Third Professional Year
Director Third Professional Year
A new curriculum based on 15-point courses is being rolled out for the BE(Hons). Students who entered the First Professional Year in 2011 are the first cohort to experience the new programme. Students who entered before 2011 will progress under the old regulations. |
Entrance before 2011
In the Third Professional year, students take nine courses, of which three are required. The six elective courses are chosen from the Department's offerings, and some may be from outside the Department. The recommended enrollment is given in the table.
Please read this page carefully for information on selecting electives.
Contact the Third Professional Year Director of Studies with queries.
| Semester 1 | Semester 2 |
| ENME 438 (24 points) Project |
|
| ENME 450 (12 points) Industrial Management |
|
| ENME 440 (12 points) Mechanical System Design |
|
| ELECTIVE 1 | ELECTIVE 4 |
| ELECTIVE 2 | ELECTIVE 5 |
| ELECTIVE 3 | ELECTIVE 6 |
Required courses
The subject ENME 438 is an approved project, which carries the weight of two papers. The Department allows only "full-year" team projects, but each student in a team receives an individual grade. More information, including examples of previous projects, is available on the Final Year Projects webpages.
While the point distribution across semesters is uneven due to ENME450 being a 12-point, full-year course, the Department strongly recommends taking three electives in each semester. This results in a manageable work load distribution. Please heed this advice. This is very strongly recommended, and the Department will not be held responsible if this advice is ignored and students find themselves in academic strife!
Elective courses
The six electives are chosen from those specifically included in the BE(Hons) Mechanical Engineering Degree Regulations in the UC Calendar and listed here.
Semester 1
- ENME 432 Mechanics of Vibration
- ENME 433 Modern Control Theory
- ENME 445 Energy Engineering
- ENME 448 Special Topic: Advanced Materials and Processing (Not offered in 2012)
- ENME 449 Special Topic: Physiological Modelling
- ENME 456 Computer Aided Product Development (Not offered in 2012)
- ENME 467 Polymeric and Composite Materials
- ENGR 401 Introduction to Computational Fluid Dynamics
- ENMT 463 Robotics
- MDPH 401 Anatomy and Physiology
Semester 2
- ENME 435 Heat and Mass Transfer
- ENME 436 Advanced Manufacturing Technology (Not offered in 2012)
- ENME 441 Mechanical System Design - Special Appl. (Not offered in 2012)
- ENME 442 Applied Computational Solid Mechanics
- ENME 443 Computer Control & Instrumentation
- ENME 454 Introduction to Acoustics
- ENME 457 Fracture Mechanics And Failure Analysis
- ENME 464 Biofluid Mechanics
- ENME 465 HVAC Engineering (Not offered in 2012)
- ENME 466 Manufacturing Optimisation (Not offered in 2012)
- ENME 474 Aerodynamics
- ENME 477 Polymer Science & Engineering (Not offered in 2012)
Students should be prepared for the possibility of timetable limitations restricting their choice of some options, and also for the possibility of late withdrawal of options having insufficient student demand. Each available optional subject is presented as a one-semester, 24-lecture module.
Other permissible electives
One of the remaining Second Professional optional courses, not already taken by a student during their Second Professional year of study, can be nominated as a final year elective in place of one of the Semester 2 courses listed above.
Subject to Departmental approval, a candidate may offer in place of up to two of the subjects listed above any two subjects from outside the Department of Mechanical Engineering, provided that the candidate satisfies the necessary prerequisites for the subject concerned (or is able to obtain a waiver from listed prerequisites with the permission of the department offering the course). Normally, at least one of these "external" subjects must come from within the Faculty of Engineering (including approved courses from the Department of Mathematics).
To be counted in this way, a course may not have been already credited to a degree course. (Note that some 48-point and
2-year Intermediate students may already have a course to their credit over and above the 42-point
Intermediate requirement and such a course may be used legitimately in this way. However, this should
be regarded as a “back-stop” approach and, if the course load requirement to complete the degree is
manageable, the required elective count should be attempted during the year(s) in which Third
Professional courses are being undertaken.)
In considering approval of external courses, the HOD (or his nominee) must consider the possibility that
the content of the proposed course may largely have been covered within already-completed courses.
To be fair, whatever electives are chosen (internal or external) should present roughly comparable
challenges and workloads. Hence many basic introductory courses are unlikely to gain approval.
Any
external course which would cause timetable clashes with internal courses will not be approved.
Advice on Selecting Appropriate Options
To some extent at least, the subjects selected should reflect a student’s probable (or possible) graduate mechanical engineering career, and his/her areas of interest and proficiency (as gauged from academic performance to date).
A student’s particular Final Year Project topic (ENME 438) is normally selected on the basis of interest and proficiency so that the chosen combination of optional subjects and the project topic together should represent a sensible and complementary grouping rather than being an apparently random selection of unrelated material. A reasonable balance of load between the two semesters is also required, and this may place some restriction on freedom of choice.
To guide students in their selection, the Department has identified a number of specialist streams within Mechanical Engineering. Please see the noted specialist area advisors or other faculty members for more information and guidance.
| Specialisation | Course advisors |
| Energy & Thermosciences Engineering (including building services) | |
| Instrumentation & Control Engineering | Dr XiaoQi Chen Dr Geoff Chase Dr Wenhui Wang |
| Manufacturing Systems Engineering | Dr Dirk Pons Dr Ee-Hua Wong |
| Materials Science and Engineering | Dr Milo Kral Dr Catherine Bishop Dr Mark Staiger |
| Fluid Mechanics & Applications | Dr Mark Jermy Dr Mathieu Sellier |
| Applied Mechanics & Vibrations | Dr Geoff Chase Dr Stefanie Gutschmidt |
| Mechanical Systems Design | Dr Keith Alexander Dr Shayne Gooch |
| Biomedical Engineering | Dr Geoff Chase |
The Honours Degree
The Faculty of Engineering and Forestry's Degree Regulations and Guidelines for the Award of Honours describe the procedure for determining what class of honours degree is awarded or whether a Bachelor of Engineering without Honours is awarded.
After reading these documents, if you wish to know more about Honours determination, please consult the Third Professional Year Director of Studies.
Workload
Students are expected to utilise 120 hours per semester per course on lectures, tutorials, laboratories and self-direct study. This gives 1200 hours per year for full-time study.
Entrance from 2011
The Third Professional year comprises 60 points of compulsory courses and four electives. The proposed Third Professional year structure is subject to faculty approval in 2012.
| Semester 1 | Semester 2 |
| ENME 408 Honours Research and Development Project |
|
| ENME 401 Mechanical System Design |
ENME 418 Engineering Management and Professional Practice for Mechanical Engineers |
| ELECTIVE 1 | ELECTIVE 3 |
| ELECTIVE 2 | ELECTIVE 4 |
Required Courses
ENME 408 will be a whole year research project (very similar to the present ENME 438) where students work in a team to accomplish a project for an industrial sponsor. ENME 401 and ENME 418 will be required semester courses.
Elective Courses
The Department expects to offer a range of final year elective courses in areas similar to our current offerings. The electives will be roughly organised to form streams in the following areas of specialisation within Mechanical Engineering:
| Dynamics, Vibrations and Acoustics | Controls and Robotics |
| Thermo-Fluids-Energy | Materials Engineering |
| Bioengineering | Design and Manufacturing |
Workload
Students are expected to utilise 150 hours per semester per course on lectures, tutorials, laboratories and self-direct study. This gives 1200 hours per year for full-time study.