Overview
What is Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering?
This is often seen as the broadest of all engineering qualifications as the skills required range from mathematics and electronics to metal fatigue and fluid mechanics. Nearly all machines used in everyday life —from the car or washing machine to the most complex aircraft or electricity supply plant to the tiniest surgical instrument—have required the skills of a mechanical engineer. Every industrial plant or manufacturing operation relies on a mechanical engineer for its smooth running and efficiency.
Mechanical engineers are involved in design, testing, inspection, and manufacture of mechanical devices and components. As a mechanical engineer you will work as a professional using technology to make the world a better, safer place.
Do you enjoy…
- Imagining new solutions to problems?
- Exploring how machines and technology work?
- Using computers and mathematics to apply physics to the real world?
Graduate skills and career opportunities
Our graduates have taken jobs with employers in sectors such as: High tech manufacturing (Intel, Pfizer, DePuy, National Instruments, Seagate, Siemens); Automotive (Jaguar, Rover, BMW, Dromone); Engineering and Business Consultancy (Arup, Deloitte, Accenture); Energy (OpenHydro, ESB, Eirgrid, EDF, Vattenfall); and Process Engineering (Cameron Flow Control, Procter & Gamble, Syngenta, Glanbia, Kerry).
Graduates also go onto Master’s and Ph.D. programmes in universities such as: RCSI; University of Edinburgh; Imperial College London; University of Cambridge; ETH Zürich; KTH Royal Institute of Technology; Université Grenoble Alpes; and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
As well as the potential for a career in mainstream mechanical or manufacturing engineering, graduates have found work in industries as diverse as film production, financial services and aircraft leasing and management. There is also a demand for specialist research and development work in industry, research organisations and universities.
Opportunities exist for graduates in mechanical and manufacturing engineering to find employment in Ireland and elsewhere in engineering consultancies, public utilities (transport, power generation) and manufacturing industries in the mechanical, electronic and biomedical sectors.
Your degree and what you’ll study:
Course topics include: Energy; Solid Mechanics; Engineering Materials; Fluid Mechanics; Manufacturing Technology and Systems; Dynamics; Mechatronics; and Engineering Design.
In third year you will study core engineering subjects, specialised mechanical and manufacturing engineering subjects and a Trinity Elective module. In fourth year and the optional Master’s (fifth) year you will choose from a wide range of technical and non-technical modules, tailoring your degree to suit your own interests.
Project work is an important aspect of this degree and there is an extensive research facility available to students. You will carry out several projects, including a major Capstone research project in your final year. Examples of final-year projects include:
- Study of jet engine exhaust noise.
- Design and build an entry for ‘Robot Wars’.
- Design and construction of energy storage devices for the developing world.
- Pedestrian car impact simulation.
- Bamboo: study of structure and mechanical properties.
Click here for further information on modules/subjects.
