Academic Content
This program is designed for highly qualified Bachelor students in the last year of their Bachelor‘s degree. Students will get the chance to start writing a practical and academic oriented Research Thesis in preparation for their Bachelor Thesis in a double-tutor systemand brush up on some of the subjects required for a M.Sc. program
The Institute of General Mechanics (IAM) of RWTH Aachen University is responsible for the academic content, including lectures, tutorials, the internship and the Research Thesis.
At the end of each course there will be an exam in written, oral or presentation form. Upon successful completion, you will receive an Expert Certificate from RWTH Aachen University stating your final grade of the course and your ECTS.
Full Description of Modules
Machine Design
Knowledge & Understanding
Participants:
- know the most common machine elements and applicable design rules, standards and understand production drawings including dimensions and tolerances
- know structured problem solving strategies, esp. the engineering design process acc. to VDI 2221;
- know the structure and some examples of the body of design rules
Abilities
Participants:
- read and draft technical drawings and systematically analyze and develop basic machine design concepts according to taught design rules
Competencies
Participants:
- analyze and design mechanical systems using common machine elements through the ability to read and understand as well as draft assembly drawings according to ISO drawing standards and define the production specifications on machined parts through the ability of drafting production drawings according to ISO drawing standards
- identify possible restrictions on a design task and develop and select applicable concept solutions with a systematic approach
- assess the applicability of design rules depending on effective design restrictions. Rules of embodiment design, design principles and guidelines are applied to draw up technical drafts
Quality Management
Knowledge & Understanding
Participants:
- know and understand principles, methods, and managerial challenges of managing product and service innovation from both the perspective of a manager, who creates and supervises the quality, and the customer, who benefits from a high-quality standard
Abilities
Participants:
- develop and implement a risk and process based quality management system
- monitor, review and innovate this quality management system to improve the quality of products and customer satisfaction
Competencies
- make decisions on strategic aspects of setting up the capabilities and competences of a firm to develop and produce high quality products and services and reach top customer satisfaction
- transfer tasks and processes into the practical context of managing and improving the quality of products and services
Tensor Algebra and Tensor Analysis for Engineers
Knowledge & Understanding
Participants:
- know the basic definitions of vector and tensor calculus (both algebra and analysis)
- know the different methods to solve systems of linear equations
Abilities
Participants:
- compute eigenvectors and eigenvalues for symmetric tensors
- solve systems of linear equations
- solve differential equations
- determine the partial derivatives (e.g. divergence and gradient) of vector fields and tensor fields.
Competencies
Participants:
- evaluate under which circumstances systems of linear equations can be solved at all and in which cases the solution is unique
- analyze different functions of one or more variables and draw the corresponding sketch
- linearize nonlinear partial differential equations
- distinguish different classes of differential equations and know the corresponding functions.
Mechanics
Knowledge & Understanding
Participants:
- understand the mechanical analysis of systems of different degrees of complexity and different types of loading
- understand the determination of forces and moments in statically determined systems
- Calculation of systems that are subject to friction
- Determination of equilibrium states
- Understanding the differences between the structural elements
- Analysis of stress-strain relation in elastic materials
- Determining the forces acting on moving bodies
Abilities
- Description of real structures and physical systems via mechanical models
- Determine the suited level of complexity of the mechanical models
- Calculation the deformations, reactions and forces acting on a given mechanical model
Competencies
- After finishing this course, the students will have better understanding and critical thinking with regard to mechanical systems and their model-based analysis
Modelling and Simulation
Knowledge & Understanding
Participants:
- know the basis of Continuum Mechanics (Strong formulation)
- understand the Finite Element Equations (Weak formulation)
- know the vibration of Single and Multi Degree of Freedom systems (including solution ansatz functions, modal analysis)
Abilities & Competencies
Participants:
- are prepared for courses of higher Continuum Mechanics
- are prepared for courses in nonlinear Finite Elements
- apply their basic programming skills within dynamic problems
Production Management
Knowledge & Understanding
Participants: Basic principles of production management, that combine production with other relevant domains of a company
Abilities
Participants: Development and application of production’s planning methods, methods for production analysis with respect to improvement potentials
Competencies
Participants: Production specific task solving by adaption proven approaches to company-specific challenges
Scientific Writing
Knowledge & Understanding
Participants:
- Relevant tools for text editing of scientific works such as LaTex
- Relevant tools for generating attractive plots
- How to structure the representation of scientific works
- How to express scientific content in a concise way
- How to write and present scientific content correctly and in an appealing manner
Abilities
Participants:
- write and present their thesis according to the academic standards
- review the relevant literature in the scientific field
- manage the time for writing the thesis and preparing the presentation
- distinguish between important and irrelevant results to be shown
- generate proper plots to present their results
Competencies
Participants:
- evaluate the significance of their results according to some relevant statistics
- draw conclusions that are supported by the obtained data
- assess advantages and disadvantages of the chosen scientific approach
- validate the methods used correctly.
Exam
At the end of each course, there will be an exam in written, oral or presentation form. Upon successful completion, you will receive an Expert Certificate from RWTH Aachen University stating your final grade of the course and your ECTS.
