Course details
Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that all courses will be offered every year due to the availability of teaching staff and capacity limitations. The list below is not exhaustive and some of the listed courses may not be offered.
A. Core Courses (Obligatory)
The aim of the core courses is to bring everybody up to the same level, to introduce key terminology and skills, and to communicate the theme of the MPhil. We are trying to cover each main primary energy source separately. Each course counts as one credit.
| ET-A1 | Energy Topics |
| Research methodology; literature search, Presentation skills, Report writing. Invited seminar from industrialists, policy-makers, power generation, case studies. | |
| Weekly. Offers a regular "get-together" of the whole cohort, the aim is to bring about the many different points of view in the Energy area. | |
| ET-A2 | Review of Fundamentals |
| Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, numerical analysis, Matlab, programming languages, Energy, Pollution and the Environment. | |
| ET-B1 | Clean Fossil Fuel Technologies |
| Carbon capture and sequestration | |
| Coal characteristics and combustion, power plants. | |
| Natural gas, oil, gas turbines, engines, fundamentals of combustion, pollution. | |
| ET-B2 | Renewable energy: wind, tide and hydro |
| Wind turbines | |
| Tidal power | |
| Hydroelectric plants | |
| ET-B3 | Renewable energy: solar and biomass |
| Solar panels | |
| Thermosolar | |
| Biofuels, their production and use | |
| ET-B4 | Energy systems and efficiency |
| Exergy analysis, materials, energy in the manufacturing sector, systems analysis | |
| Efficiency measures |
These courses are delivered in Michaelmas and Lent, with seminars running throughout the year. Assessment is by coursework, which may involve either 2 x 2000-word reports or one 4000-word report.
B. Electives
Each course = 1 credit = about 16 lectures
The student must select 5 or 7 courses, depending on whether a student takes the "long thesis" or the "short thesis" option respectively. The final selection of courses will need the approval of the Course Director to resolve timetabling conflicts and avoid repetition.
B.1 Courses in CUED
| 4A2 | Computational Fluid Dynamics |
| 4A3 | Turbomachinery |
| 4A7 | Aerodynamics |
| 4A9 | Molecular Thermodynamics |
| 4A10 | Flow Instability |
| 4A12 | Vortex Dynamics and Turbulence |
| 4A13 | Combustion and IC Engines |
| 4A15 | Aeroacoustics |
| 4B14 | Solar-electronic Power: Generation and Distribution |
| 4B19 | Renewable Electrical Power |
| 4E4 | Management of Technology |
| 4E11 | Strategic Management |
| 4I10 | Nuclear Reactor Engineering |
| 4I11 | Advanced Fission and Fusion Systems |
| 4M16 | Nuclear Power Engineering |
| 4M22 | Climate Change Mitigation |
| 4M19 | Advanced Building Physics |
| 5R1 | Stochastic Optimization Methods |
| 5R9 | Experimental Methods in Fluids |
| 5R10 | Turbulent Reacting Flows |
| 5R18 | Environmental Fluid Mechanics and Air Pollution |
- Selected courses from the MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development and from the MPhil in Nuclear Energy, if capacity permits.
Potentially, some 3rd-year courses for students with no prior experience in a particular area may be used (for example, a civil engineer who has basic fluid mechanics and is interested in wind energy may be allowed to take a 3rd-year heat transfer and aerodynamics course).
B2. Courses from other Departments:
From the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (their MPhil in Advanced Chemical Engineering):
- Particle Technology*
- Catalysis*
- B2 Electrochemical Engineering
From the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy:
- NE.10: Micro and Nano-electrochemistry
From the BP Institute / Department of Mathematics:
- Fluids and Natural Resources
C. Research project
| C1. Long thesis option: | |
| Runs from January until August | |
| 20,000-word dissertation | |
| C2. Short thesis option: | |
| Runs from March until August | |
| 10,000-word dissertation |
Projects will be offered at the beginning of the year; final selection to be made by middle of Michaelmas term for the "long thesis", and by middle of Lent for the "short thesis" option. Group projects (2-4 students) and projects suggested by students are possible.
* Not offered 2015-16.
D. Student Load
At Cambridge, the lectures are very intensive so the students are expected to show significant initiative and exercise very tight time management.
A student taking the "short thesis" option will have an average of 6 courses per term, (with a little more load in Michaelmas than in Lent). Typically, each course has 16 lectures, which means 2x6=12 lectures per week. A student taking the "long thesis" option will have a little more free time from courses, to be spent on the research project.