What key themes are present in engineers’ work?

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics to develop solutions for technical, societal and commercial problems. Engineers design materials, structures, and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, and cost. The word engineer is derived from the Latin roots ingeniare («to contrive, devise») and ingenium («cleverness»).The work of engineers forms the link between scientific discoveries and their subsequent applications to human needs and quality of life.

Design. Engineers develop new technological solutions. During the engineering design process, the responsibilities of the engineer may include defining problems, conducting and narrowing research, analyzing criteria, finding and analyzing solutions, and making decisions. Much of an engineer's time is spent on researching, locating, applying, and transferring information. Indeed, research suggests engineers spend 56% of their time engaged in various information behaviours, including 14% actively searching for information.Engineers must weigh different design choices on their merits and choose the solution that best matches the requirements. Their unique task is to identify, understand, and interpret the constraints on a design in order to produce a successful result.

Analysis

Engineers apply techniques of engineering analysis in testing, production, or maintenance. Analytical engineers may supervise production in factories and elsewhere, determine the causes of a process failure, and test output to maintain quality. They also estimate the time and cost required to complete projects. Supervisory engineers are responsible for major components or entire projects. Engineering analysis involves the application of scientific analytic principles and processes to reveal the properties and state of the system, device or mechanism under study. Engineering analysis proceeds by separating the engineering design into the mechanisms of operation or failure, analyzing or estimating each component of the operation or failure mechanism in isolation, and re-combining the components. They may analyze risk. Many engineers use computers to produce and analyze designs, to simulate and test how a machine, structure, or system operates, to generate specifications for parts, to monitor the quality of products, and to control the efficiency of processes.

Specialization and management

Most engineers specialize in one or more engineering disciplines. Each of the major branches of engineering has numerous subdivisions. Civil engineering, for example, includes structural and transportation engineering, and materials engineering includes ceramic, metallurgical, and polymer engineering. Engineers also may specialize in one industry, such as motor vehicles, or in one type of technology, such as turbines or semiconductor materials. Research suggests that there are several key themes present in engineers’ work: (1) technical work (i.e., the application of science to product development); (2) social work (i.e., interactive communication between people); (3) computer-based work; (4) information behaviours.

 

Part II

I. You are going to read three texts about engineering. Decide which of the headings (1 - 6) best correspond to each text (A, B, C). Explain your choice of headings. There are some extra headings that you don't need to use.

 

1. Industrial revolution

2. History of mechanical engineering

3. The origin of the term «engineering»

4. Relationships with other disciplines

5. Main branches of engineering

6. Education of mechanical engineers

 

II. Read the texts more slowly. For information 1 - 10 choose the appropriate text A, B, C.

1. The definition of the term «engineering»

2. The difference between scientists and engineers

3. Subdisciplinces of engineering

4. The origin of aeronautical engineering

5. The origin of the term «engineering»

7. Engineering science

8. New branches of engineering

9. The appearance of the term «civil engineering»

10. The interaction of sciences and engineering practice

11. The definition of mechanical engineering

 

 

Text A

 

Engineering is the discipline and profession of applying technical and scientific knowledge and utilizing natural laws and physical resources in order to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that safely realize a desired objective and meet specified criteria. Engineering is defined as follows:

«The creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions».

The concept of engineering has existed since ancient times as humans devised fundamental inventions such as the pulley, lever, and wheel. Each of these inventions is consistent with the modern definition of engineering, exploiting basic mechanical principles to develop useful tools and objects.

The term «engineering» itself has a much more recent etymology, deriving from the word «engineer», which itself dates back to 1325, when an engine'er (literally, one who operates an engine) originally referred to «a constructor of military engines». In this context, now obsolete, an «engine» referred to a military machine, i.e., a mechanical device used in war (for example, a catapult). The word «engine» itself is of even older origin, ultimately deriving from the Latin ingenium (c. 1250), and meaning «innate quality, especially mental power, hence a clever invention».

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

Text B

SCIENCE

 

«Scientists study the world as it is; engineers create the world that has never been». (Theodore von Kármán)

There exists an overlap between the sciences and engineering practice. In engineering, one applies science. Both areas rely on accurate observation of materials and phenomena. Both use mathematics and classification criteria to analyze and communicate observations. Scientists are expected to interpret their observations and to make expert recommendations for practical action based on those interpretations. Scientists may also have to complete engineering tasks, such as designing experimental apparatus or building prototypes. In the process of developing technology engineers sometimes find themselves exploring new phenomena, thus becoming, for the moment, scientists.

In the book What Engineers Know and How They Know It, Walter Vincenti asserts that engineering research has a character different from that of scientific research. First, it often deals with areas in which the basic physics and chemistry are well understood, but the problems themselves are too complex to solve in an exact manner. Second, engineering research employs many semi-empirical methods that are foreign to pure scientific research, one example being the method of parameter variation.

Engineering is quite different from science. Scientists try to understand nature. Engineers try to make things that do not exist in nature. Engineers stress invention. To embody an invention the engineer must put his idea in concrete terms, and design something that people can use. That something can be a device, a gadget, a material, a method, a computing program, an innovative experiment, a new solution to a problem, or an improvement on what is existing. Since a design has to be concrete, it must have its geometry, dimensions, and characteristic numbers. Almost all engineers working on new designs find that they do not have all the needed information. Most often, they are limited by insufficient scientific knowledge. Thus they study mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and mechanics. Often they have to add to the sciences relevant to their profession. Thus engineering sciences are born.

Scientists and engineers make up less than 5% of the population but create up to 50% of the GDP.

 

 

Text C

 

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. The design of aircraft, spacecraft and related topics. Aeronautical Engineering deals with aircraft design while Aerospace Engineering is a more modern term that expands this discipline by including spacecraft design. Its origins can be traced back to the aviation pioneers around the turn of the century from the 19th century to the 20th although the work of Sir George Cayley has recently been dated as being from the last decade of the 18th century. 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. Meanwhile, research to provide fundamental background science continued by combining theoretical physics with experiments.

- Chemical Engineering. The conversion of raw materials into usable commodities and the optimization of flow systems, especially separations. Chemical Engineering, like its counterpart Mechanical 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, dedicated to the development and large scale manufacturing of chemicals in new industrial plants. The role of the chemical engineer was the design of these chemical plants and processes.

- Civil Engineering. The design and construction of public and private works, such as infrastructure, bridges and buildings.

- Electrical Engineering. The design of electrical systems, such as transformers, as well as electronic goods. 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 speciality.

- Mechanical Engineering. The design of physical or mechanical systems, such as engines, powertrains, kinematic chains and vibration isolation equipment. 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.

With the rapid advancement of technology many new fields are gaining prominence and new branches are developing such as Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Nanotechnology, Molecular Engineering, Mechatronics etc. These new specialities sometimes combine with the traditional fields and form new branches such as Mechanical Engineering and Mechatronics and Electrical and Computer Engineering.

For each of these fields there exists considerable overlap, especially in the areas of the application of sciences to their disciplines such as physics, chemistry and mathematics.

Text D

I. Read the text about mechanical engineering and find answers to the following questions:

1. What is civil engineering?

2. What trend laid the foundation for a new branch of engineering called mechanical engineering?

3. What does mechanical engineering deal with?

 

The term «engineering» is a modern one. However, the art of building houses, palaces, temples, pyramids and other structures was known as far back as many thousand years ago. Now we call it civil engineering. The former included the building of houses, roads, bridges, etc., the latter - the building of fortifications and military devices. As the time went on the art of civil engineering was enriched with new achievements of science. It grew into a profession that required college training. Nowadays civil engineering may be spoken of as an important branch of national economy. It deals not only with the building of houses, bridges, roads, tunnels, dams, water systems, etc., but also with the construction of railroads, underground railways, industrial structures, land, water and air transport, etc.

It is well known that with the invention of the steam engine and the growth of factories a number of civil engineers became interested in the practical application of the science of mechanics and thermodynamics to the design of machines. The result was that they separated themselves from civil engineering and called themselves «mechanical engineers». It was that trend that laid the foundation for a new branch of engineering, the one that was called mechanical engineering.

At present mechanical engineering occupies a prominent position. Mechanical engineering deals with the design and construction of steam engines, turbines, refrigerators and air-conditioning devices. Conveyors, escalators and elevators are also designed by mechanical engineers. And again, it is the mechanical engineer that designs machine tools for various operations and it is he who applies these machine-tools for various operations and production processes.

Mechanical engineering is an engineering discipline that involves the application of principles of physics for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. Mechanical engineering is one of the broadest engineering disciplines.

It requires a solid understanding of core concepts including mechanics, kinematics, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and energy. Mechanical engineers use the core principles as well as other knowledge in the field to design and analyze motor vehicles, aircraft, heating and cooling systems, watercraft, manufacturing plants, industrial equipment and machinery, robotics, medical devices and more.

Text E

I. Read the text about history of mechanical engineering and find answers to the following questions:

1. What influenced mechanics in ancient Greece?

2. Who invented a seismometer?

3. Who was the first to develop an escapement mechanism?

4. What era is called Islamic golden age?

5. What is Islamic golden age famous for?

6. When and where did mechanical engineering become a separate field within engineering?

 

Applications of mechanical engineering are found in the records of many ancient and medieval societies throughout the globe. In ancient Greece, the works of Archimedes (287 BC–212 BC) and Heron of Alexandria (10–70 AD) deeply influenced mechanics in the Western tradition. In China, Zhang Heng (78–139 AD) improved a water clock and invented a seismometer, and Ma Jun (200–265 AD) invented a chariot with differential gears. The medieval Chinese horologist and engineer Su Song (1020–1101 AD) incorporated an escapement mechanism into his astronomical clock tower two centuries before any escapement could be found in clocks of medieval Europe, as well as the world’s first known endless power-transmitting chain drive.

During the years from 7th to 15th century, the era called islamic golden age, there have been remarkable contributions from muslims in the field of mechanical technology, Al Jaziri, who was one of them, wrote his famous «Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices» in 1206 presented many mechanical designs. He is also considered to be the inventor of such mechanical devices which now form the very basic of mechanisms, such as crank and camshafts.

During the early 19th century in England and Scotland, the development of machine tools led mechanical engineering to develop as a separate field within engineering, providing manufacturing machines and the engines to power them. The first British professional society of mechanical engineers was formed in 1847 thirty years after civil engineers formed the first such professional society. In the United States, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) was formed in 1880, becoming the third such professional engineering society, after the American Society of Civil Engineers (1852) and the American Institute of Mining Engineers (1871). The first schools in the United States to offer an engineering education were the United States Military Academy in 1817, an institution now known as Norwich University in 1819, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1825. Education in mechanical engineering has historically been based on a strong foundation in mathematics and science.

Field of mechanical engineering is normally considered the broadest of all engineering disciplines. Work of mechanical engineering can be seen from the bottom of the oceans to the farthest boundaries of space which man has ever been able to reach.

Part III