Transforming into a resilient and sustainable society with engineering
The Energy and Flow specialisation focusses on the engineering and research areas crucial for the transition to a resilient and sustainable society: The development of sustainable energy systems, processes, and equipment with high performance, and minimal environmental impact. This requires a multidisciplinary approach involving fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, heat transfer, advanced materials, acoustics, sustainable design, and economics.
Fundamental scientific questions addressing phenomena acting at vastly different scales need to be answered and translated in innovative technology. Examples in the field of Energy and Flow are heat pumps, wind turbines, energy storage and harvesting, aeroplanes, pumps and compressors, gas turbines, pyrolysis in fluidized beds, biomass processes, thermal solar, thermal management of batteries, multi-scale systems, interface and thin layer flows, contact mechanics and friction, and granular flows.
The specialisation offers a challenging course program led by a staff with an excellent scientific and teaching reputation with classic fundamental topics as fluid dynamics and thermodynamics, interdisciplinary courses, and specialist more application-driven courses. The program provides a deep understanding of the physical principles as well as their use in engineering applications. The track offers both experimental as well as theoretical experience in an excellent research environment. The Energy and Flow specialisation educates you as engineer of the future, solution-driven, with a strong fundamental knowledge and ready to face societies major challenges either in industry or in academia.
Why choose this specialisation at UT?
Since its inception in the 1960s, the University of Twente has a strong research presence in fluid dynamics and thermal engineering with excellent interdisciplinary collaborations with other groups in the faculty of engineering technology and internationally. The Energy and Flow track builds on this rich history, The academic staff in Twente, the foremost entrepreneurial university of the Netherlands, has very good scientific track records in publications, and an extensive national and international network of successful collaborations in industry and research institutes. The research groups involved in the Energy and Flow track cover the full range of research topics listed above.
The Energy and Flow track offers an in-depth course program with classic fundamental topics such as fluid dynamics and thermodynamics. Interdisciplinary courses are on multiphase flow, energy conversion technology, energy from biomass, fluid cells, and computational fluid dynamics. Specialist courses cover topics as aeroacoustics and applied courses on turbomachines. Fluid and material behaviour plays a crucial role either in processes involving granular material or in the structural parts (composite materials). New areas are multifunctional (meta)materials fulfilling a role in e.g. energy storage as well as in acoustic damping.
graduation
The specialisation includes a mandatory internship in a company or at a research institute, culminating in a final MSc assignment to be completed internally (at a research group) or externally (a research institute or company).
The research can be experimental or theoretical, including numerical simulations, as well as fundamental or directed at a specific application. An MSc. assignment at the university benefits from the excellent laboratory and computational facilities such bench-scale facilities and pilot-plants for thermal conversion processes, a top competitive (aero-acoustic) wind tunnel facility for (wind turbine and aircraft) aerodynamics and aeroacoustics, a specialized high tech lab facility for thin-layer flow, fluid mechanics of functional material, and new materials for energy storage, such as multipurpose (meta) materials.
As a Mechanical Engineering student in the track Energy nd Flow you will be trained to translate fundamental insights from physics, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, mechanics of materials, chemistry, materials and nature into urgently needed solutions for one of the major problems in society.
Career prospects
The track is a good start for a career in industry or in scientific institutes, as well as to continue for a PhD degree in physics or engineering aimed at a career in science.