Aerospace engineers develop new technologies for use in aviation, defense systems, and space exploration, often specializing in areas such as structural design, guidance, navigation and control, instrumentation and communication, or production methods. They also may specialize in a particular type of aerospace product, such as commercial aircraft, military fighter jets, helicopters, spacecraft, or missiles and rockets, and may become experts in aerodynamics, thermodynamics, celestial mechanics, propulsion, acoustics, or guidance and control systems.
Automotive Engineers Working to Improve the Way We Drive and Live
Today’s automotive engineers are focusing their attention on improving the way we drive — and the way we live. Some automotive improvements make life easier to navigate, like GPS systems with visual and voice-guided turn-by-turn directions. Other innovations help protect vehicle occupants and save lives, such as “active safety” technologies, which warn drivers so they can take action to avoid an accident. Of course, yet another focus of automotive engineers, garnering much attention today, is improved fuel efficiency. Green vehicles are catching the attention of consumers rapidly. To meet this demand, nearly every automaker in the world is expanding with clean, fuel-efficient models in their lineup.
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The Cutting Edge Technology of the Next Generation
Challenges and issues in technology upgrading from the corporate perspective has always been predominant and will continue to exist for many years to come. The challenges pertain to the five Ms: markets, men, machines, materials, and methods. For markets, there are problems of size (or the lack of) and the increasingly shortened life cycles. For men, there is a need to raise skills level and competencies, have suitable trainers, provide budgets and resources, and be able to retain the workforce in the industry. For machines, there are issues such as the high cost of capital, expensive testing equipment, rapid technology changes, restrictions imposed on the export of high-tech machinery, and long procurement times. For materials, there are limitations on the supply of specialized materials, difficulty in obtaining supplies in small quantities, high cost, and uncertain quality. For methods, the challenges are in the use of forecasting techniques and scenario analysis to assess market demands, emerging technologies, and product trends, and the receptivity of the workforce and companies to technology transfer and certification.
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Building a Collaboration Bridge in Architecture, Engineering and Construction
The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry has experienced rapid increases in design sophistication, leaving firms to grapple with how to address traditional concerns of how to raise productivity in the face of heightened project complexity and compressed project schedules. Add to the mix a proliferation of alternative project delivery methods and a growing number of stakeholders, and maintaining, let alone improving, productivity can become a challenging goal. With a renewed focus on effective collaboration, however, companies are realizing that this goal can be attained.
» Read more: Building a Collaboration Bridge in Architecture, Engineering and Construction
Civil Construction And Engineering
Civil engineering is a concept that deals with the design, construction and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment. The act of civil construction and engineering includes bridges, roads, canals, airports, dams and buildings. These are merely just a few examples of what civil construction and engineering is about.
Civil engineering is one of the oldest engineering disciplines after military engineering. It has been an aspect of life since the beginning of human existence. Until modern times there was no clear distinction between civil engineering and architecture.
Environmental Due Diligence By ESA
Doing Environmental Due Diligence is a win-win situation for our environment and for the property owner. That’s why in United States the government is highly recommending every site property to undergo ESA before anything else. It must be the responsibility of the property owner to do this. They need to remember that money isn’t everything and that they need to think of their site’s health and what would be its effect to the environment if they let it be contaminated. So what is ESA?
Is There a Shortage of Precision Engineers?
Once they were one of the largest groups of skilled employees in the whole country, and formed the backbone of one of the biggest and most important industries in the UK. They were respected throughout the world, and their skills were in great demand globally because of this. Nowadays however, their numbers are in such decline that if they were an animal, they would surely be on a list of endangered species.
The number of precision engineers in this country has dropped steadily over the last 25 years, for various reasons, to the current levels which are lower than ever before. With the decline of engineering as a whole in the UK resulting in fewer engineering companies, many precision engineers have left the industry to do something completely different. Their skills are lost forever, but an equally worrying statistic is the amount of people entering engineering. The number of school leavers joining the profession is at an all time low, and there are various reasons for this. Engineering can be dirty, physically demanding and is far from glamorous. Furthermore, the remuneration, especially when starting out, can be bettered in various other sectors, and the training can take anything up to 6 or 7 years before the trainee is considered fully skilled. Apprenticeships, once the standard way of entering precision engineering, are nowadays pretty rare and also schools have become increasingly reluctant to teach metalwork to teenagers. Many youngsters would rather go straight into a job where they can wear nice clothes and sit in front of a computer or work in a large supermarket and get paid well for it from day one. The idea of ‘learning a trade’ seems redundant to them when they can be earning better money immediately doing a mundane job, and the fact that may still be doing those mundane jobs in 20 years would not occur to them. With the skills shortage so bad within engineering, many companies are turning to the European Union to provide their precision engineers. There has been an influx of skilled engineers entering the country in recent years, especially from old Eastern Bloc countries such as Poland and the Baltic states. Whilst these workers are most welcome, and are filling a skills gap, it does mean that some companies are reliant on other countries for its precision engineers, which is a far from desirable situation.
The amount of highly skilled, qualified precision engineers still working in the sector may be dropping, but one company that is bucking the trend is Machined Precision Components Ltd, based at Watton, Norfolk. All of their precision engineers are time served, having completed full apprenticeships, and they have an average of over 20 years experience within the industry. As director David Isbell says: “Because our engineers have such a wealth of experience in all areas of precision engineering, we can provide the customer with the highest quality product at all times. Yet these same skills ensure that the prices are kept very competitive, and the components are produced in the quickest time possible. We can give a superb service in all areas, but we could not do this without our highly trained precision engineers”
Modern Marvels – More Engineering Disasters
Description
Throughout history the same builders and engineers that paved man’s path out of the caves and into the modern world also caused some of mankind’s worst disasters. Often a huge calamity is traced back to a tiny cause, insignificant in itself, but triggering a domino effect. We’ll revisit notable disasters and search for probable causes…. More >>
Software Engineering – The Profession
The term “Software Engineering” (SE) is a profession dedicated to the designing, implementing, and modifying of software so that it is of higher quality, more affordable to the average consumer, maintainable, and faster to build.
The term “software engineering” first appeared in the 1968 NATO Software Engineering Conference and was meant to provoke thought regarding the perceived “software crisis” at the time.
However, since the field of software engineering is still relatively young compared to its sister fields of engineering, there is still much debate around what software engineering actually is, and if it conforms to the classical definition of engineering.