Introduction
A Naval Architect is a professional able to understand and design large and complex marine structures, such as ships and offshore structures. There structures consist of thousands of components that are assembled into a unique solution. The ship operates most of its lifecycle in the layer between water and air, and it needs to perform under severe environmental conditions.
NTNU in Ålesund is situated in the middle of the world's largest maritime cluster, and you will benefit from international and regional expertise. It is a great engineering challenge to design new ships and onboard systems that can turn shipping into the most efficient, safe and environmentally friendly means of transportation in the future. New ship design is typically developed in response to needs coming from new technologies, changes in the world politics, new strategies and lessons learned from previous ship development. A naval Architect can take into account all these factors when designing marine structures that intend to be excellent in their mission.
The study programme focuses in the design of ships and other structures for demanding marine operations. Naval Architecture encloses the disciplines that are necessary to design, simulate and evaluate the behaviour of marine structures, especially in five key areas: structure, seakeeping, speed, stability and style.
This master's degree programme teaches you how to handle requirements, analyse and simulate lots of different missions, such as transportation work of cargo and passengers, support of offshore operations, subsea installation, autonomous vessel, research, exploration and rescue.
A well-behaving ship is crucial in performing the complex operations necessary to support the installation of subsea field equipment. Simulation of the vessel behaviour can be used to plan the operation, to identify potential risks, to train the operative personnel, and to optimise the ship design for unique operations.
This master's degree programme combines fundamental and specialisation courses, with an updated and modern view on Naval Architecture, focusing on Digitalization, Digital Twin, Simulation and Programming. Digital tools are used in all courses, with emphasis in state-of-the-art software used by the Norwegian companies. The study is closely linked to the NTNU R&D activities ocean operations.
Aims and Goals
The programme focuses on the architecture, analyse and design of ships -equipment and maritime systems. As a graduate of our programme you can look forward to work with challenges connected to developing new designs, automated and remotely controlled deck solutions as well as new machinery and propulsion systems to meet both the strict economic requirements and the environmental goals aiming for zero emission. Innovative use of materials and developing equipment working in challenging environments, with below zero temperatures in northern regions and several thousand meters below the surface of the ocean, are other examples of advanced maritime operations to be carried out in near future.