A guide to engineer's tools

Engineering is actually a very creative industry to be involved in. Engineers are predominantly employed for a number of diverse tasks including designing and synthesising and solving problems. They are also apt at a little innovation. With this in mind, engineers tend to use a wide-ranging variety of tools to get their jobs done, though this will vary across different specialisations. Here follows a brief guide to some of the tools they use.

Overview

These days, while engineers still carry out tasks such as building models, much of their work is actually done with the use of computers and highly-advanced calculators. These are used in a variety of tasks such as validating plans and creating blueprints for a specific engineering job. Charts and diagrams Special computer software programs will also be used to create detailed charts and diagram. These will then be predominantly used to demonstrate the type of task they are attempting to accomplish. Much of their work involves the planning of mechanical buildings and roads and for this, they tend to rely on documents such as surveys and even soil samples. Other more unusual engineering tools such as 'Transits' and laser range finders can also be found in most engineering tool rooms.

The sciences

However, looking at things from another angle, two fundamental tools that are vital to the engineering industry are those of the sciences and mathematics. These disciplines are essential to ultimately ascertaining both the qualitative and quantitative details of how systems such as telecommunication systems and electrical and lighting systems actually work.

Software applications

While it is true to say that the ability to create sketches and more detailed drawings by hand can still be an asset within the industry, as noted above, most engineering work these days involves the use of computer-based design programs. In fact, there exists a huge variety of these software applications. Should you be interested in this area, here are some of the top products: - EAGLE CAD PCB for schematic entry - MATLAB for matrix operations - Microcap for the design of Analogue circuits - Cypress Warp for VHDL design and simulation - MathCad for analysing mathematical equations - SMath Studio a combination of MathCad and MATLAB