- UCAS course code
- H3ND
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Master of Engineering (MEng)
MEng Mechanical Engineering with Management
Our university is ranked 4th in the UK for Mechanical Engineering (QS World Rankings 2024)
- Typical A-level offer: A*A*A including specific subjects
- Typical contextual A-level offer: A*AA including specific subjects
- Refugee/care-experienced offer: AAA including specific subjects
- Typical International Baccalaureate offer: 38 points overall with 7,7,6 at HL, including specific requirements
Fees and funding
Fees
Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2025 will be £9,535 per annum (subject to Parliamentary approval). Tuition fees for international students will be £34,000 per annum. For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.
Policy on additional costs
All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).
Scholarships/sponsorships
The Institute of Mechanical Engineers also has a range of scholarships available to students who are about to commence their Institution-accredited degree.
The University of Manchester is committed to attracting and supporting the very best students. We have a focus on nurturing talent and ability and we want to make sure that you have the opportunity to study here, regardless of your financial circumstances.
For information about scholarships and bursaries please see our undergraduate fees pages and check the Department's funding pages .
Course unit details:
Structural Integrity
Unit code | MECH43002 |
---|---|
Credit rating | 15 |
Unit level | Level 4 |
Teaching period(s) | Semester 2 |
Available as a free choice unit? | No |
Overview
Predicting the rate of in-service deterioration of materials in engineering infrastructure and industrial plant is of significant benefit to the economy and the society. This assists designers in selecting appropriate materials and exploitation engineers in planning maintenance outages. Further, any justified decision for life extension of existing structures could yield substantial savings. The knowledge and skills for making life assessment therefore become of ever increasing importance to the major industries – power, aerospace, automotive and manufacturing.
Aims
This unit on Structural Integrity covers a set of methodologies used to assess the life of engineering structures or their components at design and exploitation stage. The first aim of this unit is to equip the students with the necessary skill set for life assessment: the current industrial practice for calculating sub-critical crack growth (fatigue) and fitness-for-service (failure assessment diagram). The second aim is to develop further their engineering judgement competence by firm understanding of the uncertainties in such assessments and practicing individual analyses and recommendations.
Syllabus
This unit provides an advanced foundation for analysis of structures containing defects (measured or postulated) that reflects the current engineering practice in this area. It builds upon prior knowledge of engineering materials to further the students’ understanding on how materials’ constitutions control their mechanical properties, focusing on in-service deterioration and failure. This is used to introduce the theory of linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) and the new, for the students, property of fracture toughness. Plasticity in metals is introduced to explain the elastic-plastic conditions ahead of a defect and to formulate the plastic collapse failure mechanism. This theoretical background is then put together to equip the students with a contemporary tool for integrity assessment – the Failure Assessment Diagram, as defined in R6 procedure “Assessment of the Integrity of Structures Containing Defects”. Details of applying the procedure are provided, including how to account for residual stress effects in assessments. The growth of small defects via mechanical fatigue, i.e. repetitive loading, is covered in a second part of the course. This provides the students with several approaches to fatigue life assessment, specifically stress-life (S-N) approach, strain-life (e-N) approach, and LEFM approach for fatigue crack propagation.
Assessment methods
Method | Weight |
---|---|
Written exam | 80% |
Report | 20% |
Feedback methods
Exam - via script viewing
Report - feedback 2 weeks after submission
Study hours
Scheduled activity hours | |
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eAssessment | 20 |
Lectures | 24 |
Practical classes & workshops | 14 |
Tutorials | 12 |
Independent study hours | |
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Independent study | 80 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
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Kali-Babu Katnam | Unit coordinator |