.....Course outline for demonstrating how engineers think to non-engineers..... Basic premise: Engineering is RESULT driven and the primary goal is always the same: Find the OPTIMAL solution to a problem. Optimal is usually modified or defined in the context of (for example): 1. Imperfect understanding of important physical/chemical/biological/ issues (limited time and money to find this understanding) 2. Financial -- based on not necessarily well-defined markets or other social issues 3. Ability to actually produce the item or service as needed and promised 4. Consistent with the philosophy and practice of the client or company. Topics that if appropriately linked together demonstrate how engineers think: (1) Building up complex problems from simple pieces (synthesis) (2) Testing correctness of results by matching the dimensions of the variables involved or taking variables to their limits (3) Developing general relations by forming dimensionless groups and showing the way complex structures can be understood in terms of these dimensionless groups (4) Experiment or testing design to find the important cause/effect, (i.e. to distinguish important from incidental) or to produce a statistically valid outcome (5) Use of numerical simulation as an experimental tool to probe issues of a problem (6) The idea that many finished items can be designed based almost completely on numerical solutions of fundamental equations. (7) Showing that in real problems competing effects are or must be balanced and that this leads to the need for an optimal solution. (8) The inherent difference between situations that are governed by a true equilibrium versus problems that are rate processes and must be controlled by how fast something occurs.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 03:10:44 +0000
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