Advanced Materials Science and Engineering

Gain a firm foundation in the fundamentals of the characterisation of the structure of materials.

Become familiar with a selection of important modelling techniques and use these methods to perform simulations.

Obtain the knowledge and skills needed to support your research project, including opportunities to attend and report on current research seminars.

Draw together key concepts within the ‘“processing-microstructure-properties-performance’” domain to consider the opportunities and challenges of using engineering alloys in real components. 

Assess the main methods and fundamental principles used for the processing of engineering and glass ceramics and understand the factors that influence their mechanical properties.

Investigate the fundamentals of nanoscience and how it can be applied in technological devices.

Build your foundational knowledge of biomaterials and explore the materials needed for various medical applications and how to synthesise and characterise them.

Examine aspects of processing through to resultant microstructure and properties and consider alloy structural behaviour and performance in service.

Gain insights into the emerging applications of nanotechnology through a series of topically relevant case studies and explore its impact on human health.

Review microstructural aspects of the behaviour of major ceramic families and examine the factors that control stability, mechanical performance and damage accumulation under service conditions.

Discover the latest developments in hard tissue biology and learn how to describe the main classes of natural polymers, their structure and their applications.

Analyse modern developments in tissue engineering, and the principles on which they are based.

Discover the materials in electronic devices used to emit, transmit and detect light and how these elements can be combined to create integrated systems.

Appreciate the fundamental science governing the electronic and ionic conductivity of metal oxides and use this knowledge to describe the operation of devices based on these properties.

Gain a thorough overview of the typical analytical techniques used to characterise surfaces and buried interfaces.

Develop an appreciation of materials issues associated with nuclear reactor technology and how this information is used when designing reactor systems.

Advance your knowledge of the chemical and chemical engineering processes associated with the production of nuclear fuel, the operation of nuclear reactors and the processing of nuclear waste.

Improve your understanding of the reactor physics of nuclear reactors, including neutron conservation, neutron diffusion, and other reactivity feedback mechanisms.

Explore the thermal hydraulics of nuclear reactors and associated issues in fluid mechanics.

Engage with the modelling of materials with density-functional theory and learn how to compute the properties of real materials from first principles.

Learn the fundamentals of statistical research tools used for materials modelling and develop your understanding of how composition-structure-property information can be suitably used for machine learning.

Explore the use of essential methods used to solve quantum mechanical problems, and show how they can be applied to common materials science obstacles.