Aerospace Manufacturing MSc

To develop your understanding of aircraft assembly methods and techniques that are effective and efficient and at the same time meet quality and safety requirements.

• Joining techniques: bolts, rivets.
• Assembly jigs and fixtures.
• Aircraft assembly layouts and processes.
• Automated fastening machines.
• Sealants and adhesives.
• Automation in aircraft assembly.
• Application of metrology.
• Quality processes.
• Certification and validation.
• Technology introduction.

To develop your skills to analyse and manage the direction of a business, to design and develop manufacturing strategy to deliver competitive advantage and plan effective deployment of a strategy.

• Competitive manufacturing strategy concepts.
• Benchmarking of manufacturing system performance.
• Manufacturing strategy in business success.
• Strategy formation and formulation, leading on to system design.
• Structured strategy formulation and system design methodologies.
• Approaches to strategy formulation in differing business contexts.
• Realisation of new strategies/system designs, including approaches to implementation.
• Case study on design of competitive manufacturing strategy.

To develop your understanding of complex manufacturing systems engineering through the application of different modelling and simulation tools, techniques and methodologies with a view to analyse and (re)design manufacturing systems that maximise value to customers while minimising waste.

• Introduction to modelling: taxonomy, overview of methods and techniques.
• Design of manufacturing layouts.
• Group Technology & Cellular manufacturing in the context of Human centred factory design.
• Manufacturing Systems modelling using discrete-event simulation, Systems dynamics and Agent-based simulation techniques and methodologies.
• Case study Analysis of manufacturing systems using simulation.

To introduce you to core factors of managing operations.

• An introduction to manufacturing and service activities.
• Capacity, demand and load; identifying key capacity determinant; order-size mix problem; coping with changes in demand.
• Standard times, and how to calculate them; process analysis and supporting tools; process simplification.
• What quality is; standards and frameworks; quality tools; quality in the supply chain.
• Scheduling rules; scheduling and nested set-ups.
• Roles of inventory; dependent and independent demand; Economic Order Quantity; uncertain demand; inventory management systems and measures.
• Information systems – at operational, managerial, and strategic levels; bills of material; MRP, MPRll and ERP systems.
• Ohno’s 7 wastes; Just-in-Time systems (including the Toyota Production System, and Kanbans).
• Class discussion of cases, exercises, and videos to support this syllabus.

To introduce you to the wider issues surrounding the management and optimisation of supply chains.

• Supply chain concepts

• Supply chain strategy

• Relationship management

• Supplier Selection and Evaluation

• Supplier Sustainability

• Supply chain Planning

• Design & Operating SC

• Outsourcing Product Design and Manufacturing

On successful completion of this module a student should be able to:

1. Evaluate issues surrounding the development of the right supply chain strategy for the business / product groups.
2. Create strategies for managing the information flows in a supply network in order to reduce the bullwhip effect and the challenges of accurate demand and forecast planning.
3. Evaluate the challenges with improving performance of supply networks and gain familiarity with the application of a variety of supply chain tools to help in the re-design of the SC.
4. Organize the complexities in managing and designing distribution centres so that they support the overall SC strategy and customer value proposition in the market place.
5. Integrate procurement and supplier management for the supply chain to function effectively  

To provide you with an understanding of the principles behind some of the most recent developments in the processing of high value added components. There is a strong emphasis on high efficiency and reduced cost in the manufacture of high volume and/or high value added parts using the latest technology based around advanced fabrication, machining processes and additive techniques. The module will cover the physical principles, operating characteristics and practical aspects related to these key technologies.

• Metal cutting processes and practice.
• Abrasive machining processes and practice
• Non-conventional machining including photochemical machining and associated metal removal and addition processes.
• Micro machining and micro moulding.
• Machine tool components and machine-materials interactions, metrology.

The aim of this module is to provide you with an understanding of the principles behind the most recent developments in welding processes. There is a strong emphasis on laser welding, as well as recent developments in arc, friction and resistance welding. The module will cover the operating principles, characteristics and practical applications of each process.

• Fundamentals of lasers, optics and fibre optics
• Laser welding including micro-welding and hybrid processes
• Introduction to laser processing
• Laser material interactions
• Laser powder melting
• Laser wire melting
• Laser sources, optics and fibre optics
• Advanced arc welding processes
• Solid state welding processes
• Friction welding
• Additive manufacture
• Advanced resistance welding
• Dissimilar material welding
• Remote underwater welding
• Weld metal engineering
• Electron beam welding
• Process monitoring
• Other laser processes (e.g. laser peening)
• Material characteristics and response to laser
• Weld metal engineering
• Laser safety

​To provide a detailed awareness of current and emerging manufacturing technology for high performance composite components and structures and an understanding of materials selection and the design process for effective parts manufacturing.

• Background to thermosetting and thermoplastic polymer matrix composites.
• Practical demonstrations – lab work.
• Overview of established manufacturing processes, developing processes, automation and machining.
• Introduction to emerging process developments; automation, textile preforming, through thickness reinforcement.
• Design for manufacture, assembly techniques and manufacturing cost.
• Case studies from aerospace, automotive, motorsport, marine and energy sectors.
• DVD demonstrations of all processing routes.

To provide an understanding of why materials and structures fail and how failure conditions can be predicted in metallic and non-metallic components and structures.

• Overview of failure behaviour of cracked bodies; crack size influence, brittle and ductile behaviour; influence of material properties. Cyclic loading and chemical environment. Thermodynamic criteria and energy balance; Griffith’s approach, modifications by Orowan. Strain energy release rate, compliance, applications to fibre composites.
• LEFM and crack tip stress fields, stress concentration, stress intensity, plane stress and plane strain. Fracture toughness in metallic materials, fracture toughness testing, calculations of critical defect sizes and failure stress. Crack tip plastic zones; the HRR field, CTOD, J Elastic- plastic failure criteria. Defect assessment failure assessment diagrams.
• Fracture of rigid polymers and standard tests for fracture resistance of polymers. Delamination fatigue tests. Emerging CEN/ISO standards, current ESIS test procedures.
• Crack extension under cyclic loading; Regimes of fatigue crack growth; Influence of material properties and crack tip plastic zones; Calculation of crack growth life and defect assessment in fatigue; Crack closure and variable amplitude loading; Short cracks and the limits of LEFM.
• Software design tools for fatigue crack growth.
• Static loading-stress corrosion cracking; corrosion fatigue.

To develop your skills to a rigorous and logical application of tools and techniques for the design and control operational systems.

• Six Sigma, Process capability, common and special cause variability, control charts, acceptance sampling.

• Lean Manufacturing elements such as Value Stream Mapping and Waste identification.

• Analysis of systems to produce simple models. IDEF0 and IDEF3 and their application. Business process fundamentals and the process review. Improvement procedures, modelling methods and process models. Performance measurement. Responding to and improving reliability.