Engineering:
Introduction:
Engineering is the design and construction of machinery, structures, and other things like bridges, tunnels, roads, cars, and buildings using scientific principles. The field of engineering includes a wide variety of more specialized fields, each of which places a greater emphasis on specific domains of applied mathematics, applied science, and application kinds.
Engineering comes from the Latin words ingenium, which means "cleverness," and ingeniare, which means "to contrive, devise."
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Engineering is defined as follows by the American Engineers' Council for Professional Development (ECPD, the forerunner to ABET):
The innovative use of scientific principles to develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them alone or in combination; to build or operate the same with full knowledge of their design; or to predict their behavior under specific operating conditions; all with consideration for an intended function, operational economy, and safety to life and property
History:
Since the dawn of time, when people invented the wedge, lever, wheel, and pulley, among other things, engineering has been a part of humankind.
Engineering is derived from the word engineer, which was first used in the 14th century to refer to "a constructor of military engines." An engine'er is defined as "one who constructs or operates a siege engine." In this now-outdated meaning, the term "engine" refers to a military machine, or a mechanical device employed in battle (for example, a catapult). Military engineering corps, such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, are notable examples of the outmoded usage that has persisted to the present day.
Even further back in time, the Latin word ingenium (around 1250), which means "innate quality, especially mental strength, consequently a smart creation," is ultimately where the word "engine" comes from.
The term "civil engineering" later entered the lexicon as a way to distinguish between those with a focus on the construction of such non-military projects and those engaged in the discipline of military engineering as the design of civilian structures, such as bridges and buildings, matured as a technical discipline.
Ancient civil and military engineers were creative and skilled, as evidenced by the pyramids in ancient Egypt, the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, the Acropolis and Parthenon in Greece, the Roman aqueducts, the Via Appia and Colosseum, Teotihuacán, and the Brihadeeswarar Temple of Thanjavur, among many others. Other buildings that are no longer standing, like the Pharos of Alexandria and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, were notable engineering feats of their era and were included in the list of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Ancient Near Eastern cultures were familiar with the six basic rudimentary machines. Since ancient times, people have been aware of the wedge and the inclined plane (ramp). During the fifth millennium BC, the wheel and wheel-and-axle mechanism were created in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). Around 5,000 years ago, in the Near East, a rudimentary balance scale and ancient Egyptian technology both used the lever mechanism to move heavy things.The first crane machine, the shadoof water-lifting apparatus, which appeared in Mesopotamia around 3000 BC, and then ancient Egyptian technology around 2000 BC, both utilised the lever. The oldest pulleys were used in ancient Egypt during the Twelfth Dynasty and Mesopotamia in the early second millennium BC (1991-1802 BC). During the Neo-Assyrian era (911–609 BC), the screw, the last of the primitive machines to be created, first appeared in Mesopotamia. The inclined plane, the wedge, and the lever, three of the six simple machines, were used to build the Egyptian pyramids, including the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Imhotep is the first civil engineer to have been given a name. Around 2630–2611 BC, he most likely designed and oversaw the construction of the Pyramid of Djoser (the Step Pyramid) at Saqqara in Egypt as one of the Pharaoh Djosèr's officials. The water wheel and watermill, the oldest effective water-powered devices, initially appeared in the Persian Empire, in what are now Iraq and Iran, by the beginning of the 4th century BC.
The Sakia was created by Kush in the fourth century BC and used animal power rather than human energy. In Kush, hafirs were created as a special kind of reservoir to hold and contain water as well as to improve irrigation. During military operations, causeways were constructed by sappers. Speos were constructed by Kushite forebears between 3700 and 3250 BC during the Bronze Age. In Kush, bloomeries and blast furnaces were also built during the seventh century BC.
Both civic and military machines were created in ancient Greece. Greek mechanical engineering can be seen in the Archimedes mechanical inventions and the Antikythera device, the first known mechanical analog computer. Both differential gearing and epicyclic gearing, two fundamental ideas in machine theory that aided in the design of the gear trains used in the Industrial Revolution and are still extensively used today in a variety of fields including robotics and automotive engineering, were necessary for some of Archimedes' inventions as well as the Antikythera mechanism.
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By the ninth century AD, in what are now Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the first effective wind-powered devices—the windmill and wind pump—had made their appearance in the Muslim world. Taqi al-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf in Ottoman Egypt recorded the first functional steam-powered device in 1551; it was a steam jack operated by a steam turbine.
By the sixth century AD, the cotton gin had been developed in India, and by the early eleventh century, the spinning wheel had been developed in the Islamic world. Both of these innovations were critical to the development of the cotton industry. The spinning jenny, a crucial invention during the early Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, was also a forerunner of the spinning wheel.
In the Muslim world, the first programmed devices were created. The first sort of programmable machine was a music sequencer, a musical instrument that could be programmed. The Banu Musa brothers' automated flute player, which was described in their Book of Ingenious Devices, was the first music sequencer. Al-Jazari created programmable robots and automata in 1206. He talked about four robot musicians, including drummers controlled by programmed drum machines, capable of playing various rhythms and drum patterns. Al-hydropowered Jazari's mechanical astronomical clock, the "castle clock," was the world's first programmed analog computer.
Mathematics was employed by artisans and craftspeople such as millwrights, clockmakers, instrument makers, and surveyors before modern engineering was developed. Universities were thought to have had little practical impact on technology outside of these professions.
The mining engineering treatise De re Metallica (1556), which also has sections on geology, mining, and chemistry, serves as a typical source on the state of mechanical arts throughout the Renaissance. For the following 180 years, De re Metallica served as the de facto chemical reference.
The scientific foundation for a large portion of modern engineering is the discipline of classical mechanics, sometimes known as Newtonian mechanics. The phrase was more specifically used to describe domains in which mathematics and science were applied to these aims as engineering emerged as a profession in the 18th century. Similar to how the professions formerly known as the mechanic arts were merged into engineering, along with military and civil engineering.
During the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, canal construction was a significant technical project.
The first self-described civil engineer, John Smeaton, is frequently referred to as the "father" of the field. He was an English civil engineer who was in charge of creating lighthouses, canals, and bridges. He was a distinguished physicist as well as a skilled mechanical engineer. Smeaton experimented with a toy water wheel for seven years to find ways to boost productivity. Water wheels got iron axles and gears thanks to Smeaton.The Newcomen steam engine also received mechanical advancements from Smeaton. Smeaton created the third Eddystone Lighthouse (1755–1799), where he invented the use of "hydraulic lime" (a type of mortar that will set underwater) and created a method for constructing the lighthouse using dovetailed pieces of granite. Because of his identification of the compositional conditions required to get "hydraulicity" in lime—work that ultimately resulted in the invention of Portland cement—he is significant in the history, rediscovery, and development of modern cement.
The steam engine was created using applied science. Beginning with Evangelista Torricelli's invention of the barometer and measurement of atmospheric pressure in 1643, Otto von Guericke's demonstration of the force of atmospheric pressure using the Magdeburg hemispheres in 1656, and laboratory tests by Denis Papin, who built experimental model steam engines and demonstrated the use of a piston, published their findings in 1707, the series of events continued. A mechanism for elevating water that resembles a coffee percolator was included in a book of 100 inventions written by Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester.Thomas Savery studied the steam pump design notes that Samuel Morland, a mathematician and inventor who worked on pumps, had left at the Vauxhall Ordinance Office. The "Miner's Friend" steam pump was created by Savery in 1698. It used both pressure and vacuum. The first commercial piston steam engine was created in 1712 by iron merchant Thomas Newcomen, who is not known to have had any formal instruction in science.
The use of cast iron blowing cylinders powered by steam to pressurize air into blast furnaces resulted in a significant boost in iron production in the late 18th century. Because steam-powered blast furnaces could operate at higher temperatures and consume more lime, the conversion of charcoal to coke was made possible. Due to these inventions, iron became more affordable, enabling the construction of horse trains and iron bridges. Henry Cort's puddling method, which was invented in 1784, generated significant amounts of wrought iron.
James Beaumont Neilson's invention of hot blast resulted in a significant reduction in the amount of fuel required to smelt iron. With the advent of high pressure steam engines, practical steamboats and locomotives were feasible due to the steam engines' high power to weight ratio. The Bessemer process and the open hearth furnace, two new steel manufacturing techniques, helped to establish heavy engineering in the late 19th century.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a well-known engineer of the middle of the 19th century, constructed railroads, docks, and steamships.
Machine tools were developed as a result of the Industrial Revolution's desire for machines with metal components. Prior to John Wilkinson's invention of the boring machine, which is regarded as the first machine tool, it was impossible to precisely bore cast iron cylinders. The screw cutting lathe, milling machine, turret lathe, and metal planer were other machine tools. The first half of the 19th century saw the development of precision machining methods. These included holding the work in the appropriate place with fixtures and using jigs to guide the cutting tool over the job. By the late 19th century, interchangeable components could be produced on a wide scale using machine tools and machining techniques.
The term "engineer" was first recorded in the 1850 census of the United States, which counted 2,000 people in that profession. Before 1865, there were only about 50 engineering graduates in the United States. There were 12 graduates in mechanical engineering in the United States in 1870, and 43 graduates per year in 1875. There were 6,000 civil, mining, mechanical, and electrical engineers in 1890.
Before 1875, neither Cambridge nor Oxford had an applied mechanism and applied mechanics chair, and neither institution had an engineering chair until 1907. Germany pioneered the establishment of technical universities.
The investigations of Alessandro Volta, Michael Faraday, Georg Ohm, and others, as well as the creation of the electric telegraph in 1816 and the electric motor in 1872, laid the groundwork for electrical engineering in the 1800s. The field of electronics was developed as a result of the theoretical work of James Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz in the late 19th century. Electronics technology developed at such a rapid pace thanks to the transistor and vacuum tube discoveries that electrical and electronics professionals now outnumber their counterparts in all other engineering specialties. In the late nineteenth century, chemical engineering was created.By 1880, the necessity for large-scale chemical production had grown to such an extent that a new industry devoted to the research and large-scale manufacturing of chemicals in new industrial plants had been established. Industrial scale manufacturing required new materials and new procedures. The design of these chemical plants and processes was the responsibility of the chemical engineer.
While aerospace engineering is a more recent phrase that broadens the discipline's scope by incorporating spacecraft design, aeronautical engineering focuses on the design of airplanes. Although the work of Sir George Cayley has recently been dated as being from the last decade of the 18th century, its roots can be found with the aviation pioneers at the beginning of the 20th century. Aeronautical engineering's early knowledge was mostly empirical, with certain ideas and techniques adopted from other engineering fields.
Josiah Willard Gibbs of Yale University received the first PhD in engineering (technically, applied science and engineering) and the second PhD in science in the country in 1863.
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Only ten years after the Wright brothers' successful flights, military aircraft deployed in World War I contributed significantly to the development of aeronautical engineering. Meanwhile, theoretical physics and experiment-based research to provide fundamental background science persisted.
