Aerospace Vehicle Design

Starts: October

Duration: 1 year full-time

Course overview:

Modern aircraft are a complex combination of aerodynamic performance, lightweight structures and systems engineering. Many technical challenges need to be balanced for an aircraft to economically achieve its design specification.

The MSc in Aerospace Vehicle Design course prepares engineers to meet these challenges, and prepares them for careers in civil aviation, military aviation or academia.

The course teaches the methodology of aircraft design including technical, business and management aspects of civil and military aerospace. Its flexibility allows study to be tailored towards areas of interest. Students fly in our Bulldog aircraft and large aircraft flight simulator. The School owns a Jetstream Flight Laboratory which gives students the opportunity to experience first-hand the theory through onboard monitors using industry-standard software. Our rapid prototyping machine manufactures wind tunnel models from CATIA.

You may choose this standard MSc in Aerospace Vehicle Design or one of the options in Avionics System Design or Structural Design.

Structure:

The General Design course consists of three elements:

• Around 240 hours of lectures selected from a wide range of topics to provide the particular experience required by the student.
• Participation with some 20-25 other students in the design of an aerospace project. Each student being responsible for a specific part of the design of an aerospace vehicle reflecting current interest and practice in industry.
• An individual piece of research. This may be theoretical and/or experimental and drawn from a range of topics related to the course and suggested by the staff, sponsor or students themselves. Members of staff are appointed as research supervisors for each student within a few days of the start of the academic year. There is a close relationship between student and supervisor, reflected by the average student/staff ratio of 8:1.

The major elements of the assessment are provided through submission of thesis on the Group Design Project and individual research work. This is supplemented by examination/assessment of other topics covered in the lecture material. A course option in Structural Design also exists.

This differs from the General Design option in that students follow lectures and perform research most relevant to that subject. Rather than participating in the Group Design Project a more extensive individual research topic is performed and examinations are taken on the lecture material.

Group Design Project:

Within the Aerospace Vehicle Design course we have long taken the view that the knowledge, understanding and skills necessary for the practice of aircraft design are best acquired through interdisciplinary teaching and demanding application, rather than through a disjointed series of individually assessed modules. We have, as a consequence, offered for many years a course in which there has been full integration of engineering technology and aircraft design practice. Integrated teaching is, of course, more difficult to organise, and needs to be kept under constant review, but the students who have completed the course have achieved high levels of attainment which leads us to believe that the effort is worthwhile. As part of the continuous review process student opinion is an important element and great care is taken to ensure that the teaching given is appropriate to students needs.

The unique feature of the course is the extensive Group Design Project. The aircraft conceptual design is performed by staff prior to the start of the course, when each student is given responsibility for the detail design of a significant part of the aircraft, for example, forward fuselage, or fuel system. The knowledge gained from the lecture courses and visits are directly applied in the project, the theses of which comprise their assessment.

The group project lasts from October until the following May. The Group Design Project is operated to provide a Virtual Industrial Environment into which the students are immersed. Individual student progress is monitored through weekly group project meetings which are minuted. Any problems that are identified are raised at a weekly staff meeting and appropriate action taken.

Entry requirements:

1st or 2nd class UK honours degree (or equivalent) in an engineering discipline. Applicants who do not fulfil the standard entry requirements can apply for the Pre-Master's Course in Engineering, successful completion of which will qualify them for entry to this course for a second year of study.

English Language Requirements - Our normal minimum requirement is a TOEFL score of 580 (paper test) or 237 (computer test), essay rating 4.5 or 92 (Internet test), all skills 19 or an IELTS 6.5 with 6.0 for writing, a TOEIC overall score of 830, or a Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency in English grade C or Cambridge Certificate in Advanced English grade C, although a number of our programmes require higher scores.

Funding :

Limited, please e-mail for details. Well-qualified UK applicants may be eligible to apply for the EADS Technology Masters Training Award.

Want to know more?

Contact our Enquiries Office for further details, E: enquiries@cranfield.ac.uk, T: +44 (0)1234 758008

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