Course Overview
The International MSc in Computational Mechanics is a 2-year programme for students seeking to acquire the necessary skills for the modelling, formulation, analysis, and implementation of simulation tools for advanced engineering problems, as well as skills for understanding these approaches in the broader context of business and innovation.
This MSc exploits the complementary expertise of Swansea University and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona, Spain. Students have the option to undertake the first year of the MSc in Swansea and the second year in Barcelona, or vice versa.
The entire programme is taught in English.
As part of the course, students starting at Swansea will take a compulsory course of Spanish for beginners to enhance their experience during the second year in Barcelona.
After the first year, students will undertake a summer placement in industry before moving to the second institution. This is a unique opportunity to put into practice the skills learnt during the first year of the MSc as well as to enhance their employability. In fact, 20% of the students in the programme are employed after graduation by the company where they undertook the placement.
Graduates will obtain a double diploma from both Swansea University and UPC.
Why Computational Mechanics at Swansea?
Students will be able to tailor the degree by choosing elective modules on a variety of computational topics, including machine learning and Data-Driven methods.
Swansea University has been a world-leading institution in Computational Engineering since the 1960s, when Professor Zienkiewicz joined Swansea University. Professor Zienkiewicz is internationally recognised as the "Father of the Finite Element Method" and founded the International Journal of Numerical Methods in Engineering and the UK Association for Computational Mechanics. Since then, Swansea University has maintained a privileged international position in the field of Computational Mechanics.
In 1976 Prof Eugenio Oñate came to Swansea to do the MSc and PhD thesis under the supervision of Prof OC Zienkiewicz. After that, he returned to Barcelona where he founded the International Centre for Numerical Methods (CIMNE), which is still today one of the most important centres on numerical methods worldwide. The strong connection between Barcelona and Swansea led to Prof OC Zienkiewicz being appointed as UNESCO chair of numerical methods in Engineering at Barcelona. Since then, the collaboration between Swansea and Barcelona has grown and resulted in more than 70 publications have been jointly produced between academics from Swansea University and UPC in the last two decades.
The MSc in Computational Engineering with Industry is advised by an Industrial Steering Committee with industrial experts on computational engineering. The Industrial Steering Committee includes:
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The MSc Computational Engineering is taught by world-leading academics from the Zienkiewicz Institute for Modelling, Data and AI at Swansea University and CIMNE and LaCaN at UPC. These academics have a broad experience in creating new numerical methods and delivering computational tools that have been adopted by industry, including Airbus, BAE Systems, Chevron, NASA, SEAT, Siemens, Volkswagen.
In addition, these academics have written famous books in the field of Computational Engineering and they have important positions in national and international associations in the field.
Students of the MSc Computational engineering will be able to choose the topic of their dissertation among a wide range of themes. Students will have free access to all the software required to undertake their studies, both at PCs within the University and at home. For their dissertation they will also have access to the high-performance computing facilities available at Swansea, including the Impact Cluster and the Supercomputing Wales facilities at Swansea, with a total of 4,920 cores and 47 Tb of RAM memory.
Did you know? Civil Engineering at Swansea is ranked:
- Top 201-240 in the World for Engineering – Civil & Structural (QS World University Rankings 2024)
- 100% world-leading and internationally excellent environment - Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021
Civil Engineering at Swansea a key centre for research and training in computational mechanics and engineering. We have pioneered many techniques used in commercial simulation software today.
Why study Computational Mechanics?
Computer modelling and simulation is nowadays a tool that is widely employed in industry, not only to complement experiments and theory, but also as a tool for discovery. The field is quickly growing due to the ever-increasing complexity of the problems faced by industry and society. These problems include the need to mitigate the climate change, the need to engineer new materials and to optimise components, systems, and processes, just to name a few.
Addressing these challenges is only possible by using computational engineering to complement experimental work. Computational tools also provide a unique avenue for companies to reduce the time-to-market and time-to-manufacture of their products. In the current digital era, the use of big data and machine learning to constantly update the models has also opened the door to the development of digital twins in many areas of Engineering and Science.
The MSc Computational Engineering will equip students with the necessary skills to develop computational tools for the challenges of the 21st century.
Computational Mechanics Employment Opportunities
Graduates of the MSc Computational Engineering have a wide range of opportunities. They can access jobs in industry or academia, depending on their interests.
Due to the unique skills of a Computational Engineer, the expected salary is usually higher than a standard Engineer. For instance, in the UK, the average salary of a Computational Engineering job in November 2022 is £43K, whereas the average salary of an Engineering job is £38K. It is worth noting that employers seeking for graduates use either “Computational Engineer”, “Modelling Engineer” or “Simulation Engineer” in their descriptions.
Companies that offer jobs to Computational Engineers include some of the most famous brands worldwide, namely Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Boeing, Chevron, Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, General Dynamics, HP, IBM, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, Nike, Pfizer, Tesla.
After graduation, some students prefer to pursue a PhD in Computational Engineering. Our graduates have gone on to pursue PhDs in many leading Universities worldwide and many Swansea graduates hold research or academic positions in prestigious Universities and R&D centres.
