Engineering

This branch of engineering was unheard of until the Wright Brothers made their historic flight in 1903. After this event, major developments took place in the field of aeronautical engineering, which basically deals with everything related to aircrafts. During the First World War, many new aircrafts and missiles were developed for military purposes and this gave further boost to its growth.

The study of space was also included in aerospace engineering only in 1958. This expanded the scope of aerospace engineering and gave it a greater chance for taking risks and putting innovative ideas into action. The progress of this branch of engineering is being overseen by many major aerospace corporations like Airbus, Boeing, Honeywell, Embraer, etc.

Aerospace engineering deals with design and manufacture of aircraft or spacecraft structures, craft guidance systems, control and navigations systems, developing tools for communication and finally the production of the aircraft or spacecraft. Each of these areas of aerospace engineering is crucial for efficient functioning of the aircraft or spacecraft. Hence, aerospace engineering has been divided appropriately and knowledge is imparted to aspiring engineers in each of these areas along with the necessary practical training to equip them to deal with the challenges in this field.

Aerospace engineers have acquired major importance in the recent days. They are employed to design and manufacture aircrafts, spacecrafts and missiles. While there may be only a few agencies in the world dealing with space research, there is a wide range of companies working on innovative new designs for aircrafts. A skilled aerospace engineer can surely find good opportunities in any of these companies.

When you come to the issue of missiles, there are many government funded institutions working on different military projects. The aim of these companies is to produce missiles and other similar technologies for a country to improve its defensive capabilities. These military projects provide an excellent opportunity for proficient aerospace engineers to showcase their talents to the world.

The main function of automotive engineering is to enable smooth production process and also ensure that all systems of the car coordinate with each other properly. Automotive engineers first go through the requirements given by the buyer. Then the design for each component is loaded into the computers and the automated production is set into process after issuing the right command to each production tool.

There are certain areas that automotive engineers are concerned about when it comes to the production of vehicles. These are:

In the early days, the manufacture of each automobile component and their assembling was done manually by workers. But now, a number of automated instruments are used to make this process simpler. For instance, cars are built in huge car plants which are run on assembly lines. They have the capacity to roll out even 50,000 vehicles a year.

Any error in the system can be detected from a central computer and can be corrected within no time. This is helped to decrease dependency on manpower and increase the production efficiency. This has also made vehicle safer and better than before.

Due to increase in the scope of civil engineering with the passage of time, it has now got diversified into many branches of study. Some of the significant ones include structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, transportation engineering, hydraulic engineering, environmental engineering and a few more important areas of study.

The most important task of civil engineering is design and planning of various structures. For this purpose, the forces acting on each nook and corner of the structure are analyzed and a stable design is finalized. This process is crucial because all the stresses and strains that arise within the structure are to be neutralized to keep the structure erect. Civil engineers must also provide allowance for deviations due to wind, seismic activity or other natural calamities, only then can the buildings resist the impact of natural forces.

Civil engineers are also responsible for building good quality transportation systems like highways, airports, rail lines, sea ports, etc. A civil engineer is concerned with determining the right design for these structures and looking after the construction process so that the longevity of these structures is guaranteed after completion. These structures should also be satisfactory for the public in terms of comfort.

Apart from structures on land and general transportation systems, civil engineers are also responsible for building good transportation systems for flow of water, i.e. the water distribution systems. The main activities in this undertaking are designing pipelines for flow of water, drainage facilities, canals, dams, etc. Dams are a major source for non-conventional source of electricity and are hence in high demand today. While designing these structures, the civil engineers take into account the various properties of fluids to calculate the forces acting at different points.

Another very important aspect of civil engineering is environmental engineering. In this case, the civil engineers are concerned with applications of various methods to purify the contaminated air, water and soil. The polluted system should be cleaned, the waste extracted and the purified constituent must be sent back to the natural system.

Civil engineers are becoming more and more important in the recent years. Now, they are also responsible for looking after the fire control systems and installing quick fire exit points in the buildings they design. This will help in minimizing the loss of life during fire accidents.

Electrical engineers are responsible mainly for power generation and power transmission. The importance of electrical engineering was recognized only in the 19th century. Some of the main contributors to the field of electrical engineering were George Ohm, Micheal Faraday, James Clark Maxwell, Thomas Elva Edison and Nikola Tesla. However, there were many people who played their own part in bringing electrical engineering to the level it is at today.

The main aim is to ensure the safe usage of electricity. For this purpose they are given the responsibility of designing electrical appliances as well as the wiring system of electricity to ensure supply of electricity to these appliances. Many times electrical engineers have to work on projects that involve a certain degree of electronics engineering. Electrical engineers are concerned with designing the flight systems of aircrafts and rocket propulsion systems. Industrial automation and automobile control system design are also a part of electrical engineering.

We can see that the process of manufacturing has become extremely streamlined in the recent years. In the earlier days, workers where used to perform each and every task. This lead to greater manufacturing time, and output also suffered in quality at times. However, since the process of automation has been implemented to many manufacturing plants, the efficiency of manufacturing has increased rapidly. The dependence on human work force has decreased, with time wastage reduced and quality of output increased.

Electrical engineering has an important role to play in many other fields of study. For instance, signal processing makes use of the principles of electrical engineering in modifying the digital and analog nature of the signals to obtain the required output. Telecommunications is another area that benefits from electrical engineering. It deals with the transmission of information through different channels to enable communication. Instrumentation engineering has developed as a field of study where devices are used to take reading of pressure, temperature, current, etc. in the electrical equipment.

In today’s world, all branches of engineering have a specific role to play. This means electrical engineering is important for the development of all other branches of engineering too.

Electronic engineering developed with the invention of radio and television. The early electronic engineers were called radio engineers because they mainly dealt with radios. With the passage of time, they began to work with all sorts of electronics and so the name stuck. Electronic engineers were also involved in the construction of weapons systems during the Second World War.

A few components used in electronic equipment that come under the realm of electronic engineering are – diodes, triodes, transmitters, receivers, and transistors. Apart from radios, early electronic engineers were also involved in the development of telecommunication devices and systems.

Television is one of the greatest marvels of electronics. It was invented in 1931. Computers, transistors, and microprocessors were a few other good inventions of electronics. In many areas, electronics engineering is offered in combination with electrical engineering. Many colleges did not have a separate department for electronics engineering in the olden days.

Telecommunication engineering – This sub-branch deals with the transmission of information across a channel.

Signal engineering – This deals with the manipulation of signal to send certain information and also analysis of the received signal.

Control engineering – This deals with the proper management of various control systems installed in modern cars and also aeroplanes.

Instrumentation engineering – This deals with the measurement of quantities like temperature and pressure to analyze the functioning of an apparatus.

Like in any other field, the scope of this field of study also is increasing continuously. Therefore, the engineers working in this field are required to review their technical skills consistently. Electronic engineers are also concerned with the design and maintenance of equipment like computers.

As the extent of electronics engineer grew in the recent years, people saw the need for separating it from electrical engineering and providing separate importance to it. Hence, separate grants for given for its development. The governments of the western countries were also responsible for its development as they gave importance to its growth during the periods of the World War.

Environmental engineering covers quite a large number of areas. It is concerned with control of air and water pollution, removal of pollutants, treatment of sewage water, disposal and removal of wastes, recycling, etc. It is also concerned with studying the affects a project being intended can have on the environment in the future.

This branch of engineering has its constituents drawn from various branches of engineering. It would not be possible to work in this field without having at least a basic knowledge of other fields like chemistry, biology, zoology, ecology, and civil, chemical or mechanical engineering.

Whenever a new project is being proposed, environmental engineers are dispatched to the site to analyze if the project will have any negative impact on the environment of the area. Then they apply scientific and engineering principles to assess the impact of the project on different factors in that area like air, water, flora, fauna, ecology, etc. They are also responsible for designing the water lines and sewage disposal systems. They have to see that the sewage does not go directly into the seas and leads to pollution there.

The role of environmental engineers has gained a lot of importance in the recent years. Due to growth of industries in most countries and booming economies, it has become extremely important to curb all types of pollutions so as to keep the environment clean.

Apart from this, there is also the hue and cry about green house gas emissions. All industrial nations are being persuaded to sign the Kyoto protocol which sets a cap on the carbon emissions by industrialized nations. Even though the protocol lets the developing countries free for now, these countries also have a duty to protect to keep their environment clean. Hence, the governments in these countries must have proper norms in place to curb pollution and proper laws to prevent the industries from emitting too high quantities of greenhouse gases.

Environmental engineers also try to keep noise pollution under check and try to minimize excessive utilization of natural resources which can destroy the ecological balance.

Mechanical engineering experienced its growth during the time of the World Wars. This growth can be attributed to the need for building newer war machines during that time. As a result of this need, more money was allocated towards research in this field and hence it began to develop as a unique area of study. Over the years, mechanical engineering has expanded its scope and it now has a noteworthy role to play in all other areas of engineering also.

Mechanical engineers are involved in the design and construction of various pieces of equipment like aircrafts, spacecrafts, and automobiles, stationary structures like building and bridges and industrial machinery. Due to the fact that mechanical engineers have to deal with a wide range of issues relating to different fields during the course of their work, the mechanical engineering program is prepared to provide them with the basic knowledge of different areas of study.

Just as chemical engineers strive to make different chemical processes cost-effective, mechanical engineers also strive to make the production and maintenance of different machines economical and efficient. Mechanical engineers also have to deal with one additional issue. The machines designed and manufactured by these mechanical engineers will be used by general community who do not have any knowledge about their operation. Hence, they will have to consider the safety and durability factors of these machines also while designing them.

The main areas of study that mechanical engineering looks into are: