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2025-2026 / ATFE9013-1

Master's Dissertation

Duration

Number of credits

 Msc. in Mechanical Engineering, professional focus in Offshore Structure Modeling30 crédits 

Lecturer

Thomas Andrianne

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

All year long

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

The master thesis is a substantial individual project that can be carried out in a university laboratory (possibly in collaboration with a company) or in a company, in Belgium or abroad. It is generally considered to represent the equivalent of 4 months of full-time work but it can reach up to 6 months.

The subject is proposed by academic and industrial partners of the EMSHIP+ program during the EMSHIP+ week (taking place in Fall). A student can also make a proposal, but it must be approved by the academic promoter.

The dissertation must be written in English.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

The goal of the master thesis is to prepare the student to his/her future career in a private company or in academia. The student will have to prove that (s)he can carry out a substantial project based of the theoretical and practical knowledge and skills acquired during his/her studies. The report will contain a state of the art, a substantial original contribution, an analysis of the results and a conclusion.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

According to the EMSHIP+ rules, the sudent must have validated all (60) credits of M1 before starting the mast thesis.

Students are encouraged to take the courses that will best prepare them for working on their project.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

Face-to-face course


Further information:

The student will keep his/her advisor informed of his/her progress on a regular basis. The student must fill the required information once his/her subject is chosen on the MATHEO platform, and upload his/her final work within the requested deadlines. 
https://matheo.uliege.be/

Course materials and recommended or required readings

Written work / report


Further information:

The final grade will be the result of two factors: 

  • A mark on the content given by the committee members (to which a copy of the document is to be provided). The assessment of each member will include a mark taking into account both the manuscript and its content. 
  • A mark for the oral defense given by the jury members present at the oral defense as well as by the president of the jury. 
It is recalled that plagiarism is systematically punished by 0/20 (https://www.ulg.ac.be/cms/c_4618266/fr/reglement-des-etudes-et-des-examens-regime-bologne). Software is available to detect the possible presence of plagiarism (https://www.ulg.ac.be/cms/c_480304/deceler-un-plagiat-eventuel)

The use of AI should follow the guidelines at ULiège: 
https://www.fsa.uliege.be/upload/docs/application/pdf/2023-11/chatgpt_student.pdf

The use of AI should be stated on a dedicated page of the manuscript of the thesis.

Evaluation is based principally on the student's written report. There is no formal constraint on the length of this report, but it contains typically between 50 and 100 pages. Students must describe the context of the work, the problem or specification addressed, the proposed solution with supporting arguments. The report will also feature an evaluation of the results, conclusions and, optionally, appendices. The presentation of the work is oral and public. Each student will present their work for up to 15 minutes, followed by a question-answer session of up to 10 minutes. The examiners' committee will then deliberate for up to 5 minutes. The final grade will reflect the quantity and quality of the work, the quality of the written report and oral presentation and the effectiveness of the student's responses during the question-answer session.

The EMSHIP+ template for master thesis must be used.

Work placement(s)

The master thesis is coupled to an internship to be performed in a laboratory or in a company. 

Organisational remarks and main changes to the course

Contacts

Association of one or more MOOCs