Work with a partner to discuss the following.

1. How can the word ‘engineering’ be rendered into Russian?

2. How does it relate to the word ‘engine’?

3. How many branches of engineering can you name?

 

Read the text and draw a diagram of main branches of engineering using the information from the text.

 

Branches of Engineering

 

Engineering, much like science, is a broad discipline which is often broken down into several sub-disciplines. These disciplines concern themselves with different areas of engineering work. Although initially an engineer will be trained in a specific discipline, throughout an engineer's career the engineer may become multi-disciplined, having worked in several of the outlined areas. Historically the main Branches of Engineering are categorized as follows:

 

Aerospace Engineering deals with the design of aircraft, spacecraft and related topics.

Chemical Engineering is concerned with the exploitation of chemical principles in order to carry out large scale chemical processing, as well as designing new materials and fuels.

Civil Engineering is concerned with the design and construction of public and private works, such as infrastructure (roads, railways, water supply and treatment etc.), bridges and buildings.

Electrical Engineering is about the generation and distribution of electricity and its many applications. Electronic engineering is concerned with developing components and equipment for communications, computing, and so on. Electrical engineering includes electricity generating, electrical installation, lighting, etc as well as the installation and maintenance of the equipment involved in these processes.

Mechanical Engineering deals with the design of physical or mechanical systems, such as engines, powertrains, kinematic chains and vibration isolation equipment. Mechanical engineering includes marine, automobile, aeronautical, heating and ventilating, and others.

 

With the rapid advancement of technology many new fields are gaining prominence and new branches are developing such as Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Nanotechnology, Tribology, Molecular Engineering, Mechatronics etc. These new specialties sometimes combine with the traditional fields and form new branches such as Mechanical Engineering and Mechatronics and Electrical and Computer Engineering. Mining and medical engineering belong partly to mechanical and partly to electrical.

 

Use of English 1: language study

 

Deals with/is concerned with

Column A lists a branch of engineering, column B lists things they are concerned with.

A B

mechanical machines

electrical electricity

 

We can show the link between them in a number of ways:

 

1. Mechanical engineering deals with machines.

2. Mechanical engineers deal with machines.

3. Mechanical engineering is concerned with machines.

4. Mechanical engineers are concerned with machines.

5. Machines are the concern of mechanical engineers.

Match each item in column A with an appropriate item from column B and link the two in the sentence.

A 1 marine 2 aeronautical 3 heating and ventilating 4 electricity generating 5 automobile 6 civil 7 electronic 8 electrical installation 9 medical

B a air-conditioning b roads and bridges c body scanners d cables and switch gear e communications and equipment f ships g planes h cars and trucks i power station

Fill in the gaps in the following description of the different branches of engineering using the information from the text and language you have studied in this unit.

 

The main branches of engineering are civil, ___ 1__ _, ___ 2_ __, chemical and aerospace. Mechanical engineering is __ 3 ____ ___4 ___machinery of all kinds. This branch of engineering includes ___ 5_ __, automobile, ___ 6 ___, and heating and ventilating. The first three are concerned with transport: ___7_ __, cars and planes. The last ___8 ___ with air-conditioning, refrigeration, etc.

Electrical engineering deals with ___ 9 ___ from generation to use. Electricity generating is concerned with ___ 10 ___stations. Electrical installation deals ___ 11 ___ cables, switchgear, and connecting up electrical equipment.

Two branches of engineering include both ___ 12 ___ and ___ 13 ___ engineering. These are mining and ___ 14 ____ engineering. The former deals with mines and mining equipment, the latter with hospital ___ 15 ___ of all kinds.

Use of English 1: grammar Passive Voice

Rewrite each sentence in the passive form.

1. Engineers use math and science to solve problems and create new products and services.

2. Alan Darbyshire has designed this book as a full programme of study for mechanical engineering students. The author has structured the material into sections. In-text questions, Key Points and Activity panels complement each section making this an ideal book for classroom learning and independent study.

3. Milton Roy, a chemical engineer, developed the first portable kidney dialysis machine in 1964.

4. United States aerospace engineers launched the first American satellite on January 31, 1958 in response to the USSR launching Sputnik on October 4, 1957.

5. The largest Russian marine engineering design bureau “Rubin” is successfully implementing state-of-the-art techniques into the development of different projects.

6. A degree in electrical engineering can open many doors to university graduates because electrical engineering is so broad and acquired skills are transferable.

7. Most people associate civil engineering with bridges, roads, buildings and factories. Indeed, we can view it as something that covers everything we need in life. We can brake it down into four strands: structural, geotechnical, transport and environmental engineering.

Complete the text below using the correct form (active or passive) of the verbs in brackets. Guess which branch of engineering the process described in the text relates to.

Drilling for oil – past and present

Long ago, wells (1) ________ (dig) in the ground using percussion drilling. A heavy wooden cutting tool (2) ________ (suspend) by a rope from a pulley on a wooden tripod. The tool (3) ________ (pull up) by hand or steam engine, and then it (4) ________ (drop) into the hole. The rock (5) ________ (break) by the weight of the tool. The maximum depth was only about 70 metres.

Nowadays, much deeper oil wells of 700 m (6) ________ (dig) using a method called rotary drilling. A sharp drill bit (7) ________ (suspend) by a drill string from a pulley on a steel derrick. The drill bit (8) ________ (rotate) in the hole by a powerful engine. The rock (9) _______ (break) by the rotation of the drill bit.

Now there is also a new method of drilling which (10) ________ (cut) the rock using lasers. No cutting tool or drill bit (11) ________ (use). Instead, the rock (12) ________ (split) by beams of high-energy light. A fibre-optic cable (13) ________ (carry) the light from the lasers on the surface down the hole to a set of lenses. The lenses then (14) ________ (focus) the light to a sharp point on the rock face, which (15) ________ (cut) almost 100 times faster than by a drill bit. As a result, the cost of drilling (16) ________ (reduce), and drilling jobs (17) ________ (complete) much more quickly.

 

 

Reading 2

 

8. Read the text and say if the sentences are true or false. Correct the false ones:

1) “Engineering” is the name of the profession of an engineer.

2) The term “engineering” originally referred to military engines.

3) Civil engineering was a discipline studying the construction of non-military projects.

4) William Gilbert was the inventor of the electric motor.

5) Industrial revolution began at the end of the 17^th century with the invention of the steam engine.

6) The need for large scale production of chemicals gave rise to development of chemical engineering.

7) Aeronautical engineering dates back to early times.

Engineering

 

Engineering is the science, discipline, art and profession of acquiring and applying technical, scientific and mathematical knowledge to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that safely realize a desired objective or inventions.

 

History

The concept of engineering has existed since ancient times as humans devised fundamental inventions such as the pulley, lever, and wheel. The term engineering itself has a much more recent etymology, deriving from the word engineer, which itself dates back to 1325, when an engineer (literally, one who operates an engine) originally referred to a constructor of military engines.

 

Later, as the design of civilian structures such as bridges and buildings matured as a technical discipline, the term Civil engineering entered the lexicon as a way to distinguish between those specializing in the construction of such non-military projects and those involved in the older discipline of military engineering.

 

The first electrical engineer is considered to be William Gilbert, with his 1600 publication of De Magnete, who was the originator of the term "electricity". Electrical Engineering can trace its origins in the experiments of Alessandro Volta in the 1800s, the experiments of Michael Faraday, Georg Ohm and others and the invention of the electric motor in 1872.

 

The work of James Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz in the late 19th century gave rise to the field of Electronics. The later inventions of the vacuum tube and the transistor further accelerated the development of Electronics to such an extent that electrical and electronics engineers currently outnumber their colleagues of any other Engineering specialty.

 

The first steam engine was built in 1698 by mechanical engineer Thomas Savery. The development of this device gave rise to the industrial revolution in the coming decades, allowing for the beginnings of mass production. The inventions of Thomas Savery and the Scottish engineer James Watt gave rise to modern Mechanical Engineering. The development of specialized machines and their maintenance tools during the industrial revolution led to the rapid growth of Mechanical Engineering both in its birthplace Britain and abroad.

 

Chemical Engineering developed in the nineteenth century during the Industrial Revolution. Industrial scale manufacturing demanded new materials and new processes and by 1880 the need for large scale production of chemicals was such that a new industry was created. The role of the chemical engineer was the design of these chemical plants and processes.

 

Aeronautical Engineering deals with aircraft design while Aerospace Engineering is a more modern term. Its origins can be traced back to the aviation pioneers around the turn of the century from the 19th century to the 20th. Early knowledge of aeronautical engineering was largely empirical with some concepts and skills imported from other branches of engineering.

Only a decade after the successful flights by the Wright brothers, the 1920s saw extensive development of aeronautical engineering through development of World War I military aircraft.

 

Use of English 2: vocabulary