Naval engineering is a rewarding career that offers challenge, excitement and satisfaction. It is an opportunity to enjoy your proficiency in mathematics and science in a career both steeped in tradition and at the cutting edge of technology. You can be a recognized professional serving one of America's most honored and historic industries, in a technical field where you can see and take pride in the product of your effort.

As a naval engineer, you can design, build, operate or maintain ships as diverse as Navy aircraft carriers and submarines, Coast Guard cutters, or commercial passenger and cargo vessels.

A choice to become a naval engineer will lead you to a broad variety of engineering and physical science skills.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Naval architects must have a general understanding of all engineering disciplines because they generally start the process of designing a ship. After they determine its basic size and shape, they address hull form and resistance, propulsion power requirements, ship structure, weight distribution, stability and the efficient location of the many compartments throughout the ship. 

Marine engineers are responsible for designing mechanical systems for propulsion and auxiliary services, and selecting the associated equipment such as steam boilers and turbines, diesel and gas turbine internal combustion engines, gears.

Mechanical engineers design specific items of machinery like cranes, hoists, elevators, and equipment for anchoring, steering, controlling submarine depth, or moving weapons and other supplies within the ship as well as between ships at sea. A knowledge of fluid systems is required for designing fuel, lubrication and water installations, as well as firefighting, compressed air, and heating, ventilating, and air conditioning.

Civil engineers specify the actual structure of the ship including framing, shell, decks, bulkheads and equipment foundations. They ensure that the ship can withstand the weight of cargo loading and the impact of waves. Combat ships must be able to withstand battle damage from weapons such as missiles, torpedoes and underwater mines.

Electrical engineers provide for the generation and distribution of electricity throughout the ship for lighting, power, system controls and various other ship's services. Today's ships also require a multitude of electronic navigation, communication, and combat systems. 

Ocean engineers concern themselves with work both on and below the surface of the sea and study ocean movements and their effect on ships and craft both on the surface and submerged. An ocean engineer may design small sub-surface vehicles and devices intended for deep submergence that perform ocean bottom scanning, salvage operations, object recovery and submarine rescue. The work includes structural, propulsion, and hull form design for resisting deep ocean pressure, and selection of materials for this hostile environment.

CAREER PATHS

Combat systems and technologies related to Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) constitute the most exciting, challenging, and rapidly changing fields in naval engineering. Weapons systems include guns, missiles, torpedoes, and the weapons carried by Navy aircraft. Their design includes place-ment in the ship and integration of equipment such as radar, sonar, periscopes, launchers, and missile control systems (including lasers and satellites). Weapons design, installation, and operation require a variety of disciplines including aeronautical engineering for air frames, chemical engineering for propulsion, electronics engineering for tracking, guiding and controlling, physics for acoustics and electro-optics, and mechanical engineering for loading, rotating and elevating weapons launchers.

Shipbuilding is the process of converting a design into steel. For the shipyard engineer, it involves planning, scheduling and industrial engi-neering for shop and welding procedures, and modern con-struction techniques. Each action in building the ship must be defined in detailed drawings and standard procedures. Every shipyard laborer must have direction as to what he must accomplish each day if the ship is to be delivered on time and at cost. Shipyards also do repair, conversion, and modernization, all of which require these same skills.

Research, development, test and evaluation offer the naval engineer a unique and creative opportunity to perform collaborative work with scientists. The process of developing an engineering concept begins with fundamental theories and ideas, and proceeds through scientific analyses, feasibility studies, collection and analysis of data, design, simulation and modeling, fabrication, model testing, evaluation at sea, and final adoption. RTD&E depends on the physical sciences such as physics, chemistry and metallurgy. This field of naval engineering spans the entire spectrum of engineering and scientific disciplines, and applies to issues such as advanced hull forms, behavior of ships at sea, and development of new materials and technical processes.