1,721,035 research outputs found
Issues and conflicts of combining MSc modules and industrial short courses
No full textIn a specialist field, such as acoustics, where noise and vibration control is promoted through legislation and competition in product refinement, etc., there is persistent
industrial demand for courses. Skills shortages in the UK workforce can only readily and practically be met by the running of graduate level short courses. In addition, for
chartered engineers such courses are very appropriate for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements. This paper considers the option of postgraduate short course training in combination with MSc module provision, i.e. when the latter
can be given in a short course format and duration.
Curriculum content has to be a balance of analytical and mathematically demanding material with the underlying physical and applied principles being taught. It is complicated by the varied background of the students and the industrial delegates.
The latter often see the vocational training or skills development as the outcomes rather than education as the benefit in the longer term. Issues such as the selection of appropriate methods of assessment and the alignment or distinction of learning outcomes for different cohorts are briefly discussed. The short course format develops a different learning and cohort experience, which has also necessitated a radically different delivery. Practical work often accounts for 50% of contact time and ranges from simple demonstrations of physical phenomena to industrially relevant problems. Some discussion on forms of assessment which might be suitable or possible for the external engineers in a mixed cohort is also briefly considere
On reducing the shock response of a single degree of freedom vehicle model by switching the damping coefficient
No full textLarge deflection of a simply supported beam
No full textThe large deflection of a simply-supported beam loaded in the middle is a classic problem in mechanics which has been studied by many people who have implemented different methods to determine the solution, such as analytical exact solutions and the finite element method. The problem is investigated again here but the Galerkin method is used to obtain an approximate force-deflection characteristic of the beam. It is shown that the beam can be modelled with a Duffing-type stiffness with hardening nonlinearity. The exact solution and that from the finite element method are used to validate the results. The accuracy of the results and the suitability of the Sine function to model the deflected shape of the beam in the Galerkin method are investigated.The large deflection of a simply-supported beam due to a pure bending moment is also investigated. The exact solution is obtained and the results are used to describe the behaviour of the beam
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