This two-year master’s track follows the official requirements of the Mechanical Engineering Master’s Program with the accompanying European Credit Transfer and Accumulation Systems (ECTS). It offers a two-year program (120 ECTS), with the first year focusing on following courses and the second one dedicated to the internship and graduation project. After completing the program, you receive a Master’s diploma in Mechanical Engineering stating your specialization in Computational Engineering.
Year 1 | Core program | 20 ECTS |
| Specialization courses | 20 ECTS |
| Free electives | 15 ECTS |
Professional skills | 5 ECTS | |
Year 2 | Internship | 15 ECTS |
| Graduation project | 45 ECTS |
This master’s track includes 20 ECTS mandatory courses that provide a solid foundation for methods and tools required in computational engineering. They are not tailored towards a specific field or application of mechanical engineering, but they do offer an overview of the fundamentals of simulation and optimization methods.
Year 1
In the first year, you follow 60 ECTS of courses. The following courses are mandatory:
- Advanced Engineering Mathematics
- Scientific Computing for Mechanical Engineering
- Engineering Optimization
- Advanced Discretization Techniques
In addition, you will be allocated into one of the three aforementioned divisions: Dynamical Systems Design (DSD), Thermo Fluids Engineering (TFE) or Computational and Experimental Mechanics (CEM). A total of 15 ECTS of the non-mandatory courses need to be from within these divisions. This ensures that you obtain a deeper knowledge of a field within mechanical engineering, and it is the division in which your graduation project will be carried out. We recommend that the other 5 ECTSs are selected from different divisions.
TFE | DSD | CEM |
Interfacial Transport Phenomena in Engineering Flows | Structural Dynamics and Vibro-Acoustics | Advanced Computational Continuum Mechanics |
Gas Dynamics | Control Engineering | Composite and Light-weight Materials |
Heat and Flow in Microsystems | Multibody and Non-linear Dynamics | Multiscale Modelling for Polymer Mechanics |
Modelling Combustion | Optimal control and reinforcement learning | Computational and Experimental Micromechanics |
Monte Carlo Simulations for Energy Application | Physical and data-driven modelling | Rheology |
| Analysis and design of networked dynamical systems | Advanced and Additive Manufacturing |
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| Fracture Mechanics – Theory and Application |
Furthermore, you have 15 ECTS of free elective courses that enable you to customize your program to your specific interests. As part of the first-year course program, you also follow professional skills courses (5 ECTS), focused on career development, teamwork, academic writing and more.
Year 2
Your second year comprises your internship and graduation project where you can put the expertise you gained during your first year to good use. During your internship (15 ECTS) you will apply the knowledge in a project in the sector or at a research institute where you gain an impression of your professional future. After your internship, you work on your graduation project (45 ECTS) which revolves around academic research.
Graduation project
In your graduation project, you apply the know-how and skills acquired through your course program and internship project to an academic research project. Research topics can focus on detailed aspects of computational engineering. Your graduation project comprises two phases. In the first phase of the project, together with your project supervisor, you detail your research questions and methodology. In the second phase, you execute your research plan under the supervision of an advisor. At the end of the project, you deliver your master’s thesis, presenting it in a public setting and defending it before a panel of experts.
Examples of potential CE graduation project topics:
- Neural Operators for Parametrized Material Modeling
In this project, a reduced order model is developed for describing the thermo-mechanical response of a system due to changes in external parameters. Such a reduced order model is inferred using data-driven training of neural operators. - Modeling and Simulation of Heat and Mass Transfer in a Rarefied Fluid Experiment
In this project, a computational model is developed for incorporating molecular effects in the simulated flow phenomena. - Development of a Meshless Acoustic Multiphysics Solver
In this project, a new method is developed to account for complex geometries in finite element simulations of vibro-acoustic problems.
The Mechanical Engineering pre-Master’s program
The Mechanical Engineering (ME) pre-Master’s program is aimed at students who have not been granted direct admission to the CE Master’s track. These students include:
- Bachelor graduates from TU/e programs (or other Dutch universities) who did not obtain a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or equivalent.
- Graduates of Mechanical Engineering programs or equivalent from a University of Applied Sciences (HBO).
An ME pre-Master’s program typically lasts one semester and comprises 30 ECTS. You acquire the necessary background to enable a seamless and successful transition into the ME Master’s Program and its CE track. For further information please consult the Education Guide*.
*Note: current students use the Education Guide as a source of information. It contains detailed, practical information that is important during your study program. Prospective students can consult the Education Guide for additional information.