Career Change: Civil (Struct) to Aero (UK) - is it possible/worth it? 2

[Tabaluga]

All the best in the New Year from a new member!

New Year's Day - resolutions, ahh... ;-)... so I thought I'd ask for advise about the following:

I currently work and live in the SW of England where strangely, given the current economic climate, there seem to exist some job openings in the aero industry (EADS, British Aerospace/Rolls Royce) - at least that's the impression I get when looking at, say justengineers.net. That got me thinking, would a move be possible for a post such as that of a fatigue/stress/composites stress engineer or related - but w/o the need of pursuing another degree?

I hold an MEng in Civil with about 9 yrs of varied civil experience - including 3 yrs in bridge design (current post) and analysis - these are fairly straight forward applications/analyses.

The motivation for this came back to me a couple years back when I first moved to this part of the country, met some people in the industry and saw these job adverts. I was originally considering aero when at uni, but due to the timing (end of the Cold War), there was a lot of employment uncertainty for the aero graduate out there - and so in the end I opted for a safer route of civil. The only connection with the aviation industry is my certified training as airframe and power plant technician which I did prior to uni. Could this fact make the potential switch more justifiable in the eyes of the employer (that is the only thing that can make me stand out)?

As for personal constraints: I am in my mid 30s, have a family (with all the obligations that come with it, both financial and time), so getting another degree is probably out of question for me. Also, it is not that I am unhappy or dislike where I currently am professionally, but more the case of unrealised interest/opportunity, which suddenly appears to be within reach... Or is the whole idea just the classic case of the "grass is greener elsewhere..." syndrome.. on a cold, harsh New Year's Day...?!

Has anyone considered a similar move themselves or know of anyone? Is it a lost case or could there be hope? All helpful advice will be much appreciated.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

 

[SWComposites]

Hi - some thoughts from a long time aircraft stress guy on the other side of the pond ..

- you don't need another degree

- there are lots of aircraft stress guys with Civil Eng degrees

- in some ways a Civil Eng degree is better preparation for aircraft stress analysis than a Mechanical degree (more thermo, fluids, mechanisms) or an Aero degree (more aero fluids, controls, etc).

- virtually no university degree prepares one for aircraft stress analysis; it is essentially all learned on the job

- suggest looking for short courses (week long or so) in a) Aircraft Stress Analysis and b) Composite Structures Analysis taught by industry professionals; there are several taught here in the States; probably some in the UK. These are offered either through technical societies, or university "extension" departments. EADS/BA/RR probably also have in house courses.

- suggest purchasing the following texts:
= Airframe Structural Design, Niu
= Airframe Stress Analysis and Sizing, Niu
= Composite Airframe Structure, Niu
= Formulas for Stress and Strain, Roark
= Aircraft Structures, Perry (1st Edition if you can find one)
= Mechanics of Composite Materials, Jones
= ASM Handbook, Volume 21, Composites

- with your civil structure background, you will do fine if you understand:
= what a load path is (it is surprisingly shocking how many don't know this)
= general material behaviour (stress-strain response, failure mechanisms) of common materials (aluminum, titanium, composites)
= general structural failure modes (yield, fracture, buckling, etc)
= that FE analysis is just a tool (though it does have more use that just providing pretty picture to impress management), only provides approximate answers to an idealized problem, is not a be-all end-all method to bludgeon the problem into submission, and can be easily miss used to generate far to many less than useful results, and only provides results for the requested solutions (ie it is easy to miss important failure modes)
= and that aircraft are designed for minimum weight, and that lots and lots of effort will go into "optimizing" the analysis and design to shave off seemingly small amounts of material

- whether the job is better, you will have to decide. The aerospace industry is very cyclical, so keep that in mind. And some jobs can be mind numbingly tedious. There are lots of rivets/fasteners on an aircraft, and unlike for a bridge, every last stinking one of them has to be analyzed (though now days there are ways to automate the process, somewhat).

Also, get the highest salary as possible at the start. Aerospace companies are not known for good raises. And aerospace company HR departments like to make low ball offers, so try to get some inside info on actual salaries for the local companies.

Cheers,

Steve

 

[HSNIC]

Definitely weigh those options out. From your words, it seems that you have quite the bit of experience in Civil. If things go sour in Aerospace, I am sure you will not have trouble regaining civil engineering employment. Spread your horizon and put on another hat.

 

[Tabaluga]

SWComposites - thanks a lot for your time and effort - a very helpful response!

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

 

[TomLaxey]

hi Tabaluga

I know a few people who work in the stress analysis field. There are lots of opportunities.

Firstly, your degree would be fine, there are lots of aero stress guys who don't much about planes, or fluids etc.
The main thing is you are in control of the code you're using, and understand the physics of the situation. (there's lots of duff FEA out there...)

The jobs in this field seem to be quite transient - when there's a new programme, the companies will want loads of engineers, but then may let a lot go if things quieten down. For that reason, a lot stress engineers are contractors, it means they get a good salary, variety of work, and flexibility. I've known a lot of people move companies to contracting and back again.

Another aspect is to consider another field, such as automotive, or perphaps an area within civil engineering that will get you some experience on the Industry standard stress codes (PATRAN/NASTRAN? I think)

Finally, with 9yrs behind you, you may find you have to 'go down a rung or two' in the career ladder, to get some experience. This may be tricky from the salaries perspective.

Finally, the grass is not always greener. Aerospace might seem cool, and it kind of is, but individual engineers are very small cogs in a big machine - it takes lots and lots of engineers to get a new plane in the air, but it might still be good to get that experience.

From my own perspective, I have about 8 yrs of experience as a performance engineer, and I recently joined industry, but because I'm perceived as having 'specialist' knowledge, there's little or no scope for me to branch into new areas, such as aerodynamics or stress, such as what you want to do.