Overview

Core subjects in Materials Engineering focus on the structure and behaviour of materials and their conversion into usable forms (through heat treatment, welding and forming processes, and powder metallurgy). As in Chemical Engineering, the Materials Engineering curriculum also focuses on the issues of environmental engineering, management, and professional ethics.

There is a strong emphasis on design and project work, with the programme culminating in an extensive laboratory project and a large design project. The degree programme provides a sound foundation for future postgraduate study, as well as a career in technical management.

Career Opportunities

Design, operate and manage industrial plants which extract and refine minerals and metals, and convert them into more useful and valuable products by developing and enhancing their properties

• Extractive Metallurgist
• Process Control Engineer
• Metallurgical Plant Design Engineer
• Corrosion Engineer
• Foundry Engineer
• Heat Treatment Engineer
• Failure Analysis Consultant
• Tribologist Materials Consultants

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Curriculum

A common first-year programme was introduced from 2019 across all professional engineering disciplines.

The academic curriculum is regularly modernised in order to ensure that it meets the highest professional and academic standards and that it simultaneously remains locally relevant and applicable.

Many engineering students entering the engineering programmes have limited knowledge of the different branches of engineering and only gain the knowledge to make an informed choice of the programme during their first year.

A first-year curriculum that is identical for all programmes allows students to amend their choice at the end of the first year.

First-year

• Engineering Chemistry
• Introduction to the Engineering Profession
• Engineering Analysis and Design IA AND IB
• Engineering Mathematics IA AND IB
• Engineering Physics IA AND IB
• Applied Physics I

AND, one of the following courses:

• Elementary IsiZulu Language and Culture IA
• Elementary Sesotho Language and Culture IA
• The International Relations of South Africa and Africa
• Introduction to Political Studies
• Southern Africa in the Era of Globalisation
• Identity and Society
• Introduction to Ethics I
• Introduction to Philosophy: Knowledge and Reality
• Global Encounters and Contemporary Realities IA

Second-year

• Engineering Chemistry IIA
• Introductory Mineralogy and Earth Sciences
• Computing for Process Engineering
• Introduction to Extractive Metallurgy
• Practical Metallurgy
• Material Science and Engineering
• Process Engineering Fundamentals A
• Economic Concepts IA
• Electrical Engineering
• Mathematics II

Third-year

• Numerical Methods (Metallurgy)
• Engineering Failure Analysis
• Kinetics and Transport Processes in Metallurgical Engineering
• Solidification, Heat Treatment and Microstructure
• Environmental Process Engineering
• Crystal Structure and Analysis
• Corrosion and Wear
• Non-Ferrous Pyrometallurgy
• Metallurgical Thermodynamics I AND II
• Process and Materials Design I AND II
• Engineering Statistics

Fourth-year

• Physical Chemistry of Iron and Steel Manufacturing
• Metallurgical Design
• Research Project
• Management for Process Engineers
• Particulate Systems
• Process Control
• Welding and Forming Processes
• Structure and Properties of Engineering Materials
• Hydrometallurgical Processes

Entry Requirements

APS 42+

English Home Language OR First Additional Language
Level 5

Mathematics
Level 5

Physical Sciences
Level 5

Wait-listing

Students with English, Mathematics and Physics at Level 5 will be wait-listed, subject to place availability. Generally, applicants who achieve 70% in English, Mathematics and Physical Science stand a greater chance of being accepted.