Engineering

• Introduction
• Course outline
• Research Projects
• Facilities
• Career opportunities

Introduction
Engineers play a vital role in our advanced technological world. After qualification you could be enhancing the design of a Formula One racing car, developing robotic devices to perform precise surgery, designing a replacement for the internal combustion engine, or applying sophisticated state-of the art computer analysis to anything from a ring-pull can to a communications satellite. The work of a professional Engineer can be extremely challenging and fulfilling, requiring innovation, design and analysis together with team working, leadership and IT skills. The Engineering Department has a team of Visiting Professors; these professional engineers are employed at very senior levels in industry and give up their time to advise on the content of our degrees as well as giving some lectures.

The BSc Engineering and the BEng Engineering Science have been developed to be particularly attractive to you if you are not sure at the outset which branch of engineering you wish to study. The first two years of these programmes are largely common with the specialist programmes.

At the end of the first or second year, you may transfer on to a programme in mechanical, computer-aided, aerospace, sports or medical engineering, provided a place is available on the programme of your choice and you have reached the required standards. On the other hand, you may continue to take other subjects in science and engineering while indulging your interests in mathematics, management, environmental science, economics, law, history or a foreign language. The choice is very wide indeed and this flexibility is one of the major advantages of courses at Queen Mary, resulting from the course unit system used throughout the university for the degree structure. The title of the final degree awarded will reflect the majority of the courses studied.

Course outline

Research Projects

• Study of nano-engineering transport phenomena

When the dimensions of geometry are becoming of the order of nano-scales, the fluid mechanics behaviour departs from the well-known behaviour of boundary layers occurring in larger geometries. The study of nano-engineering transport phenomena is motivated by the large number of related applications which have emerged over the past few years. These applications span from aerospace and mechanical engineering to medical engineering and computer science. The present project aims to investigate phenomena occurring in boundary layers of fluid flow through a nano-channel.

• Theoretical analysis of non-Newtonian models in fluid mechanics

The interest for studying non-Newtonian flows is motivated by the large number of applications in which non-Newtonian flow behaviour appears, including bio-fluid mechanics, materials science, food industry, pharmaceutical industry etc. In addition to the above applications, non-Newtonian flow behaviour can also be exhibited under certain conditions in fluids, which are considered to follow the Newtonian law under normal conditions. The project aims to analyse the tensorial form of several models and discusses similarities and differences regarding physical and mathematical issues.

• The Segway Transporter - An engineering design case study

[Out of date info..?]The Segway is an electric transport machine for pedestrian use on footways that will go on sale in late 2002. This product travels 3 times faster than the average walker and has a range of up to 28 km on a single battery charge. It has already received considerable publicity. This Project involves collecting information on the Segway and examining whether the finished design is compatible with that suggested by application of the standard Engineering Design Process. It will involve examination of the product design requirements and alternative solutions to each stage of the design.

• Design of a drinking cup for the disabled or elderly

The disabled or elderly can encounter a number of problems when using a conventional drinking cup. They may have problems with muscle strength, joint flexibility, co-ordination, and tremors or shaking. These difficulties can be present in the head/mouth areas as well as the hand/arm area. This drinking cup is to be suitable for use in a seated position either at a table, in bed or in a wheelchair. The cup must incorporate some mechanism to prevent spillage if it is dropped on the floor or the bed. It must also be capable of being used by someone with limited ability to flex their neck backwards. Existing devices incorporating a bendy straw protruding from a lid are not spill-proof. Those devices aimed at babies and incorporating a non-return valve usually require the baby to be horizontal rather than upright and will therefore not be suitable for the situation specified above.

• Control of public transport on a circular route

In this project a model of a public transportation system is considered. This model is based on a so-called car-following model, in which it is assumed that each driver adjusts his/her velocity based on the distance to the car in front (small distance: decelerate, large distance: accelerate). One of the outcomes of the model is that in certain circumstances disturbances like e.g. accidents or break down may lead to a transition from the ideal situation of equally spaced cars on the route to the non-ideal situation of a traffic jam. The objective in this project is to first give a literature overview of the modelling of traffic flow using car-following models, and then to investigate and test possibilities to prevent the transition to jammed traffic.

• The future of manufacturing in the UK - a case study of Dyson vacuum cleaners

The inventor of the Dyson vacuum cleaner and founder of the Dyson company was a strong advocate of quality and innovation as a way of reviving manufacturing in the UK. He argued that these factors would enable UK manufacturers to charge a premium price and keep one step ahead of overseas competitors. After several years of successful and profitable manufacture in the UK, Dyson established a small manufacturing offshoot in Malaysia. This was quickly followed by an announcement that manufacture will cease in the UK and be transferred to the Malaysian Plant after investment and expansion. This project is to examine the factors that lead to this decision and whether it is possible to identify which types of product or manufacturing technologies are best deployed in the UK.

Facilities

Laboratory facilities
The Department of Engineering has excellent laboratories including structures and materials test facilities, tissue engineering facilities, biomechanical assessment facility, heat transfer rigs, high and low speed wind tunnels. The Engines Laboratory contains a range of petrol, diesel and variable compression engines with exhaust gas instrumentation and computerised data acquisition, together with a gas turbine. The Thermodynamics Laboratory contains seven different experimental rigs to investigate the performance of heat pumps, compressors, gas combustion etc. The Department has 11 wind tunnels. The fastest of these deals with the effects of supersonic flow and is clearly the province of the aerospace engineering students. The other wind tunnels have much wider applications and can, for example, be used to examine the aerodynamic characteristics of a racing car or a bobsleigh. The tissue and biomechanical assessment facilities have recently been developed and provide some of the best facilities in the country. Within these facilities, it is possible to undertake activities as far ranging as the analysis of human movement performance as well as individual living cells.

Computer facilities
Sophisticated software is increasingly used to solve engineering design problems and our students have access to industry standard packages. These are supported by more than 350 personal computers and a range of UNIX workstations, dedicated data gathering and analysis computers and a multi-processor computer cluster.

Career opportunities
Career prospects are excellent for students graduating with a degree in Engineering from Queen Mary, University of London. The thorough grounding in basic engineering coupled with other subjects, provides graduates with considerable employment and career flexibility. As an engineer you will develop numerous transferable skills, which include computer literacy, numerical skills and problem solving capabilities, which will be of huge value whatever career path you choose to take. There are opportunities for well qualified engineering graduates within small and medium sized industries.

Overall employment prospects for Engineers are extremely good, with more than 98 per cent employed six months after graduation. Recent graduates who have started work in the Engineering industry started on annual salaries in the region of £19,000. You might expect, as a successful Engineer to be earning £30,000 to £35,000 between five and ten years after graduation.