Marine Technology (MSN1)

The two year Master of Science degree in Marine Technology gives you a challenging and exciting education for the future. Marine Technology is an ideal specialisation for first-degree engineers with technical interests. This is an education that provides innovative, professional challenges and lead to a variety of career possibilities.

The challenge of the sea

The sea has always meant something special to mankind. It can be seductive and challenging, strange and mystical. At the same time, however, it is full of resources on which we depend; the sea can be cultivated and harvested, under the seabed are substantial energy resources, and it has always been important for transport. The ocean is vital for providing us with food, energy and a means of global transport.

The Department of Marine Technology offers two international specialization options in this Master of Science study programme:

• Marine structures
• Marine systems

Offshore technology

There is a trend that more of the new activities related to exploration and exploitation of the offshore oil and gas resources take place in deeper water than before or at marginal fields. Financially viable and safe exploitation of these resources will demand lightweight floating platforms and shiplike vessels. Other advanced marine operations in the ocean space from all-year service vessels or platforms are a prerequisite for laying pipelines or cables, for installing subsea equipment as well as inspection, maintenance and repair/replacements of underwater facilities. The combination of deepwater, harsh wave conditions and ocean currents makes the design and operation of floaters, risers and mooring systems particularly challenging.

Automatic control is now a must have

The demand for efficiency and safety requires high precision in marine operations. Automatic control of thruster systems (dynamic positioning of vessels) is required to limit the motions of ships or platforms and thereby displacements and stresses in risers during drilling operations, or in pipelines during laying, and to ensure precise lifting, installation and intervention operations.

Automatic control is crucial for meeting the future requirements for high performance and for satisfying the need to operate under demanding environmental conditions. This requires a close integration with hydrodynamics and structural dynamics.

Safety at sea and environmental protection are high priority areas throughout the maritime sector. The challenges relating to the design and the understanding of the behaviour of ships and ocean structures are vital for planning and execution of marine operations. Another important area of interest and research is maintenance and repair of existing platforms, as they age in very harsh environmental conditions.

Ship Technology

Among the main driving forces in future sea transport is a demand for shorter time to market, which means higher speeds at sea and in harbour operations. The increase in size and speed and the emergence of new concepts have given rise to new technical challenges. Weight minimization of the hull is essential for achieving the goal of producing environmentally friendly, low-cost, highspeed transport, but leads to more flexible structures that will have more pronounced dynamic effects making the relevance of fatigue failure an important consideration.

These changes are difficult to make solely on the basis of experience. Thus, explicit safety requirements are necessary as well as design by direct analyses based on first principles of hydrodynamic loads and their structural effects and strength. Then there is also the potential benefit from automatic control. The possibility to base design on such principles was envisaged in the early 1990s, but the complexity of hydrodynamic load predictions and their effects have hampered the introduction of this approach.

Operations - Logistics developments

Efficient and reliable operations at sea imply designing ships and equipment that are dedicated to various types of operations (cable laying, rescue, fishing, etc.). More accurate description of wave, current and windinduced motions are then required. To improve efficiency, automatic control can be applied to reduce the effect of wave impacts and green water, especially in high performance vessels, by minimizing the relative motion between the ship bow and waves by active foil damping, and when there are changes of course or speed. A main concern is ventilation of foils, particularly in high sea states. A new issue in this context is the structural design implications of introducing automatic control systems for motion damping.

Logistics and transport are areas that are undergoing rapid development. There are increasing demands for more complex integrated logistics services by the international shipping industry. High-speed vessels are now becoming serious competitors to aircraft under certain conditions. Such vessels will continue to develop in size, speed, seafaring qualities, choice of material, machinery and design.

Fisheries and aquaculture

Both fisheries and aquaculture are growing industries. The fish stocks of the world are a renewable resource that could feed the world forever, but today there is a great deal of overfishing. In order to preserve life in the oceans, we have to develop technology that will enable us to harvest the richnes of the sea with minimal damage to the environment.

Learn more about:

• Study environment
• Career prospects
• Programme components
• Admissions procedures and dates