IAMU News - Special Edition

UNITED STATES MERCHANT MARINE ACADEMY

United States Merchant Marine Academy Master of Marine Engineering Program

Overview

In 2003 the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) received approval from the United States Congress to extend its academic and training efforts beyond the traditional undergraduate, licensed focused programs and offer graduate education in support of the marine industry.

This approval was granted in recognition of the fact that the United States does not have an institution, Federal, State or private that can claim to be a graduate center focusing on marine engineering. Although several American institutions have excellent graduate programs entitled Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering none of them focus on marine engineering. All of the institutions claiming to address marine engineering at the graduate level have structured their programs to focus on naval architecture, ocean engineering, or naval contract management. To address this issue the USMMA undertook the development of a Master's degree level program focusing on traditional and advanced marine engineering issues, the Master of Marine Engineering (MMarE) program.

The USMMA, as a Federal Academy has the faculty and infrastructure resources to offer a Marine Engineering graduate program to rival the advanced education efforts of the various graduate centers supported by the Federal government, such as the Navy's Naval Post Graduate School at Monterey or the Air Force's Air Force Institute of Technology. It is anticipated that the USMMA's MMarE program will offer marine industry technical leaders an opportunity to gain further education. It is further anticipated that the program will allow for the assembling of a critical mass of research oriented faculty that, together with students, will undertake imaginative work in support of the marine industry.

Opportunity for the USMMA

The United States Merchant Marine Academy is in a unique position, because of its core faculty, its facilities, and its world-wide status, to establish a Marine Engineering Master's level program. It is anticipated that the program will not only attract very qualified students, but will form an intellectual cradle that should be the source of advance technologies and operating concepts helpful to the commercial maritime industry. The envisioned program will support the marine engineering aspects of the design, building, and operation of commercial vessels. It will focus on the application of advanced technical concepts and skills in addressing real problems and challenges facing designers, builders and operators of vessels and the design and manufacture of shipboard components. The newest concepts and designs available to the world market will be discussed and analyzed. The applied parts of the program will focus on the most current equipment and the most modern systems available and will encourage the students and faculty to gaze into the future. It will attempt to instill in the candidates a sense of technical adventurism leading to creativity that will help make shipbuilding and ship operations more efficient, reliable and safe.

To enhance the program's support of the marine industry, the program will be centered on a close relation with the design, building and operation sectors of the marine industry. This relation will extend from faculty and students undertaking applied research and design projects to having industry experts participate in the teaching and research processes. To allow for broad access to the program, the program will be distance learning based. The distance-learning educational delivery will be by combination of asynchronous and synchronous techniques. In addition to the distance learning delivery aspects, students will be expected to attend one, two-day on-campus session each semester. To make the program have extra meaning for the student and the industry, the students will be encouraged to undertake either a design project or research project. It is expected that most of the distance learning students will be part-time students (one or two courses per semester) and will cap-off their formal course work with a design or research project.

The MMarE Program

The USMMA Master of Marine Engineering program is a 36 credit, distance learning program leading to a Master of Engineering degree. The distance learning delivery process will include one, two-day, in-residence component during each semester. The program includes 21 credits of required core courses and 15 credits of electives, including up to 6 credits of thesis/design project work.

The required core courses are:

• Computational Methods
• Thermal System Design and Optimization
• Advanced Marine Power Plants
• Advanced Marine Materials
• Electrical Power Systems
• Internal Combustion Engine Analysis and New Technologies
• Marine Industry Policy

Attempts will be made to offer electives that address the needs of the marine industry and interest of the students. Initially the following electives are expected to be offered:

• Marine Propulsion Systems(1)
• Hydrostatics and Basic Hydrodynamics(1)
• Solid State Power Systems
• Controls and Microprocessors
• Marine Electrical Systems and Propulsion
• Introduction to Combustion with Applications
• Economics of Marine Engineering Systems
• Management of Shipbuilding and Repair
• Reliability Engineering and Operations Research
• LNG Vessel Operations and Design Considerations
• Vibration of Marine Machinery and Structures
• Advanced Hydrodynamics and Basic Ship Motion Control
• Thesis/Design Project 1 (2)
• Thesis/Design Project 2 (2)

(1) - 0nly for students who have not had formal education in marine engineering and/or naval architecture
(2) - Faculty advisor/mentor for specific thesis/design projects will be selected from the Engineering Faculty at-large, depending on area of interest

Specific elective course offerings will depend on student interest and availability of faculty. Individual student elective course selections will be determined after the student confers with the assigned faculty advisor.

The program was conceived as a relatively traditional, focused, hard-core marine engineering program requiring a substantially broad based set of computationally orientated core courses and augmented by relevant elective courses. The strong computational base program is intended to give the practicing professional the necessary tools to undertake component and/or system design and to fully appreciate and understand component and system operational characteristics and procedures.

Program Goals

The goals of the United States Merchant Marine Academy's practice oriented Marine Engineering Master's program are to:

• Capitalize on the USMMA extensive, qualified and diverse marine engineering faculty
• Capitalize on the USMMA extensive laboratories addressing all phases of marine engineering,

in order to;

• Establish in the United States a graduate level program that will focus on issues typically encountered by mid level and senior level practicing marine engineers
• Encourage the best and brightest marine engineers to enhance their marine engineering education
• Excite the minds of the students and their mentors as they undertake marine engineering research or innovative design projects
• Help the marine industry solve marine engineering problems
• Encourage young marine engineers to pursue careers in marine engineering education.

The importance of the last bullet can not be overemphasized. At present the United States does not have a program, which has as one of its goals the furthering the education of potential marine engineering educators. It is believed that this program will enable practicing marine engineers to advance their knowledge of propulsion plants and shipboard auxiliaries to a level where they could become effective teachers of current and future marine engineering technologies.

Program Outcomes

The primary outcome of the Marine Engineering Master's Program will be approximately 20 to 25 highly educated, Master's level, marine engineering graduates per year. A secondary outcome of the program will be an equal number of completed marine engineering research/design projects per year.

As a way of maximizing the impact of the proposed Marine Engineering Master's program it is planned to publish and distribute a USMMA, National Marine Engineering Graduate Center Annual Report. The report will include abstracts of all the projects completed during the academic year and would be distributed to key members of the commercial marine industry and key members of the various government agencies including those that own or operate ships.

Program Availability

The program is expected to start in January 2006 and be offered on a conventional semester bases, January to May and September to December. It is expected that the first graduates of the MMarE program will complete the program in May 2008.

Although the USMMA undergraduate programs are tuition-free, scholarship programs, the MMarE program will not be. The cost of the program will be carried by appropriate tuition and student charges.

Admission to the program will be limited, and selective, based on a combination of previous academic performance and professional experience.

Additional information on the program will be available in the spring of 2005 at www.usmma.edu/mmare.

By:
Jose Femenia
Professor and Head of Engineering
James A. Harbach
Professor of Engineering