Engineering Specialities

Today machines have to withstand such tremendous stresses and to be able of such complex motions that complicated and specialized calculations taking hundreds of factors into account are needed in the design of even quite a simple machine like a motor-car engine.

So, as engineering progresses, engineers must become ever more scientific and specialized. Today the branches of engineering are so wide that it is impossible to classify them satisfactorily. But we may try to divide them into uses. The main divisions of engineering may be listed as follows:

1. Mechanical engineering.

Steam engines, internal combustion engines, turbines (steam, gas, water), pumps; compressors; machine-tools; mechanisms.

2. Electrical engineering:

a) power: generators; motors; transformers; transmission (power lines and so on);

b) electronics: radio, radar, television.

3. Civil engineering.

Dams; tunnels; roads, and so on.

4. Structural engineering.

The structural details of all large buildings and bridges.

5. Chemical engineering.

Any of these branches of engineering may require the special services of the following specialists: the metallurgist; the strength of materials expert; the thermodynamics of heat expert, the mechanics or machines experts; the various production engineering experts such as the engineering designer or the tool designer; the mathematician specializing in engineering problems and many more.

The engineer must also deal with the economists to assure himself that he is producing what is wanted economically.

Because of the large number of engineering fields today there are often many different kinds of engineers working on large projects such as the development of a new aircraft. In the design of a new aircraft mechanical engineers work not only on the plane’s engines but on other mechanical aspects such as the braking system. When the aircraft goes into production mechanical and industrial engineers are involved in designing machines necessary to fabricate the different parts as well as the entire system for assembling them. In both phases of such a project mechanical engineers work with specialists in the fields of aerospace and electronic engineering. Each engineer is a member of a team often headed by a systems engineer able to combine the contributions made by all the different disciplines.

Another result of the increase of scientific knowledge is that engineering has become a profession. A profession is an occupation like law or medicine that requires specialized advanced education – at least four or five years of university study leading to a Bachelor of Science degree. More and more often engineers, especially those engaged in research, get an advanced Master’s or Doctor’s degree.