

This course provides a detailed overview of oil and gas field development from discovery to abandonment with particular focus on the decisions made prior to first production. The roles of uncertainties, economics considerations, safety and environmental impact on the design choices are explored.

The course provides an understanding of theoretical formulation, data sources and integration into simulator, and quantification of uncertainties necessary for transforming real reservoir engineering problems into manageable numerical simulation models.

The MSc in Advanced Chemical Engineering is developed for undergraduate degree holders in chemical or related engineering to equip them with advanced technical skills and knowledge. Separation and Product Purification is a core course of the program. It aims to provide the knowledge and skills related to the existing and emerging separation and product purification technologies in the context of design, optimization, and operation.

The aim of this course is to provide the students with sufficient breadth and depth of prevalent and conventional and emerging separation techniques used in chemical process industries; a significant emphasis will be given to bio-separations used in biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and biomolecules. Other emerging separations in, for example, carbon capture and utilization, environmental protection, etc will be covered.

Aims

To provide an understanding of the physical principles, technologies and systems associated with renewable energy generation from geothermal and hydro sources. To provide an understanding of the position of these sources of energy in the current and future global energy requirements and the technical challenges in meeting the future energy demand.

This course aims to provide a broad understanding of generation from solar sources, the associated technologies and the main technical challenges.

This course introduces the concept of Intelligent Mobility (IM). It begins with a focus on the origins of and antecedents to IM. The notion of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is considered alongside the role of transport in the sharing economy.  Meeting user needs in IM will involve consideration of issues such as virtual mobility, attitudes to automation and IM capacity and skills requirements. There will be focus on transport and ‘smart cities’ as well as ‘smart rural transport areas’. The course will conclude with a focus on future visions for IM and the development of associated scenarios.

This course introduces the role of policy and governance in decision-making in relation to transport. Policy and governance frameworks are studied at a range of spatial scales from the local to the global. Approaches to the financing of transport are also examined. A wide range of policy instruments available to address transport problems are explored with reference to current case studies. The course focusses on key economic, social and environmental policy domains that relate to sustainable transportation and examines their evolution and current directions.

This course is intended to provide students with an understanding of fundamental aspects of traffic engineering. Intelligent Mobility (IM) projects are intended in large part to impact upon traveller behaviours; however, these must be supported by appropriate decisions regarding the design and implementation of the underlying transport network. Here, we will address core concepts of traffic planning, operation and design to support network efficiency.

Evaluation of transport projects is critical for providing useful assessments of their realised performance against identified objectives and targets. In this course, students will be introduced to the transport evaluation process, from the setting of specific, measurable, assignable, realistic and time-related (SMART) targets and metrics, through to methods of transport evaluation including cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis.

This course will introduce students to core topics in engineering in medicine, such as the nature and origin of physiological signals, the methods by which those signals are acquired and understood, and how they are used in medical devices. Students will also gain an understanding of the role of biomedical engineers in the design, safe use and management of medical devices.

This course introduces the field of biomaterials, specifically the use of synthetic materials to make medical devices for the repair or replacement of diseased or damaged tissue/joints in the body. This will include an understanding of the need to balance the required performance and functionality of the medical device with the biological response to the device. The concept of biocompatibility will be introduced. Students will gain an understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of designing and developing medical devices and will use some case studies to demonstrate this.

Gives an overall picture of project management and introduces students to the main subject areas which make up this area of study. Emphasis is placed on practical skills, including writing and presentation. Students are given an overview of project management terms and definitions. Introduction to project budgeting in the context of company finance is addressed and the area of risk management (including probability, risk attitudes and risk analysis methods)
introduced. Introduction to the important area of safety management as well as an introduction to managing project teams. Topics are covered in greater depth at a later stage of the course.

The aim of this course is to get an understanding of applied probability and statistics. Students will be able to handle variables of a random nature, deal with parameters of different distributions and data of scattering nature.

The course provides an introduction to project management and is aimed at students who expect to be working in a project related environment or are considering a potential move into project management. The course covers a number of key aspects of project management from the project managers perspective and so whilst it does cover areas such as planning and estimating it is NOT intended to prepare students for such roles. Students are expected to apply their learning by completing a piece of group project work.

Hydrocarbon fires and explosions produce extreme loading on engineering components. Structural steels lose their strength and stiffness well below the temperatures associated with hydrocarbon fires. Safety-critical elements must be designed to withstand both these temperatures and the blast overpressures that result from hydrocarbon explosions. Simple models are used to assess the loading that results from fires and explosions. Structural elements are analysed to illustrate the design procedures that are required to prevent escalation and to design against major accident scenarios.

This course introduces the key concepts and components that form the subsea control system. A subsea control engineer must be comfortable in dealing with a multitude of engineering concepts at the basic level. Subsequently, this course borrows from concepts in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, environmental engineering, civil and structural engineering and hydraulics to name a few. The course tends to give a high-level systemic introduction of the various fundamental aspects necessary for a well-operating subsea control system.

For students studying MSc Subsea Engineering. The aim is to provide knowledge of materials engineering & selection, and failure and degradation issues in a subsea environment, including life cycle analysis; to provide knowledge for understanding and applying the relevant design standards and selection guidelines; and to provide a detailed understanding related to fault finding and integrity management. Fundamental studies are combined with industry applications.

Principles of materials selection

Materials & component qualification: design standards & testing/acceptance regimes

Degradation processes – corrosion, erosion, stress corrosion

Failure processes – fracture & fatigue

Inspection techniques

Integrity management procedures

This course describes in detail the technologies used to convert biomass into energy.  The course covers combustion, gasification, pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion, bioethanol and biodiesel.

This course will equip students with the required knowledge of offshore and subsea oil and gas production systems, and to enable them to gain an appreciation of the infrastructure and facilities that need to be removed during decommissioning.

The course serves as the entrance to the field of safety and reliability engineering with the introduction of the basic concepts and tools of safety and risk management. Legal frames related to engineering safety are also introduced.

Contents include: Fundamentals of safety engineering; natural and man-made hazards; safety measures; accident and failure statistics; fundamentals of risk management; risk assessment techniques; classical reliability theory; modelling of engineering systems as series and parallel systems; redundancy; fault trees and event trees; availability and maintainability; UK safety legislation, including the Health and Safety at Work Act and its historical, offshore and other regulations.

The course aims to give students an in-depth treatment of the critical technical aspects of loss of containment including factors leading to loss of containment and consequence modelling.

This course provides students with an understanding of the engineering science and principles that underpin the drilling of oil and gas well, production technologies, design methodologies, as well as associated safety and environmental considerations.

Course provides a detailed understanding of the techniques used for installation, inspection, and maintenance of subsea systems, including seabed hardware, pipelines and risers, and the implications of such techniques for the design of subsea components and systems.

The module will provide detailed knowledge on various techniques and trends in the installation, inspection and maintenance of subsea equipment, especially pipeline and riser systems and principal components.  It will provide engineers with a sufficiently broad awareness of techniques used throughout offshore operations to give an appreciation and understanding of system limitations and appropriate applications for different subsea environments

The aim of this course is to understand and be able to carry out probabilistic modelling of uncertainty in engineering components and systems. Students will be able to obtain a good knowledge and understanding on random variables in probabilistic analysis and be able to carry out approximation and numerical schemes on components and systems.

This course is to provide an understanding of the need to and the efficiency behind conversion of energy from one form to another and the need to store energy in distinct forms, while minimising energy losses.

This course studies the challenges and solutions of integration of Electrical Energy generated from non-conventional Renewable Energy sources to the grid.  

This course provides students with an understanding of the fundamentals of well fluids and reservoir testing and the implications for reservoir characterisation and field development. The theory of reservoir pressure testing is introduced, testing methods examined and some of the standard analysis techniques are explored using both hand calculations and industry standard software.

The course provides an understanding of the flow of hydrocarbon fluids through reservoir rocks and the interplay between the fluid and rock properties and reservoir performance.

This course provides students with an understanding of the engineering science and principles that underpin the drilling of oil and gas well, production technologies, design methodologies, as well as associated safety and environmental considerations.

This course includes three key components where chemistry is fundamental to upstream and downstream oil and gas transport and processing. In this course, you will learn about general pipeline flow assurance, and risks related to the chemistries of waxes, resins, asphaltenes, gas hydrates and scales. Chemical strategies for managing flow assurance are discussed. Processes involved in converting oil to valuable fuels and chemicals are investigated. These include: distillation, coking, cracking, hydrotreatment and reforming. Natural gas utilisation including transport, processing and conversion to upgraded products is also covered, to give an overview of chemistry in the oil and gas industry.

This course provides a detailed overview of oil and gas field development from discovery to abandonment with particular focus on the decisions made prior to first production. The roles of uncertainties, economics considerations, safety and environmental impact on the design choices are explored.

The course provides an understanding of theoretical formulation, data sources and integration into simulator, and quantification of uncertainties necessary for transforming real reservoir engineering problems into manageable numerical simulation models.

With growing demand on energy, there is increasing need to maximise the production of oil and gas, especially from depleting reservoirs. This course examines the methods and processes of enhanced recovery of oil and gas and provides students with the knowledge and understanding required to develop, acquire and safely integrate enhanced oil recovery technologies into field development plan and field operations.  

The MSc in Advanced Chemical Engineering is developed for undergraduate degree holders in chemical or related engineering to equip them with advanced technical skills and knowledge in chemical engineering. Catalyst and Reactor Design is a core course of the program. It aims to provide the students with sufficient breadth and depth of catalysis and its application for catalyst design and theory and practice of reactor engineering.

This course is one of the key courses for the MSc Advanced Structural Engineering. The aim of this course is to provide students with knowledge and skills of analysis and design of lightweight structures for mechanical, civil, aerospace, automotive and wind energy applications. 

To provide an insight into the legislation and the economics framework which shape UK, European and international energy provisions from conventional and renewable sources.  The course also aims to cover the fundamental safety issues which are important for the all renewable energy technologies.

Aims

To provide an understanding of the physical principles, technologies and systems associated with renewable energy generation from wind and marine sources. To provide an understanding of the position of these sources of energy in the current and future global energy requirements and the technical challenges in meeting the future energy demand.

Risk assessment, the common tools used for (and the legal requirement associated with) risk assessment are covered. Students will have a thorough understanding on the components of good assessment and management of risks, and be familiar with the basic requirement for HAZID, HAZOP, SIL, QRA and the Safety Case.

Students will be introduced to delivery requirements for Intelligent Mobility (IM) projects, focused on underlying technology and data requirements. The class will address topics ranging from the development of IM business models, through to the application of information technology for purposes such as traffic control and information provision. Technology and data requirements for models such as Mobility as a Service (MaaS) will be considered to provide a holistic understanding of the requirements for IM service delivery.

This course focusses on the management and operation of public transport (PT) systems. Management encompasses the organisation and control of PT systems. Operations relates to demand and supply with emphasis on the roles of subsidy, revenue and fares. Operations will be considered for: buses, trams, rail and metro. Appreciation of the interdependence of PT networks will be emphasised by a field trip to a UK metropolitan city. The trip involves a group field project and engagement with PT stakeholders with ‘behind the scenes’ access to operations and management environments.

This course develops a theoretical and practical understanding of the use of modelling and simulation in the transport sector. Students will be introduced to the fundamentals of transport models, including travel demand models of trip generation, trip distribution, mode choice, and traffic assignment, along with the data handling practices necessary to allow their application. The overall aim is to develop an understanding of approaches to modelling the likely outcomes of transport engineering, planning and policy decisions.

In this course, students will receive an introduction to research skills needed in the Intelligent Mobility (IM) environment. Students will receive training in both qualitative and quantitative methods, including evidence reviews, statistical and network analysis, survey methods, interviews, and focus groups. These skills will be taught in the context of an IM project, with individual components coming together in a detailed project plan.

This course will introduce you to the key principles of ethical research in bioengineering, and cover core topics such as experiment design, basic statistical analysis, and how to review the scientific literature.

Our bodies are shaped by the forces that act on them, and to understand movement, we need to understand the nature of that interaction. In this course, students will learn the basis of human movement in terms of the biomechanics of the musculoskeletal system. They will also appreciate the impacts that disease or injury can have on our ability to move, and gain insight into some of the technologies that can help improve function in people with movement disorders.

Physiological and physicochemical phenomena in biological systems involve complex interactions between tissue, blood and nutrients such as glucose. This course will introduce the principles of biofluid and soft tissue mechanics, and mass transfer phenomena relevant to biological systems. Students will develop the ability to use mathematical modelling to analyse those phenomena, and gain insight into a range of therapies from the perspective of engineering.

Smooth petroleum production requires an understanding of all technical disciplines in facility design and their deliverables as well as of specific new technologies. Competent facilities engineering is needed from concept selection to commissioning and maintenance.

Facilities engineering course focuses on equipment and systems from the well head to the delivery point of the oil and gas industry. This includes not only the processing of the oil and gas but the support systems which might include water treatment, power generation and pollution abatement. 

The aim of this course is to get an understanding of applied probability and statistics. Students will be able to handle variables of a random nature, deal with parameters of different distributions and data of scattering nature.

Offshore production of oil and gas requires transportation of the oil and gas from where it is produced to shipping vessels, storage tanks or refinery.  The transportation is done using pipelines which are installed on the seabed. This course examines the engineering and scientific concepts that underpin the selection of the material and size of such pipelines as well as safe installation and operation. The environmental impact and the role played by the seabed profile are also discussed. Contribution from industry-based practicing engineers is used to inform students of current practices and technologies in subsea pipelines.

There are many challenges during transport of oil and gas through pipelines. These challenges require a real grasp of the fundamentals in fluid mechanics, heat transfer, phase changes, deposition and/or obstruction, erosion and new technologies to ensure a reliable and cost effective provision of oil and gas. Deep water production, heavy oils, high water production, severe slugging, hydrates, sour gases, asphaltenes and waxes make this task even harder. This course will provide a detailed explanation of the topics, a well-balanced set of tutorials with real examples, invited lectures from experienced engineers and flow assurance specific software training.

The course provides students with detailed knowledge of risers systems design considerations. Typical riser systems including flexible, steel catenary, hybrid and top tensioned riser systems are covered. The ocean environmental hydrodynamics and interactions between vessel, mooring and riser systems are also considered.

The background to the finite element method and its use in various industrial applications is explained in this course. As well as the modelling of linear static and dynamic problems, the modelling of material and geometric non-linearity is an important aspect of the course. Coursework assignments will be based on the student edition of ABAQUS which is supplied with the Course Textbook which students are required to purchase.

The world is full of uncertainties and there is a level of risk in every human activity, including engineering.  Many industries require an engineer to manage significant risks and design for high reliability, such as oil and gas, subsea, nuclear, aviation and large civil projects (e.g. bridges and dams).  To  meet these engineering challenges and make rational decisions in the presence of uncertainty, this course will introduce students to methods and tools used by engineers to analysis risk and reliability.

The course aims to give students knowledge and understanding of how larger process systems behave and are operated and controlled.  Focus is being placed on the stability of feedback control loops and on advanced control strategies aiming at enhancing safety and operability.  Specific cases across the safety hierarchy (basic and advanced process control, alarm systems, emergency shutdown and interlocks, etc) are addressed.

Candidates will develop PIDs for major systems applying LOPA and including instrumentation. Inherently safe equipment layout principles for both onshore and offshore applications are addressed.  Layouts will be developed for example applications.

The safety critical systems are reviewed and discussed.

Corrosion mechanisms are addressed together with materials for construction properties.  Basic corrosion models are presented for a wide range of fluids.  The operational modes which present most demand on materials are reviewed.  Corrosion in erosive environments is addressed.  Effects of temperature deviations in fire & blowdown are illustrated and analysed.  Case studies are used to illustrate common issues.

Human Factors Engineering (HFE) relates to how people interact with engineering systems. Failures in these areas are involved in all major incidents. Candidates explore them as part of this course. First, a review of major accidents will be undertaken to identify how equipment design, individual behaviours, and organisational behaviours contributed. Equipment/system design and the effect it has on individuals' behaviours is explored. Human Error is addressed. Finally, organisational behaviours will be examined. Leading and Lagging indicators are explored and their strengths/weaknesses considered. Candidates have the opportunity to complete practical assessments led by industry practitioners with specialist expertise in HFE.

Decommissioning of oil and gas infrastructure is becoming a major issue for the North Sea and other mature basins.  This course provides students with an overview of the stages of shutting down the production process and cleaning of the system and then the possible methods of removal of the structure.

Decommissioning of oil and gas infrastructure is becoming a major issue for the North Sea and other mature basins.  This course provides students with an insight into the process used to find the best decommissioning option for a particular installation, taking account of the complex interactions between, cost, technical feasibility, environmental and societal considerations and safety. 

This course will equip students with the required knowledge of offshore and subsea oil and gas production systems, and to enable them to gain an appreciation of the infrastructure and facilities that need to be removed during decommissioning.

The dissertation is an independent piece of work based on a topic of the student’s own choice. Students are encouraged to focus their dissertation on a problem confronting or a study related to the Energy industry. They should demonstrate how the knowledge they have learned during the taught programme can be put into practice to provide solutions towards addressing the problems. The dissertation should contain a degree of original work and demonstrate in-depth the skills and knowledge acquired throughout the MSc programme. 

This course offers the student the opportunity to put acquired technical knowledge and skills into practical application through independent and individual project work.

This course enables students to write a dissertation based on a process safety related topic. The wide aim of the course is to engage students in a problem which ties together the learning outcomes of the programme at an appropriate technical level.

The MSc in Advanced Chemical Engineering is developed for undergraduate degree holders in chemical and related engineering with significant research element. The individual research project provides unique opportunities for the students to conduct in-depth research with flexibility of choice after the completion of taught courses. 

The MSc project will concern original work investigating an agreed topic related to advanced chemical engineering under an academic supervisor and reporting the findings a dissertation as per the guidelines issued by the School of Engineering. The project can be conducted either on a project advertised by the academic staff member of the School or sourced from the industry to address a problem concerning an aspect of research and design problem, often associated with a larger research activity of research theme being studied by the academic staff within the School, or with an external organisation.

The School has a robust mechanism of collection, reviewing and approving staff-led and industrial projects, their implantation and assessment across all the cohorts of PGT programs in the school and their quality assurance. The description provided here should be used as the guiding principles instead of binding.

This course enables students to write a dissertation based on a subsea related topic of the student’s own choice. Students are encouraged to focus their dissertation on a problem confronting the Subsea industry.

The dissertation is an independent piece of work on advanced mechanical engineering topics. The students are encouraged to focus their dissertation on a problem confronting industry, and demonstrate how the design and operational fundamentals they have learned during the taught programme can be put into practice to provide solutions towards addressing the problem. The dissertation should contain a degree of original work and demonstrate in-depth knowledge and application of concepts acquired throughout the MSc programme.  

The aim off the course is to permit students to undertake a piece of supervised academic research: to demonstrate critical thinking within a selected research subject; to collect, manage, and interpret data from a variety of sources; to prepare written documentation in a scientific manner appropriate for peer-reviewed publications.