Graduate Catalog

2023-2024

Policies, Procedures, Academic Programs

Ocean Engineering

College of Engineering

Academics and laboratories; west section completed 1952; dedicated Oct. 24, 1953. Cost $884,070. East section completed Fall 1959; cost $889,944. Building contains 165,918 sq. ft. Attached to the building is a six-foot stability wind tunnel, acquired from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1958 and made a part of building in 1959. Valued at $1,000,000 at the time, the tunnel was acquired for about $1,700 as surplus equipment.

Aerospace & Ocean Engineering (MC 0203) Randolph Hall, RM 215 Virginia Tech 460 Old Turner St. Blacksburg VA 24061

Degree(s) Offered:

• MS

MS Degree in Ocean Engineering
Minimum GPA:	3.0
Offered In:	Blacksburg Virtual

Email Contact(s):

• Graduate Contact

Web Resource(s):

• Student Handbook

• Graduate Site

Phone Number(s):

540/231-4023

Application Deadlines:

Fall: Dec 30

Spring: Sep 01

Directions

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The Graduate School

Randolph Hall

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Department Head : Ella Atkins

Graduate Program Director : Stefano Brizzolara (Assistant Department Head for Graduate Studies)

Professors: Jonathan Black; Stefano Brizzolara; Alan Brown; Robert Canfield; Olivier Coutier-Delgosha; William Devenport; Mazen Farhood; Rakesh Kapania; Kevin Lowe; Eric Paterson; Michael Philen; Mark Psiaki; Pradeep Raj; Shane Ross; Christopher Roy; Joseph Schetz; Gary Seidel; Kevin Shinpaugh; Cornel Sultan; Craig Woolsey

Associate Professors: Colin Adams; William Alexander; Scott England; Yao Fu; Christine Gilbert; Luca Massa; Jonathan Pitt (NCR); Bhuvana Srinivasan; Kevin Wang; Gregory Young

Assistant Professors: Seongim Choi; Mathieu Joerger

NAVSEA Professor of Naval Ship Design: Alan Brown

Norris and Laura Mitchell Professor of Aerospace Engineering: Rakesh Kapania

Rolls-Royce Commonwealth Professor of Marine Propulsion: Eric Paterson

Adjunct Faculty: Mayuresh Patil

Fred D. Durham Endowed Chair Professor: Joseph Schetz

Kevin Crofton Professor: Mark Psiaki

Research Associate Professors: Aurelien Borgoltz; Nanyaporn Intaratep

Research Assistant Professors: Matthew Kuester

Professor of Practice: Harry Artis

Ocean Engineering Introduction

Master of Science Degree

The Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering offers a Master of Science Degree in Aerospace Engineering and in Ocean Engineering. Each of these degrees has two options, a Master of Science with or without thesis. Although both degrees require the same number of credit hours for graduation, the thesis option requires some of these credits be devoted to a research project. The non-thesis option can be obtained by taking only course work, or it can include credits for a project and report. Such a project and report is generally not research oriented, but deals with other aspects of an engineering problem and may involve a team of students.

In order to ensure that all our students can communicate with scientists and engineers outside their primary field of interest, all students take at least one course in the general areas of aerodynamics, structures, flight mechanics and control, and numerical methods. In addition, students in the non-thesis program are required to take additional courses in their area of study. Students in this program have the opportunity to work on advanced research projects in the three areas mentioned previously as well as in the interdisciplinary arena where familiarity with two or more disciplines is required. As a result many of our students are in a position to satisfy the rapidly growing demand for well rounded engineers and scientists.

Students following the thesis route work with faculty that have both national and international reputations in their respective areas of research. These areas pose exciting new challenges to the students who have the opportunity to work closely with their faculty advisor on current problems. These problems reflect the latest interests in new advancements in science and technology by NASA, Navy, Air Force, and various aerospace and non-aerospace industries.

Our masters students do significant hands-on research and often work in teams with other masters and Ph.D. students on wide-range of topics, some focused in a newly developing area, and some multidisciplinary in nature. These activities include state-of-the art research in aerodynamics, structures, flight dynamics and control, and multidisciplinary analysis and design. Students are encouraged to present their research results at conferences and in archival journals tied to industry and/or government or sponsored projects and include interaction with personnel and facilities from those organizations.

The requirements for the degrees focused on applied physics or applied mathematics are slightly different from those of the other categories in that some required courses from the Aerospace and Ocean Engineering Department are replaced with others from either Physics or Mathematics respectively. These programs are specially tailored for students whose backgrounds are from outside the engineering environment and are interested in applying their skills to solving aerospace problems. Such programs encourage interaction with disciplines outside the usual engineering environment and result in new approaches to analyzing and solving problems.

Offered In (Blacksburg, Virtual)

Degree Requirements

Minimum GPA: 3.0

Institution code: 5859

Testing Requirements:

TOEFL
- iBT
  - 90.0

GRE
- General
  - Verbal :
  - Quantitative :
  - Analytical :

Master of Science Requirements: Thesis and (Non-Thesis)

1. A minimum of 30 credit hours is required.

• For thesis students, up to 9 credit hours may be allotted for Research and Thesis (AOE 5994).

• For non-thesis students, up to 6 credit hours may be allotted for Project and Report (AOE 5904).

2. A minimum of 15 credit hours (18 for non-thesis) of graded course work numbered 5000 and higher must be included in the Plan of Study. These credit hours do not include the AOE Seminar (AOE 5944), Research and Thesis (AOE 5994) hours, or Project and Report (AOE 5904) hours.

3. A maximum of 6 credit hours of 5974 and 5984 is allowed.

4. A maximum of 6 credit hours of approved 4000 level course work is allowed.

5. Up to 50% of the courses on the Plan of Study may be transferred from a graduate program at another institution, subject to the approval of the Advisory Committee. Substitution of a transferred course for a specific required course is subject to the approval of the Graduate Program Director or a designee, usually the responsible instructor. Each transferred course must have a grade of B (3.0/4.0) or better.

6. Breadth Requirement: All MS OE students are required to take at least one course each in the three disciplinary areas identified below. Fluid Mechanics

• AOE 5104, Advanced Aero and Hydrodynamics;

• AOE 5124, Aero and Hydroacoustics;

• AOE 5144, Boundary Layer Theory;

• AOE 5304, Advanced Naval Architecture. Dynamics and Control

• AOE 5334, Advanced Ship Dynamics;

• AOE 5444G, Advanced Dynamics of High-Speed Craft. Structures and Materials

• AOE 5024, Vehicle Structures;

• AOE 5074, Advanced Ship Structural Analysis.

7. Math Requirement: All MS Students are required to take at least one course (of three credits or more) focused on graduate-level mathematics, statistics, or numerical methods. A sample list of courses satisfying this requirement is given in Appendix B. The MS Advisory Committee can approve other courses that have majority of their learning outcomes on advanced mathematics, statistics, or numerical methods. 8. Non-thesis MS OE students must take at least two of the following courses:

• AOE 5074, Advanced Ship Structural Analysis;

• AOE 5084, Submarine Design;

• AOE 5304, Advanced Naval Architecture;

• AOE 5314, Naval and Marine Engineering System Design;

• AOE 5324, Principles of Naval Engineering;

• AOE 5334, Advanced Ship Dynamics;

• AOE 5444G, Advanced Dynamics of High-Speed Craft

Ocean Engineering Facilities Introduction

Our graduate students do significant hands-on research and often work in teams with other graduate students on wide-range of topics, some focused in a newly developing area, and some multidisciplinary in nature.

These activities include state-of-the-art research in aerodynamics, structures, flight dynamics and control, and multidisciplinary analysis and design Students are encouraged to present their research results at conferences and in archival journals tied to industry and/or government sponsored projects and include interaction with personnel and facilities from those organizations.

Research in Aerospace and Ocean Engineering poses exciting new challenges to the students who have the opportunity to work closely with their faculty advisor on current problems. These problems reflect the latest interests in new advancements in science and technology by NASA, Navy, Air Force, and various aerospace and non-aerospace industries. Our graduate students do significant hands-on research and often work in teams with other graduate students on wide-range of topics, some focused in a newly developing area, and some multidisciplinary in nature. These activities include state-of-the art research in aerodynamics, structures, flight dynamics and control, and multidisciplinary analysis and design Students are encouraged to present their research results at conferences and in archival journals tied to industry and/or government sponsored projects and include interaction with personnel and facilities from those organizations.

AOE 3D Print Laboratory

Students must send an email request to aoe-3dprint-g@vt.edu to gain access to submit printing jobs. This email will be used to create a user account and you will receive an invite to join GrabCAD Shop.

Hydro Elasticity Laboratory

The Hydroelasticity Laboratory is an experimental Fluid-Structure Interaction facility for Ocean structures in the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering. The focus of this group is to understand fundamental physics of various fluid-structure interaction problems. One important problem that is currently being studied is of slamming impacts on high-speed planing craft, those vessels which are hydrodynamically loaded. The first phase of the experiment, which is shown in the photos, is of a flexible wedge drop experiment. Measurements are taken of hydrodynamic pressure, kinematics of the structure, and strain. Currently, the water tank is being redesigned to be larger in size to accommodate different types of experiments and to not restrict the jet resulting from the wedge impact. The new tank will also support flow visualization experiments. Another phase of the slamming experiment will be conducted in the Tow Tank facility and will allow for more degrees of freedom to be examined. Please contact Dr. Ikeda-Gilbert (cikeda@vt.edu) for more information.

Hydrodynamics Laboratory

(Randolph 33)
Facilities: Drag-Reduction Test Facility, Water Tunnel

Marine Robotics Laboratory

(Randolph 15)

Ship Dynamics Lab

The VT AOE Ship Dynamics Laboratory provides space for cutting edge analytical, computational, and experimental research into vessel stability, capsize, and quiescence. Amongst other resources, the laboratory is home to two dual-processor high performance Linux workstations to enable computationally efficient simulation of seakeeping and strongly nonlinear capsize behavior over large parameter ranges.

Towing Basin

Modeling ship resistance is done by towing a model in a towing basin. The basin, located in the basement of Norris Hall is made of reinforced concrete painted with a chemical and moisture resistant enamel. The width of the basin is 6 feet and the maximum water depth is 4 feet. The overall length of the basin is 98 feet but the first 4 feet and the last 24 feet are used for braking the carriage. The usable test length is then approximately 70 feet. There are two glass walled observation pits along the side of the tank, one located approximately in the middle of the test region and the other pit located at the starting end. The observation pit at the starting end is intended for use in the study of wave reflection and absorption.

The carriage and rails were designed and constructed by the firm of Kempf and Remmers of Hamburg, Germany and were shipped in sub-assemblies to Virginia Tech. The allowable tolerance on rail height was 0.1mm. Wedges were used to give final straight alignment of each rail. The allowable tolerance on alignment was 0.2mm. Final alignment was done optically. After final adjustments in height were made, the space between the bearing plates and the bottom of the rail was filled with concrete.

A 400 V DC motor drives the carriage through a gear reduction box. The DC power is supplied from a 220 V AC motor-generator set. A maximum speed of the carriage of 3.0 meters per second can be obtained.

The carriage braking is done automatically using trips installed at both ends. An emergency brake button is also on the console. The brake is of the magnetic clutch type and brakes the DC motor directly. The brake is applied if power to the carriage is interrupted. Braking deceleration is 0.7 meter per second per second.

Ocean Engineering undergraduate students perform two experiments in the basin. They test the resistance of both a surface ship and a submarine.

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Course Listing for Ocean Engineering