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Engineering, term applied to the profession in which a knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences,
gained by study, experience, and practice, is applied to the efficient use of the materials and forces of nature.
The term engineer properly denotes a person who has received professional training in pure and applied
science, but is often loosely used to describe the operator of an engine, as in the terms locomotive engineer,
marine engineer, or stationary engineer. In modern terminology these latter occupations are known as crafts or
trades. Between the professional engineer and the craftsperson or tradesperson, however, are those individuals
known as subprofessionals or paraprofessionals, who apply scientific and engineering skills to technical
problems; typical of these are engineering aides, technicians, inspectors, draftsmen, and the like. Before the
middle of the 18th century, large-scale construction work was usually placed in the hands of military engineers.
Military engineering involved such work as the preparation of topographical maps, the location, design, and
construction of roads and bridges; and the building of forts and docks. In the 18th century, however, the term
civil engineering came into use to describe engineering work that was performed by civilians for nonmilitary
purposes. With the increasing use of machinery in the 19th century, mechanical engineering was recognized as
a separate branch of engineering, and later mining engineering was similarly recognized. The technical advances
of the 19th century greatly broadened the field of engineering and introduced a large number of engineering
specialties, and the rapidly changing demands of the socioeconomic environment in the 20th century have
widened the scope even further.
Science and Technology
The meanings of the terms science and technology have changed significantly from one
generation to another.
More similarities than differences, however, can be found between the terms. Both science
and technology
imply a thinking process, both are concerned with causal relationships in the material
world, and both employ an
experimental methodology that results in empirical demonstrations that can be verified by
repetition. Science, at
least in theory, is less concerned with the practicality of its results and more concerned
with the development of
general laws, but in practice science and technology are inextricably involved with each
other. The varying
interplay of the two can be observed in the historical development of such practitioners
as chemists, engineers,
physicists, astronomers, carpenters, potters, and many other specialists. Differing
educational requirements,
social status, vocabulary, methodology, and types of rewards, as well as institutional
objectives and
professional goals, contribute to such distinctions as can be made between the activities
of scientists and
technologists; but throughout history the practitioners of “pure” science have
made many practical as well as
theoretical contributions. Indeed, the concept that science provides the ideas for
technological innovations and
that pure research is therefore essential for any significant advancement in industrial
civilization is essentially a
myth. Most of the greatest changes in industrial civilization cannot be traced to the
laboratory. Fundamental
tools and processes in the fields of mechanics, chemistry, astronomy, metallurgy, and
hydraulics were
developed before the laws governing their functions were discovered. The steam engine, for
example, was
commonplace before the science of thermodynamics elucidated the physical principles
underlying its
operations. In recent years a sharp value distinction has grown up between science and
technology. Advances
in science have frequently had their bitter opponents, but today many people have come to
fear technology
much more than science. For these people, science may be perceived as a serene, objective
source for
understanding the eternal laws of nature, whereas the practical manifestations of
technology in the modern
world now seem to them to be out of control.
Fields of Engineering
The main branches of engineering are discussed below. The engineer who works in any of
these fields usually
requires a basic knowledge of the other engineering fields, because most engineering
problems are complex and
interrelated. Thus a chemical engineer designing a plant for the electrolytic refining of
metal ores must deal with
the design of structures, machinery, and electrical devices, as well as with purely
chemical problems. Besides
the principal branches discussed below, engineering includes many more specialties than
can be described here,
such as acoustical engineering, architectural engineering, automotive engineering, ceramic
engineering,
transportation engineering, and textile engineering.
Aeronautical and
Aerospace Engineering deals with the whole field of
design, manufacture, maintenance,
testing, and use of aircraft for both civilian and military purposes. It involves the
knowledge of aerodynamics,
structural design, propulsion engines, navigation, communication, and other related areas.
Aerospace
engineering is closely allied to aeronautics, but is concerned with the flight of vehicles
in space, beyond the
earth's atmosphere, and includes the study and development of rocket engines, artificial
satellites, and
spacecraft for the exploration of outer space.
Chemical Engineering is concerned with the design, construction, and management of
factories in which the
essential processes consist of chemical reactions. Because of the diversity of the
materials dealt with, the
practice, for more than 50 years, has been to analyze chemical engineering problems in
terms of fundamental unit
operations or unit processes such as the grinding or pulverizing of solids. It is the task
of the chemical engineer
to select and specify the design that will best meet the particular requirements of
production and the most
appropriate equipment for the new applications. With the advance of technology, the number
of unit operations
increases, but of continuing importance are distillation, crystallization, dissolution,
filtration, and extraction. In
each unit operation, engineers are concerned with four fundamentals: (1) the conservation
of matter; (2) the
conservation of energy; (3) the principles of chemical equilibrium; (4) the principles of
chemical reactivity. In
addition, chemical engineers must organize the unit operations in their correct sequence,
and they must
consider the economic cost of the overall process. Because a continuous, or assembly-line,
operation is more
economical than a batch process, and is frequently amenable to automatic control, chemical
engineers were
among the first to incorporate automatic controls into their designs.
Civil engineering is perhaps the broadest of the engineering fields, for it deals
with the creation, improvement,
and protection of the communal environment, providing facilities for living, industry and
transportation,
including large buildings, roads, bridges, canals, railroad lines, airports, water-supply
systems, dams, irrigation,
harbors, docks, aqueducts, tunnels, and other engineered constructions. The civil engineer
must have a
thorough knowledge of all types of surveying, of the properties and mechanics of
construction materials, the
mechanics of structures and soils, and of hydraulics and fluid mechanics. Among the
important subdivisions of
the field are construction engineering, irrigation engineering, transportation
engineering, soils and foundation
engineering, geodetic engineering, hydraulic engineering, and coastal and ocean
engineering.
Electrical and
Electronics Engineering, the largest and most diverse
field of engineering, it is concerned with
the development and design, application, and manufacture of systems and devices that use
electric power and
signals. Among the most important subjects in the field in the late 1980s are electric
power and machinery,
electronic circuits, control systems, computer design, superconductors, solid-state
electronics, medical imaging
systems, robotics, lasers, radar, consumer electronics, and fiber optics. Despite its
diversity, electrical
engineering can be divided into four main branches: electric power and machinery,
electronics, communications
and control, and computers.
Geological and
Mining Engineering includes activities related to the
discovery and exploration of mineral
deposits and the financing, construction, development, operation, recovery, processing,
purification, and
marketing of crude minerals and mineral products. The mining engineer is trained in
historical geology,
mineralogy, paleontology, and geophysics, and employs such tools as the seismograph and
the magnetometer
for the location of ore or petroleum deposits beneath the surface of the earth. The
surveying and drawing of
geological maps and sections is an important part of the work of the engineering
geologist, who is also
responsible for determining whether the geological structure of a given location is
suitable for the building of
such large structures as dams.
Industrial or
Management Engineering pertains to the efficient use of
machinery, labor, and raw materials in
industrial production. It is particularly important from the viewpoint of costs and
economics of production,
safety of human operators, and the most advantageous deployment of automatic machinery.
Mechanical Engineering, Engineers in this field design, test, build, and operate machinery
of all types; they
also work on a variety of manufactured goods and certain kinds of structures. The field is
divided into (1)
machinery, mechanisms, materials, hydraulics, and pneumatics; and (2) heat as applied to
engines, work and
energy, heating, ventilating, and air conditioning. The mechanical engineer, therefore,
must be trained in
mechanics, hydraulics, and thermodynamics and must be fully grounded in such subjects as
metallurgy and
machine design. Some mechanical engineers specialize in particular types of machines such
as pumps or steam
turbines. A mechanical engineer designs not only the machines that make products but the
products
themselves, and must design for both economy and efficiency. A typical example of the
complexity of modern
mechanical engineering is the design of an automobile, which entails not only the design
of the engine that
drives the car but also all its attendant accessories such as the steering and braking
systems, the lighting
system, the gearing by which the engine's power is delivered to the wheels, the controls,
and the body,
including such details as the door latches and the type of seat upholstery.
Military Engineering is concerned with the application of the engineering sciences to
military purposes. It is
generally divided into permanent land defense and field engineering. In war, army engineer
battalions have been
used to construct ports, harbors, depots, and airfields. In the U.S., military engineers
also construct some public
works, national monuments, and dams. Military engineering has become an increasingly
specialized science,
resulting in separate engineering subdisciplines such as ordnance, which applies
mechanical engineering to the
development of guns and chemical engineering to the development of propellants, and the
Signal Corps, which
applies electrical engineering to all problems of telegraph, telephone, radio, and other
communication.
Naval or Marine
Engineering, Engineers who have the overall
responsibility for designing and supervising
construction of ships are called naval architects. The ships they design range in size
from ocean-going
supertankers as much as 1300 feet long to small tugboats that operate in rivers and bays.
Regardless of size,
ships must be designed and built so that they are safe, stable, strong, and fast enough to
perform the type of
work intended for them. To accomplish this, a naval architect must be familiar with the
variety of techniques of
modern shipbuilding, and must have a thorough grounding in applied sciences, such as fluid
mechanics, that
bear directly on how ships move through water. Marine engineering is a specialized branch
of mechanical
engineering devoted to the design and operation of systems, both mechanical and
electrical, needed to propel a
ship. In helping the naval architect design ships, the marine engineer must choose a
propulsion unit, such as a
diesel engine or geared steam turbine, that provides enough power to move the ship at the
speed required. In
doing so, the engineer must take into consideration how much the engine and fuel bunkers
will weigh and how
much space they will occupy, as well as the projected costs of fuel and maintenance.
Nuclear Engineering is concerned with the design and construction of nuclear reactors
and devices, and the
manner in which nuclear fission may find practical applications, such as the production of
commercial power
from the energy generated by nuclear reactions and the use of nuclear reactors for
propulsion and of nuclear
radiation to induce chemical and biological changes. In addition to designing nuclear
reactors to yield specified
amounts of power, nuclear engineers develop the special materials necessary to withstand
the high
temperatures and concentrated bombardment of nuclear particles that accompany nuclear
fission and fusion.
Nuclear engineers also develop methods to shield people from the harmful radiation
produced by nuclear
reactions and to ensure safe storage and disposal of fissionable materials.
Safety Engineering has as its object the prevention of accidents. In recent years
safety engineering has become
a specialty adopted by individuals trained in other branches of engineering. Safety
engineers develop methods
and procedures to safeguard workers in hazardous occupations. They also assist in
designing machinery,
factories, ships, and roads, suggesting alterations and improvements to reduce the
likelihood of accident. In the
design of machinery, for example, the safety engineer seeks to cover all moving parts or
keep them from
accidental contact with the operator, to put cutoff switches within reach of the operator,
and to eliminate
dangerous projecting parts. In designing roads the safety engineer seeks to avoid such
hazards as sharp turns
and blind intersections, known to result in traffic accidents. Many large industrial and
construction firms, and
insurance companies engaged in the field of workers compensation, today maintain safety
engineering
departments.
Sanitary Engineering is a branch of civil engineering, but because of its great
importance for a healthy
environment, especially in dense urban-population areas, it has acquired the importance of
a specialized field. It
chiefly deals with problems involving water supply, treatment, and distribution; disposal
of community wastes
and reclamation of useful components of such wastes; control of pollution of surface
waterways, groundwaters,
and soils; milk and food sanitation; housing and institutional sanitation; rural and
recreational-site sanitation;
insect and vermin control; control of atmospheric pollution; industrial hygiene, including
control of light, noise,
vibration, and toxic materials in work areas; and other fields concerned with the control
of environmental factors
affecting health. The methods used for supplying communities with pure water and for the
disposal of sewage
and other wastes are described separately.
Modern Engineering Trends
Scientific methods of engineering are applied in several fields not connected directly to
manufacture and
construction. Modern engineering is characterized by the broad application of what is
known as systems
engineering principles. The systems approach is a methodology of decision-making in
design, operation, or
construction that adopts (1) the formal process included in what is known as the
scientific method; (2) an
interdisciplinary, or team, approach, using specialists from not only the various
engineering disciplines, but
from legal, social, aesthetic, and behavioral fields as well; (3) a formal sequence of
procedure employing the
principles of operations research. In effect, therefore, transportation engineering in its
broadest sense includes
not only design of the transportation system and building of its lines and rolling stock,
but also determination
of the traffic requirements of the route followed. It is also concerned with setting up
efficient and safe
schedules, and the interaction of the system with the community and the environment.
Engineers in industry
work not only with machines but also with people, to determine, for example, how machines
can be operated
most efficiently by the workers. A small change in the location of the controls of a
machine or of its position
with relation to other machines or equipment, or a change in the muscular movements of the
operator, often
results in greatly increased production. This type of engineering work is called
time-study engineering. A
related field of engineering, human-factors engineering, also known as ergonomics,
received wide attention in
the late 1970s and the '80s when the safety of nuclear reactors was questioned following
serious accidents that
were caused by operator errors, design failures, and malfunctioning equipment.
Human-factors engineering
seeks to establish criteria for the efficient, human-centered design of, among other
things, the large, complicated
control panels that monitor and govern nuclear reactor operations. Among various recent
trends in the
engineering profession, licensing and computerization are the most widespread. Today, many
engineers, like
doctors and lawyers, are licensed by the state. Approvals by professionally licensed
engineers are required for
construction of public and commercial structures, especially installations where public
and worker safety is a
consideration. The trend in modern engineering offices is overwhelmingly toward
computerization. Computers
are increasingly used for solving complex problems as well as for handling, storing, and
generating the
enormous volume of data modern engineers must work with. The National Academy of
Engineering, founded in
1964 as a private organization, sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national
needs, encourages
new research, and is concerned with the relationship of engineering to society.
