Engineering Principles

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• The basic principles of wave motion and heat transfer
• The importance of energy conservation in interactions.
• How energy is transported through different media and the effect of changes in medium.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Apply theoretical knowledge to solve simple practical problems in energy transport and exchange

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Apply problem solving techniques to familiar and unfamiliar problems
• Apply mathematical methods to solve problems
• Manage your own learning

Heat

• Temperature and Heat: Heat as a form of energy, Temperature scales and measurements
• Heat capacity and Latent heat
• Thermal expansion: coefficient of linear expansion for solids, coefficient of volume expansion for liquids
• Conduction: mechanism of conduction, definition of thermal conductivity, temperature distribution along a uniform bar of one or more substances
• Convection, Newton's Law of Cooling. Note: qualitative approach only
• Radiation: black bodies, Wein's law, Stefan's law

Gases

• Measurement of pressure
• Ideal gas laws, p-V, p-T and V-T relationships
• Equation of state: pV=nRT
• Kinetic theory for gases, the assumptions and derivation of
• pV= 1/3Nm
• 1st Law of thermodynamics
• Processes and cycles

Vibrations

• Amplitude, period, frequency and phase, T=1/f = 2π/ω
• Simple harmonic motion x = Asin(ωt+ϕ),
• v = ωAcos(ωt+ϕ), a = −Aω 2sin(ωt+ϕ), maximum values of v and a
• Difference between free and forced vibrations; resonance. Note: Qualitative approach

Waves

• Speed of waves, wavelength, frequency, amplitude and phase v=fλ
• Difference between longitudinal and transverse waves
• Travelling wave equation. Note: No derivation
• Principle of superposition of waves
• Standing waves in stretched strings and pipes

Light

• Reflection at a plane boundary
• Refraction: refractive index, relationship to wave speed, critical angle and total internal reflection
• Interference: coherent sources, two source interference
• Diffraction: single and double slit diffraction and diffraction gratings
• The electromagnetic spectrum; orders of magnitude for f and λ

Learning activities include

• Individual work on examples, supported by tutorial/workshop sessions
• Elements of the coursework module GENG0015, may support your learning in this module.

Teaching methods include

• Lectures, supported by example sheets.
• Tutorials/Workshops
• Printed notes available through Blackboard and/or through your module lecturer.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.