keith@uiucme.UUCP (02/14/86)
Back to Basics - the essential issues in engineering
subtitle: Loads, Energy, and Information
Fifth of a series
What are the fundamental areas of knowledge required of an engineering
designer? We might attempt to answer that question by considering
the types of problems that must be solved.
Three problem areas, and three corresponding discipline areas,
appear to encompass almost all design problems:
- Structural problems, with emphasis on transmitting a load (force,
moment, etc) to a foundation. The principal reasoning method
is static mechanics.
- "Mechanical" problems, with emphasis on delivering energy, in the
right form, to do work on a location. The principal reasoning
method is dynamic mechanics.
[I don't like to use the term mechanical because it is already in
use for a well-defined part of engineering - but it really does
describe the problem here well.]
- Information problems, with emphasis on moving information and
applying that information. The principal reasoning method
here is not so clear, since almost every discipline (in the
customary sense of the word) has its own "unique" way of dealing
with these problems.
I have ignored one very important aspect of enginering, and that is chemical
engineering. It is important because chemical engineering is how we make
steel and how we make coffee, the two things engineers rely on most.
next instalment: Even more basic issues in design
keith
U of Illinois Mech Eng
seismo!ihnp4!uiucdcs!uiucme!keith
Postscript: I appreciate your comments, Peter Berke, and I am quite
strongly aware of the difficulty women have in breaking into a male-
dominated area. While I was in the military I worked with a woman who
was both a military officer and an engineer. I appreciate her
technical skills, but more than anything I admired her for her patience
with a tradition-bound system. (Between the two of us we spent about
$400,000 of YOUR tax money on research projects each year. Was it
worth it?)
From now on I shall refer to designers as 'weyouhesheitthey' in my postings.