Student Profiles
Graduate article Manuel Esperon
"I come from Madrid, Spain, and chose the Brunel MSc Aerospace course after researching the different Masters programmes in Aerospace Engineering offered in the UK and the USA. I came to the conclusion that at Brunel I would get the best combination of theoretical knowledge and practical skills, which would give me a very solid ground on which to build a career in the aerospace industry. Having a broad knowledge of aerospace technology is also one of the most valuable assets I got from studying at Brunel. Being able to understand how components of different systems work and interact with each other is a key skill to tackle many problems aerospace engineers encounter nowadays.
The year I spent in Brunel has been one the most rewarding experiences of my life. From an academic point of view, I have had the opportunity of studying very industry oriented subjects and also the theory on which they are based in great depth. With the MSc Aerospace Engineering I have acquired the skills not only to work in the industry applying what I've learnt, but also to push the boundaries of technology.
My dissertation consisted of working on the improvement of a structural model of an AH-64 Apache helicopter. Specifically, I worked on what's called model updating for modal analysis of the Apache's stub-wings. Basically, I worked on improving a structural model of the stub-wings with which the vibrations of the stub-wings under different conditions were studied with more precision. I decided to work on this project because it gave me the opportunity to work on a military helicopter, which for me was always fascinating and challenging. I also had to work on data captured from accelerometers mounted on its structure, which meant that I had the chance to work on real data doing very advanced analyses. On this project I used Patran and Nastran for the modal analysis and used Matlab to work on the data captured by the sensors installed on the stub-wings.
Apart from the wonderful academic experience it has been a great from a personal point of view. I have met incredible people from whom I've learnt as much as I did from the lectures. Working with them on the projects we had throughout this year was, by far, the best part of the Masters course.
In October 2010 (right after submitting my dissertation) I started to work at my new job. I'm currently a Researcher at the IVHM Centre at Cranfield, which is a Centre whose partners are Cranfield University, BAE Systems, Boeing, Rolls Royce, MoD, Meggitt and Thales. I'm also doing my PhD at Cranfield University and the subject title of the PhD is "Integrated Vehicle Health Management into Legacy Toolsets". I'm working closely with BAE Systems to implement IVHM technology on their airplanes. The project I'm working on requires understanding of all systems, and having studied such a broad range of topics at Brunel, my MSc course helped me a lot to get this job. Additionally, the research skills I learnt at Brunel have proved to be especially useful to continue my education to PhD level.
Anirudh Narayan graduated from the MSc in Aerospace Engineering in November 2009
"I graduated in MSc Aerospace Engineering at Brunel in November 2009. I was interested in aircraft and space from a young age because my mom used to read books about the universe and aircraft to me as I could not read at that age. Later when I grew older I loved building model aircraft. I did my Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from India. I got offers from a number of universities like Queen Mary and Glasgow but I chose Brunel because of its location and a closed, secure campus, which I needed initially to adjust to being in a new country. Brunel has its own independent campus at the right location. It has got all the modern facilities I needed and the location is perfect, close to London, but also away from the busy city. Glasgow was too far away from London and Queen Mary did not have a proper closed campus in London.
I can say that most of the lecturers were very approachable and helped me a lot. The AAA project enabled me understand a lot about Aircraft. We were asked to choose an aircraft we liked and design it using a software called Advanced Aircraft Analysis (AAA). I chose the Airbus A380. I researched everything I could about this aircraft as the more data we gathered the more accurate the results would be. By the end of this project I knew every little detail about aircraft and the process of aircraft design, as one could not get proper results from this software if one did not know what the values meant. My dissertation title was “Conceptual design of a Business Jet and Finite Element Analysis of the wing structure". The design of the whole aircraft was made in AAA in the same way I made the A380, the difference was this time it was my own design. The model obtained from AAA and Aeropack is a shell i.e. it has no structure or material properties, I imported the model to Abaqus where I assigned material properties to the shell and gave the wing internal structure like spars and ribs. I later did a linear elastic analysis in Abaqus with values from AAA to prove the carbon fiber composite wing I designed would not fail during cruise conditions. I also developed a method to test different parts of the aircraft at different flight conditions using these two software which no one has done before. Through the earlier project I improved my AAA skills and learnt a new software Abaqus, which I will use in my new job as a structural engineer in the R&D department of a large Indian company Larsen & Toubro, based in Mubai. I will be on training for 1 year in my new job. I got this job by applying online, taking an online test and two telephone interviews. The MSc Aerospace course helped me get this job as I could easily answer the questions they asked about structural analysis as I had done this for my dissertation. The job I won is open only to people with post-graduate degrees.
In sum, Brunel’s MSc Aerospace course is a great course and it made me an aerospace engineer."
