The Department of Mechanical Engineering is responsible for teaching and research in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

, occupying the City & Guilds Building at the

South Kensington South Kensington is a district at the West End of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the ra ...

campus. The department has around 45 faculty members, 600 undergraduates, and 250 postgraduate students. The department ranks 8th in the

QS World University Rankings The ''QS World University Rankings'' is a portfolio of comparative college and university rankings compiled by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education analytics firm. Its first and earliest edition was published in collaboration with '' Times ...

's 2018 table.

History

The origins of the department lie in the 1884 appointment of William Unwin as professor of civil and mechanical engineering at the Central Institution of the City & Guilds of London Institute, later the City & Guilds College, one of the predecessors to Imperial College. In 1904, the department was taken over by William Dalby. The department's main building was renamed the City & Guilds Building in 2013 as a reference to the historical association of the department of the college, and in 2018 a complete refurbishment of the building was completed.

Academics

Study

Undergraduate

The undergraduate program at the department is a 4-year integrated course leading to a

master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

degree in mechanical engineering, including an option to study a year abroad, or take an extra year in industry. All students graduating with the MEng degree also automatically receive an Associateship of the

City and Guilds of London Institute The City and Guilds of London Institute is an educational organisation in the United Kingdom. Founded on 11 November 1878 by the City of London and 16 livery companies to develop a national system of technical education, the institute has be ...

Postgraduate

The department offers a 12-month taught postgraduate programme leading to a MSc, as well as taking on doctor's students studying for a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

. All postgraduate students of the department are also eligible for the Diploma of Imperial College, DIC, alongside their standard degree when graduating.

Rankings

The college ranks 10th in the world for engineering on the

Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The THES''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...

subject rankings, and the department in particular ranks 8th in the world in the 2018 QS world subject rankings. Domestically, the department ranks 2nd on the

Complete University Guide Three national rankings of universities in the United Kingdom are published annually by the ''Complete University Guide'' and ''The Guardian'', as well as a collaborative list by ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times''. Rankings have also been pro ...

's 2019 mechanical engineering table after

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, and 1st on ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

s 2019 mechanical engineering university subject rankings.

Research

City and Guilds Building south side looking north-east in snow

The department's research is conducted by research groups which have a particular academic focus. These research groups are organized by the department into different divisions which centre around fields of study: ; Applied mechanics * Dynamics - Aeroelasticity and structural dynamics in turbomachinery * Medical engineering - Human skeletal and muscular structure * Non-destructive evaluation - Inspecting and investigation through non destructive processes * Nuclear engineering - Nuclear thermal hydraulics and reactor physics *

Tribology Tribology is the science and engineering of understanding friction, lubrication and wear phenomena for interacting surfaces in relative Motion (physics), motion. It is highly interdisciplinary, drawing on many academic fields, including physics, c ...

- Lubrication and friction ; Thermofluids * The Aimee Morgans lab, Professor Aimee Morgans - Thermo-acoustic instabilities and vehicular aerodynamic drag * The Hazelab group, Professor Guillermo Rein - Heat and fire science * Turbocharger testing and research group, Professor Ricardo Martinez-Botas - Exhaust gas energy recovery and turbocharging ; Mechanics of materials * Metal-forming technologies group, Dr Liliang Wang - Metal-forming processes * Materials Modelling, Dr Daniel Balint - Advanced modelling of materials * Adhesion and Adhesives, Dr Bamber Blackman - Joining technologies and adhesive bonding * Nanomaterials, Dr Ambrose Taylor - Material microstructure and nanoparticle-modified materials * Soft Solids, Professor Maria Charalambides - Deformation and fracture of soft polymers and other soft materials * Structural Applications * Component Structural Integrity, Professor Kamran Nikbin - Examining the durability and performance of materials subjected to a range of conditions, and investigating this in relation to safety * Electrochemical Science and Engineering, Dr Greg Offer - Applications of electrochemical devices to mobile and stationary power * Novel Manufacture for Performance, Dr Paul Hooper The department also runs academic centres, some in partnership with industry, including the Vibration University Technology Centre, the AVIC Centre for Structural Design and Manufacture, and the BIAM-Imperial Centre for Materials Characterisation, Processing and Modelling.

People

* William Dalby, former head of department * William Unwin, former head of department

References

External links

Department of Mechanical Engineering websiteImperial College London website
{{Authority control 1884 establishments in England Universities and colleges established in 1884

Mechanical Engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

Mechanical engineering schools