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Is there anyone in TSR studying geotechnical engineering at a UK university ?

Currently about 7 unis offers the course at masters level I think

Imperial (which I believe is the best)
Birmingham
Leeds
New castle
Exeter
Dundee
Surrey

Cardiff offers applied geology
Leeds,imperial,Newcastle and Portsmouth also offers engineering geology

Any one have an idea about which uni offers the best course apart from imperial ?
Exeter main campus or Cornwall campus? Cornwall campus is the Camborne School of Mines, which has a very long history and well established position in relation to mining engineering. Exeter main campus does not benefit from any of that (they're separate departments). Leeds has a number of departments linking to specialisms in petroleum engineering as I recall, so that may or may not be of interest. Not sure about the others; Birmingham CivE I got the impression was generally more oriented towards transport engineering. Dundee probably has some links to the oil and gas sector.
Reply 2
Can speak on behalf of Surrey. I did MEng Civil Engineering and the modules in the final year are from the MSc programmes in Bridge, Geotechnical, Civil, Water, Infrastructure, and Structural engineering. So there is a mix of UG and PG students in most modules.

There are many optional modules available however, there are ONLY four modules in the geotechnical engineering group which are compulsory for Geotechnical Engineering MSc. The modules do cover a lot however, and you take 8 modules in total (in this case four compulsory and then four optional from the disciplines above) and a dissertation (worth 4 modules = 60 credits).

Any more questions please ask.
Original post by MiladA
Can speak on behalf of Surrey. I did MEng Civil Engineering and the modules in the final year are from the MSc programmes in Bridge, Geotechnical, Civil, Water, Infrastructure, and Structural engineering. So there is a mix of UG and PG students in most modules.

There are many optional modules available however, there are ONLY four modules in the geotechnical engineering group which are compulsory for Geotechnical Engineering MSc. The modules do cover a lot however, and you take 8 modules in total (in this case four compulsory and then four optional from the disciplines above) and a dissertation (worth 4 modules = 60 credits).

Any more questions please ask.

hi thanks for the reply

What do you think in terms of quality/reputation of these courses in industry and in UK in general. I m thinking of confirming either Leeds or Surrey for Jan/Feb start
Regarding the MSc course at Surrey, would there be an option to do the 4 additional modules related to geotechnical/tunneling? as I'm not really keen on the other disciplines
(edited 2 years ago)
Reply 5
Original post by allyxanderz
Regarding the MSc course at Surrey, would there be an option to do the 4 additional modules related to geotechnical/tunneling? as I'm not really keen on the other disciplines

There are only 4 modules in the geotechnical engineering group (Energy Geotechnics, Advanced Soil Mechanics, Soil Structure Interaction and Deep Foundations and Earth Retaining Structures) which you MUST take.

As for the remaining 4 they can be from any group but Earthquake Engineering has geotechnical aspects of it (liquefaction, pile design etc.)

[I did Earthquake Engineering and there are two sides: the geotechnical side and the structures side].

Structural Mechanics and Finite Elements (which I also took) might help with Soil Structure Interaction because of the modelling aspects in the latter (you’ll use Plaxis, which is not a modellling program for “typical” structural analysis). But nevertheless the knowledge may be transferable.

That leaves you with 2 which are entirely up to you (if you decide to pick the ones above).

Your dissertation however, MUST be on a geotechnical engineering topic to graduate with an MSc.
Hi MiladA! Thank you for replyin!

I see, yeah the four modules stated "Compulsory". on the website. Taking my Bachelor's in Civil, I've come to realize that I only have an interest in modules related to geotechnical engineering haha not so much for environmental(waste water treatment, etc,.), transportation, and structural.

What other modules do you recommend, either than the two you mentioned. Also, yes! I did a little bit of plaxis 2D during my undergrad for a mini school project on deep excavation and I think the software is widely used if I recall correctly haha.

Are there any modules related to Tunnel engineering/construction?


Original post by MiladA
There are only 4 modules in the geotechnical engineering group (Energy Geotechnics, Advanced Soil Mechanics, Soil Structure Interaction and Deep Foundations and Earth Retaining Structures) which you MUST take.

As for the remaining 4 they can be from any group but Earthquake Engineering has geotechnical aspects of it (liquefaction, pile design etc.)

[I did Earthquake Engineering and there are two sides: the geotechnical side and the structures side].

Structural Mechanics and Finite Elements (which I also took) might help with Soil Structure Interaction because of the modelling aspects in the latter (you’ll use Plaxis, which is not a modellling program for “typical” structural analysis). But nevertheless the knowledge may be transferable.

That leaves you with 2 which are entirely up to you (if you decide to pick the ones above).

Your dissertation however, MUST be on a geotechnical engineering topic to graduate with an MSc.
Reply 7
Original post by allyxanderz
Hi MiladA! Thank you for replyin!

I see, yeah the four modules stated "Compulsory". on the website. Taking my Bachelor's in Civil, I've come to realize that I only have an interest in modules related to geotechnical engineering haha not so much for environmental(waste water treatment, etc,.), transportation, and structural.

What other modules do you recommend, either than the two you mentioned. Also, yes! I did a little bit of plaxis 2D during my undergrad for a mini school project on deep excavation and I think the software is widely used if I recall correctly haha.

Are there any modules related to Tunnel engineering/construction?

There are no modules related directly to tunnel engineering/construction but there are construction management modules available. The modules I took in my masters year are:

Structural Mechanics and Finite Elements
Steel and Composite Bridge Design
Deep Foundations and Earth Retaining Structures
Multi-Disciplinary Design Project (MEng only)
Earthquake Engineering
Bundling Information Modelling
Spatial Structures
(edited 2 years ago)

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