Lecture by Dr. C. B. Bhatt, VGEC, Chandkheda, A-2, GTU, Chandkheda (26/11/2016 – time: 03.15 am – 04.00 pm)
Extracted notes from the lecture
What is Engineering?
The primary task of engineering is to find and deliver optimal solutions to real life problems, within the given material, technological, economic, social, and environmental constraints, through the application of scientific, technological and engineering knowledge.
- Steam engine was developed before the law of thermodynamics were developed
- Applications are identified first and background principles later
- We need to know many things beyond science to solve a problem
- Perceptions of many for engineering
- Engineering knowledge is pursued at great efforts and expense in schools of engineering
- Science is seen as revealed knowledge
- Engineering is no merely routine and deductive as assumed in the applied-science model
- Technology is seen as a collection of artifacts on constructed by trial and error
- Activities of engineering
- Organize: bringing into being, get together or arrange
- Design: plans from which the artifice is built
- Construction: production or manufacturing
- Operation: employment of the artifice in meeting the recognized need
- Sources of engineering problems
- Functional failure of current technologies
- Extrapolation from past technologies successes
- Imbalances between related technological successes
- Potential, rather than the actual technological failures
- Perception of a new technological change
- Internal logic of a technology
- Internal needs of design (a better method to charge batteries, a new converter configuration)
- Need for decreased uncertainties (studies on noisy channel)
- Data is a raw information; it needs some context to be attached for data to be meaningful.
- To gain knowledge out of information
- We can apply to various domains and solve problems spread over multiple domains
- Application of domain knowledge in solving problems about another area is possible rather more advantageous
Categories of engineering knowledge
- Fundamental design concepts
- Operational principles of the devices.
- Criteria and Specifications
- It is necessary to translate the qualitative goals for devising into specific, quantitative goals. Design criteria vary widely in perceptibility.
- Theoretical tools
- Mathematical tools
- Physical principles
- Theories based on scientific principles but motivated by and limited to a technologically important class of phenomena or even to a particular device
- Societal problem solution based on engineering principles
- Quantitative data
- Descriptive (physical constants) and prescriptive (how things should be) data
- Practical constraints
- Design instrumentality
Activities through which engineering knowledge acquired
- Transfer from science
- Invention
- Theoretical engineering research
- Experimental engineering research
- Design practice
- Production
Design instrumentality (documentation of thumb rules explained, is missing in most of the cases)
- It is an approach adopted by practicing engineers, identifying and linking it with principles behind such thumb rule based adopted method can be an excellent research
- Top-down approach to design a product
- Phasing of development of a product
- Structuring of an electronic product
- Design walk-throughs
Identify all members of the team early on and include every member in the group communications from the outset
Engineering & Research by Bhasker Vijaykumar Bhatt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It means you are free to use the above content after an appropriate citation.
