An Undergraduate Industrial Design Exercise at Rolls-Royce plc

The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath has been conducting an undergraduate engine-related design exercise at Rolls-Royce, Bristol since 2000. Each year a team of six undergraduates complete an engine-related design project under supervision from the company between February and September. This work is coordinated and assessed at both the company and university, and counts overall as 20% of the student’s four-year degree. In addition to working at Rolls-Royce, the students submit reports and give seminars at the university. The design exercise is predominantly technical in nature but must include a significant business element. The students are paid as company employees, typically £7.2k for the six months. This paper describes the design exercise and how it is accommodated into the undergraduate programme of study at the University of Bath. The benefits to the university, the students and the company are discussed. In addition, the six students undertaking the 2005 exercise describe their projects. This year there were three projects, two of which were continuations from previous design exercises. The three projects are listed below. Aero-Engine Rotor-Dynamics (V Cheng and S Peet): An experimental and computation study of engine vibration using a rotor-dynamics rig, simulating the engine. The aim was to assess the accuracy and improve the modeling techniques used at Rolls-Royce. Implementing Design for Environment on Gas turbine engines using a Design Tool (W Mezzulo): A study to create a tool to enable the designer to evaluate the environmental aspects of the life of an engine component. Aero-thermodynamics of aero-engines (M Child, R Johnson and C Pattinson): Various design aspects of aero-engines, both computational and business. Note that M Child’s project is not discussed here for reasons of Rolls-Royce proprietary and confidentiality.