The School of Marine Engineering of Jimei University that is the base of ship and marine engineering discipline, originated from Jimei Maritime Education School founded by the famous patriotic overseas Chinese leader Mr. Chen Jiageng (Tan Kah Kee) in 1920, and now, it has become an important base of China for training advanced marine talents. It has four majors including Shipping and Ocean Engineering Major, Marine Engineering Major, Ship Electronic and Electrical Engineering Major, Electrical Engineering and Automation Major. In recent years, the discipline has made significant progress; in 2013, it was granted the right to confer a doctoral degree; in 2014, it was approved as characteristic key disciplines of Fujian Province.
1. Positioning and target
Based on west-strait economic zone, facing the southeast coast of China, combined with the needs of the industry developments, the aim of ship and marine engineering discipline is to develop as an important training base for innovative advanced engineering technology and management talents required to ship and marine engineering equipment industry, and Maritime transportation sector. The discipline dedicates to research and solve common key industry technical problems and scientific issues, focuses on applied basic research and application research, adheres to characteristic development, services local economic development.
2. Characteristics and advantages
(1) The ship and marine engineering discipline has a disciplinary team with reasonable structure, innovative capability and development potential. It has a faculty of 48 full-time teachers including 17 professors and 4 supervisor of PhD candidates, among them, 32 teachers (about 66.6%) have doctoral degrees and 45% teachers are younger than 45 years old. In order to lay a solid foundation for the sustainable development of the discipline, Prof. Cui Wei-cheng who was the deputy chief designer of “Dragon” deep-sea manned submersible was hired as part-time supervisor of PhD candidates, at the same time, the discipline also hired a “Minjiang Scholar Professor”.
(2) The ship and marine engineering discipline has a good discipline platform with provincial key disciplines, key laboratories and industry technology bases. It has a number of research platforms with distinctive features that can provide good conditions for conducting basic and applied experimental studies.
(3) The ship and marine engineering discipline focuses on local economic development based on west-strait economic zone. It plays important role on the service of marine strategy of Fujian Province, and provides important protection for carrying out joint studies of common key industry technical problems and industry personnel training across the Taiwan Strait.
3. Student training objectives
Master graduates training in the ship and marine engineering discipline should be able to systematically master the basic theoretical and professional knowledge of the discipline; deeply understand its dynamic and cutting-edge developments; with strong laboratory capacity and ability to solve practical problems. PhD recipients should have the ability to undertake independent scientific research, and can make innovative research results in the field of the discipline; at the same time, they should have a comprehensive quality to be competent in the relevant field of teaching, scientific research, engineering technology and engineering management.
4. Subject orientations
4.1. Advanced technique in marine engineering
(1) Air conditioning and refrigeration on ships.
Research is targeted on the on-board application of the progresses achieved in energy saving on air conditioning and refrigeration units used on land. Researches also focused on developing the refrigerated unit for marine reefer containers, adsorption refrigeration units and injection refrigeration units for onboard application purpose.
(2) Emission control and performance optimization on marine diesel engine
Research is conducted for the purpose of energy saving and environment protection of marine diesel engines in terms of electrical control of working cycle of the engine as well as system optimization through simulation and experiment. The investigation has also been performed for developing new kinds of emission control method.
(3) Inhibition of vibration and noise emitted from ship’s power plants
Research is about the technique for weakening the vibration and noise from ship’s power plants by analyzing the characteristic of the vibration and noise from prime movers, shafts and loads.
4.2 Development of utilizing technique for ship and ocean energies
(1) Development of Fuel cell powered propulsion systems and hydrogen storage methods
Research has specially been focused on developing electrical propulsion system powered by fuel cell as well as synthesizing composite for hydrogen storage. Moreover, researches of on board application of liquefied natural gas and adsorbed natural gas have been also conducted.
(2) Waste heat recovery from ship’s power plant
Research has been performed to develop an adsorption cycle for bilge oily water separation unit powered by waste heat. Analysis of the mechanism in thermodynamic aspect for on board desalination and refrigeration is being conducted, and the research of electric power generation has also been carried out.
(3) Development of ocean energy
Research has been conducted on developing corresponding equipments and technologies, which covers offshore wind energy, wave energy as well as ocean thermal energy.
4.3 Marine Electric Propulsion System, Intelligent Control and Marine Information System
(1) Marine Integrated Electric Propulsion System (MIEPS)
MIEPS is focused on three research areas of ship: the fundamental voltage and current distortion in micro-grid and the relevant solutions, the micro-grid-connected inverter technologies in renewable micro-grid, the energy management and optimization techniques in (PV/battery/diesel) hybrid power system.
(2) Intelligent Control for Onshore and Offshore Platform (ICOOP)
Research on the ICOOP is explore the key technologies of onshore and offshore platform and their automation systems, the core techniques of integrated information processing, intelligent evasive strategies and automation for a ship maneuvering intelligent control, along with the simulation and application technologies of marine automatic control system.
(3) Marine Information System and Application Engineering (MISAE)
MISAE is a focal point for the establishment of public services platform based on marine big data and data mining application. It is focused on the key technologies of marine intelligent system such as safety and emission regulations on marine structures, the assessment to energy consumption and the monitoring system for marine environment.
4.4 Design and Construction of Naval Architecture and Ocean Structure
(1) Numerical tank and hydrodynamic performance of ocean structure
Modeling technology for complex-shape appearance of ocean structure. Study on numerical calculation model and method of large-scale and high-accuracy full 3-D flow field. Interaction mechanism, dynamic response, fluid-structure interaction and corresponding numerical simulation technology of wind/wave/current and ocean structure.
(2) The key technology of marine equipment and ship manufacturing
Bearing capacity and stability of marine wind power equipment and research on structural analysis method based on risk assessment technology. Research on advanced manufacturing technology for the key structure of offshore platform, such as the pile legs and the cantilever beams of drilling frame. Application of new composite materials in cruise structure design and research on corresponding manufacturing technology.
(3) Advanced Remanufacturing Technology
Reliability assessment of in-service ship equipment and failure analysis of damage marine machinery based on reliability theory and wear failure. Application research on remanufacturing and anti-corrosive technology of ship and ocean structure using special nano-materials prepared by plasma assisted ball-milling and cold spraying coating.
5. Influence in China and abroad
Fujian province is one of the cradle of China's shipbuilding industry. This discipline is the only base in Fujian province, which is committed to cultivating the high-level professionals in ship and marine engineering. It plays an important role in the revitalization and development of shipbuilding and marine equipment industry in Fujian province. In recent years, a large number of outstanding engineering and technical specialists are supplied to the ship and marine engineering enterprises and institutions both inside and outside Fujian province, and a great quantity of engineering management experts are trained for China's maritime transportation system and areas such as maritime safety administration. We have a good reputation and significant influence in China and abroad.
