PAPER PRESENTED BY ENGR. WOPA KAMILA MALIKI, FNSE, mni,IMMEDIATE PAST REGISTRAR OF COREN AT THE
2019 ENGINEERING FAMILY FORUM ORGANISED BY THE NIGERIAN SOCIETY OF ENGINEERS, ILORIN BRANCH
1.0. Engineering.
According to Wikipedia, Engineering is the profession that applies scientific principles to design or develop and build machines, structures, apparatus or manufacturing process, including to construct bridges, roads, vehicles and buildings. And utilizing them singly or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions; all as respects an intended function, economics of operation and safety to life and property.
The term engineering is derived from the Latin ingenium, meaning “cleverness” and ingeniare, meaning to “to contrive, device” Engineering encompasses a broad range of more specialized fields of engineering, each with a more specific emphasis on particular areas of applied mathematics, applied science, and for other types of application.
Engineering essentially encompasses the development, conversion, management and use of natural resources for the benefit of mankind as a whole (Benson, 1989:28).Engineering is therefore involved in the planning, designing, composing, evaluating, advising, reporting, directing or supervising that requires the application of engineering principles and that concerns the safeguarding of life, health, property, economic interests, the public welfare or the environment, or the managing of any such act.
Gulma cited in Ayeni (1997:7) posited that “it is an incontrovertible fact that apart from plants, animals and other geographical features that are God made, all other structures on the surface of the Earth are products of engineering”. Indeed, it is as a result of engineering and technology that industrial nations of the World are ruling the World economically. Nowadays, when World leaders talk about their achievements, it is usually within the context of one engineering or the other. On the whole, global civilization is based on the science, engineering and technology (Olodapo, 2002:223).
2.0. Engineering Family
Defining family can be a tough thing as the word “family” alone is a powerful word that conjures up multiple different meanings and emotions. Oftentimes people will say a family includes a mother, father, and children all living together under one roof. Some might say a family can be anything that involves love. These are people that surround you with care, support, concern, and love. They see you, understand what you are going through and through it all, they stand by your side loving you through life. Hence, it is in the family that we have cooperation, coordination and responsiveness.
Therefore, for the purpose of this paper, I will like to define Engineering family as a group of practitioners, who have chosen engineering as their profession, understand themselves and ready to support, care, show empathy and love each other.
2.1. Engineers.
According to Collins dictionary, Engineers are practitioners of engineering and also known as professionals who invent, design, analyze, and build systems, structures and materials to fulfil objectives and requirements. Engineers use their mathematical and scientific knowledge to design solutions to human and societal problems. They might conceive, design and develop entire system to answer a dilemma or problem in one of many fields. The work of engineers forms the link between scientific discoveries and their subsequent applications to human and business needs and quality of life. According to COREN, an engineer is competent by virtue of his/her fundamental education and training to apply the scientific method and outlook to the analysis and provide solutions to engineering problems. He/she is able to assume personal responsibility for the development and application of engineering science and knowledge, notably in research, design, construction, manufacturing, superintending, managing and in the education of the engineer. His/her work is predominantly intellectual and varied and not of a routine mental or physical character. It requires the exercise of original thought and judgement and the ability to supervise the technical and administrative work of others.
2.2. Engineering Technologists.
According to the Guidelines of the Sydney Accord, an engineering technologist is a professional trained in certain aspects of development and implementation of a respective area of technology. Engineering technology education is even more applied and less theoretical than the Engineer. Engineering technologists often assist professional engineers . Engineering technology field focus more on application of mathematics, science as well as other technical courses in engineering field. Engineering technologists are more likely involved in post-development, implementation, operation, testing and fabrication of a product or technology. Engineering technologists use their technical skills to construct the systems designed by engineers. They may also be involved in other aspects of product development where their technical knowledge and understanding can become handy.
2.3. Engineering Technicians.
The Dublin Accord recognizes an engineering technician as a person primarily trained in the skills and techniques related to a specific branch of engineering concepts. Engineering technicians often assist engineers and technologists in projects relating to research and development, or focus on post-development activities like implementation or operation. An engineering technician is between a skilled craft worker and a technologist. Engineering technicians help solve technical problems in many ways. They build or set up equipment, conduct experiments, and collect data and calculate results. They might also help to make a model of new equipment. Some technicians work in quality control, where they check products, do tests, and collect data. In manufacturing, they help to design and develop products.
2.4. Engineering Craftsmen.
In COREN, Engineering Craftsmen are workers who practice a trade or handicraft. They create or performs with skill or dexterity especially in the manual arts. They take final responsibility for the construction and fabrication of engineering works and system.
The engineering craftsmen according to (American Heritage 2011) are men who practice a craft with a great skill. They take final responsibility for the construction and fabrication of engineering works and systems. They are by their specialized trainings empowered to carry out the nitty-gritty jobs of installations, maintenances, fabrications and repairs.
3.0. Engineering Regulation.
Wikipedia considers Regulation as an abstracts concept of management which is a form of rule by an administrative agency or body that interprets the statutes setting out the agency’s purpose and powers. Regulation is a principle or law designed to control conduct. Regulation of Engineering is established by most jurisdiction of the World and meant to encourage public welfare, safety, well-being and other interest of the general public. The body charged with the directive to regulate and control engineering in Nigeria is the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN). COREN was established in 1970 with the mandates to register and license engineering practitioners. The Council determines what standards of knowledge and skill are to be attained by persons seeking to become registered as a practitioner and raising those standards from time to time as circumstances may permit. The Council therefore registers four categories of practitioners including Engineers, Engineering Technologies, Engineering Technicians and Engineering Craftsmen otherwise called the Engineering family. The Council ensure that engineering is practiced to improve the quality of life and promote sustainable development.
The engineering family is made up of some members and each member has a specific role to play base on his/her discipline and cadre. The engineering family are rationalized on the basis of their academic qualifications as follows:
(a) Engineer – Holders of BSc., B.Eng., B.Tech.
certificates or its equivalent.
(b) Engineering Technologists – Holders of HND certificate or its
equivalent.
(c) Engineering Technician – Holders of ND certificates or its
equivalents.
(d) Engineering Craftsmen – Crafts/Trade Test, NABTEB
Certificates, etc.
(e) Artisans – Artisans are skilled people in
engineering work but they
have no academic / technical qualifications.
As at June, 2019, the following is the statistics of the Engineering practitioners in the four Registers in COREN: Engineers – — – 50,450 Engineering Technologist- – 4,966 Engineering Technicians – – 835 Engineering Craftsmen – 2,634
4.0. Engineering in History.
Engineering has existed since ancient times, when humans devised inventions such as the wedge, lever, wheel and pulley, etc. Notable examples of the obsolete usage which have survived to the present day are military engineering corps, e.g., the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Later, as the design of civilian structures, such as bridges and buildings, matured as a technical discipline, the term civil engineering entered the lexicon as a way to distinguish between those specializing in the construction of such non-military projects and those involved in the discipline of military engineering.
The pyramids in Egypt, the Acropolis and the Parthenon in Greece, the Roman Aqueducts, Via Appia and the Colosseum, Teotihuacán, the Brihadeeswarar Temple of Thanjavur, among many others, stand as a testament to the ingenuity and skill of ancient civil and military engineers. Other monuments, no longer standing, such as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and the Pharos of Alexandria were important engineering achievements of their time and were considered among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The earliest civil engineer known by name is Imhotep As one of the officials of the Pharaoh, Djosèr, he probably designed and supervised the construction of the Pyramid of Djoser (the Step Pyramid) at Saqqara in Egypt around 2630–2611 BC. Ancient Greece developed machines in both civilian and military domains. The Antikythera mechanism, the first known mechanical computer,[9][10] and the mechanical inventions of Archimedes are examples of early mechanical engineering. Some of Archimedes’ inventions as well as the Antikythera mechanism required sophisticated knowledge of differential gearing or epicyclic gearing, two key principles in machine theory that helped design the gear trains of the Industrial Revolution, and are still widely used today in diverse fields such as robotics and automotive engineering.
Before the development of modern engineering, mathematics was used by artisans and craftsmen, such as millwrights, clockmakers, instrument makers and surveyors. Aside from these professions, universities were not believed to have had much practical significance to technology.
A standard reference for the state of mechanical arts during the Renaissance is given in the mining engineering treatise De re metallica (1556), which also contains sections on geology, mining and chemistry. De re metallica was the standard chemistry reference for the next 180 years.
Applied science lead to the development of the steam engine. The sequence of events began with the invention the barometer and the measurement of atmospheric pressure by Evangelista Torricelli in 1643, demonstration of the force of atmospheric pressure by Otto von Guericke using the Magdeburg hemispheres in 1656, laboratory experiments by Denis Papin, who built experimental model steam engines and demonstrated the use of a piston, which he published in 1707. Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester published a book of 100 inventions containing a method for raising waters similar to a coffee percolator. Samuel Morland, a mathematician and inventor who worked on pumps, left notes at the Vauxhall Ordinance Office on a steam pump design that Thomas Savery read. In 1698 Savery built a steam pump called “The Miner’s Friend.” It employed both vacuum and pressure. Iron merchant Thomas Newcomen, who built the first commercial piston steam engine in 1712, was not known to have any scientific training.
The application of steam powered cast iron blowing cylinders for providing pressurized air for blast furnaces lead to a large increase in iron production in the late 18th century. The higher furnace temperatures made possible with steam powered blast allowed for the use of more lime in blast furnaces, which enabled the transition from charcoal to coke. These innovations lowered the cost of iron, making horse railways and iron bridges practical. The puddling process, patented by Henry Cort in 1784 produced large scale quantities of wrought iron. Hot blast, patented by James Beaumont Neilson in 1828, greatly lowered the amount of fuel needed to smelt iron. With the development of the high pressure steam engine, the power to weight ratio of steam engines made practical steamboats and locomotives possible. New steel making processes, such as the Bessemer process and the open hearth furnace, ushered in an area of heavy engineering in the late 19th century.
One of the most famous engineers of the mid-19th century was Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who built railroads, dockyards and steamships. The Industrial Revolution created a demand for machinery with metal parts, which led to the development of several machine tools. Boring cast iron cylinders with precision was not possible until John Wilkinson invented his boring machine, which is considered the first machine tool. Other machine tools included the screw cutting lathe, milling machine, turret lathe and the metal planer. Precision machining techniques were developed in the first half of the 19th century. These included the use of gigs to guide the machining tool over the work and fixtures to hold the work in the proper position. Machine tools and machining techniques capable of producing interchangeable parts lead to large scale factory production by the late 19th century.
The foundations of electrical engineering in the 1800s included the experiments of Alessandro Volta, Michael Faraday, Georg Ohm and others and the invention of the electric telegraph in 1816 and the electric motor in 1872. The theoretical work of James Maxwell (see: Maxwell’s equations) and Heinrich Hertz in the late 19th century gave rise to the field of electronics. The later inventions of the vacuum tube and the transistor further accelerated the development of electronics to such an extent that electrical and electronics engineers currently outnumber their colleagues of any other engineering specialty.
Chemical engineering developed in the late nineteenth century. Industrial scale manufacturing demanded new materials and new processes and by 1880 the need for large scale production of chemicals was such that a new industry was created, dedicated to the development and large scale manufacturing of chemicals in new industrial plants. The role of the chemical engineer was the design of these chemical plants and processes.
Aeronautical engineering deals with aircraft design process design while aerospace engineering is a more modern term that expands the reach of the discipline by including spacecraft design. Its origins can be traced back to the aviation pioneers around the start of the 20th century although the work of Sir George Cayley has recently been dated as being from the last decade of the 18th century. Early knowledge of aeronautical engineering was largely empirical with some concepts and skills imported from other branches of engineering.
The first PhD in engineering (technically, applied science and engineering) awarded in the United States went to Josiah Willard Gibbs at Yale University in 1863; it was also the second PhD awarded in science in the U.S.
Only a decade after the successful flights by the Wright brothers, there was extensive development of aeronautical engineering through development of military aircraft that were used in World War I. Meanwhile, research to provide fundamental background science continued by combining theoretical physics with experiments.
Concluded HERE
UNITED ENGINEERING FAMILY: A PANACEA FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT BY ENGR. WOPA KAMILA MALIKI (2)