engineering in modern era

7/30/2019 engineering in modern era

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The impact of engineering activity

Theme 1: Engineering and society (3 lectures) Engineering in history

Engineering in the modern era Case studies

Theme 2: Engineering and the environment (4 lectures)

Environmental systems, human systems, and social science

Resources of the earth Climate change

Energy and society

Theme 3: Engineering on a personal, cultural and social level (3 lectures)

Philosophy of engineering

Sociological insights

Case studies Theme 4: Occupational health and safety act (2 lectures)

Introduction

Occupational health and safety act

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1.1 Engineering in the modern era

The automobile industry and changes inproduction

Modern manufacturing

System theory and system engineering

Taylor scientific management

The effects of trends and cycles

Consumer rights and protection product

liability

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Engineering in the modern era The automobileindustry and changes in production (p43-49)

Internal combustion engine

Most common in vehicles and portable machinery 4 stroke engine Conceived by Beau de Rochas (1862)

4 stroke engine 1st made to work by Nicola Otto (1876)

Impact of the automobile

Started as a toy for the rich but as it became cheaper it gave the middle class thefreedom to travel when they wanted

It reduced the need for people to live near railway lines and stations as long as therewere roads to connect them

This expanded the road network

It created mobility on a scale never seen before (Modern endurance horse back riding= 80-160km in a day (single rider, no wagon)

Changed city life and accelerated the expansion of cities into suburbs

New jobs were formed due to the impact of the automobile

Expanded the use of credit Development of motels and drive-in business (Fast food, banks, movie, shopping on

the corner of Attebury and the N1)

Negative impact:

Traffic congestion, Atmospheric pollution, Fatalities and injuries

4/31The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic diagram.


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Crude oil

Used in transport end of 19th century

Distillation of crude oil

LPG gas

Gasoline

Kerosene Diesel oil

Fuel oil

Lubricating oil, paraffin wax, asphalt

Gasoline

Diesel oil

5Improvement makes strait roads: but the crooked roads without Improvement are roads of

Genius.


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Gotlieb Daimler

1st motorcycle 1885

Karl Benz

1st Automobile 1885

William Maybach

1st

carburettor (Patent 1909) Charles Kettering

Electric starter (1912)

Rudolph Diesel

Compression engine

Difficulty with fuel injection

Diesel powered ships from world war 1

6"Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."


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Early automobile industry:

Initially we had highly skilled craftsmen

Parts were hardened and had to be

manually filed to fit

Automobile were made to custom order

Ford Introduced the moving production line (1913) (said to have

been adapted from Chicago meat works chain conveyors(1890s)

Used common gauging system throughout the manufacturingprocess

Model T was designed for ease of assembly To start with labour turnaround was as hi as 380%

Ford doubled pay rates and held on to his workers but therewere little intrinsic satisfaction in there work

7A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes adesign that works with as few original ideas as possible


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Scientific management and organized labout in the automobileindustry

Developed by Frederick Taylor, pursued by Henry Ford

Aimed to maximize management control and labourproductivity

Base for mass production of many standard items

Takes away control from the shop floor and people doing thework.

Despite demotivating workers it was successful in increasingproduction

Ford initially used OEM components but moved rapidly tocomplete vertical integration (even had his own steel mil) thisnearly bankrupted him

US remained wary of organized labour In contrast Japanesegovernment strengthened union rights.

Japanese workers refused mindless jobs the Toyotaproduction system

9Art has to move you and design does not, unless it's a good design for a bus.


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Toyota production system (1948-1975)

Main objectives:

Design out overburden, inconsistency and to

Eliminate waste

Seven types of waste:

Waste of overproduction Waste of time on hand

Waste of transportation

Waste of processing itself

Waste of stock at hand

Waste of movement

Waste of making defective products

Largest automotive producer in 2010

by revenue

10Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.


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Social impacts

Collingridge (1980) the initial understanding of any newtechnology is so limited that control can only be arbitrary:

Automobile:

Early control measures for dust, frightening horses and scaringcows.

but missed the problem of road toll. (By the year 2000 automobileskilled 25-30million people approaching that of the two world wars)

11"Mach 2 travel feels no different." a passenger commented on an early Concorde flight.

"Yes," Sir George replied. "That was the difficult bit. - Sir George Edwards -


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Engineering in the modern era Modernmanufacturing (p64-67)

Manufacture: The making of goods or wares by

manual labour or by machinery, especially on largescale (Marquarie Dictionary)

1890 - 1900 Manufacturing replaced agriculture asthe leading source of economic growth in the US

In 2010 China contributed 19,8% of world's

manufacturing output. It became the largestmanufacturer in the world that year, a position theUS held for about 110 years.

12The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go

wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong, it usually turns out to be

impossible to get at and repair.


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Engineering in the modern era Modernmanufacturing (p64-67)

Computer aided machinery

CNC milling/turning

CNC EDM machinery (spark eroding, wire cutter)

CNC 2D Manufacturing (Plasma cutting, Laser cutting, wire cutting,Waterjet cutting)

Rapid prototype and 3D printing.

3D printing, sintering in power metallurgy, lost wax casting

13Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new


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Engineering in the modern era System theoryand system engineering (p68-78)

We use systems engineering on projects that are to complex for a singleengineer or specialist to work on .

When human behaviour is involved problems become much tocomplex to solve completely for this we need a multidisciplinary softsystems approach.

A systems approach guides us to address all the aspects of the problem

in a structured and organized way Development in systems engineering

Systems may be assembled from smaller less complex elements

Testing at each level of assembly is necessary because the properties arelikely to be different than those predicted simply from studying the elementsthat make up the system

A consequence of this is that complex systems can fail in ways that can onlybe discovered after very extensive testing it might also imply that complexfailures can occur after the system has gone into service

NASSA skipped the final total system test on Hubble - as a result they failedto realize that the primary mirror was ground to the wrong shape

14Reality leaves a lot to the imagination


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Engineering in the modern era System theoryand system engineering (p68-78)

No use in using a systems approach unless the object

is reasonably complex

The object of study should: Have a purpose and performance

Include a decision taking process

Have components which are themselves systems that are connected and interact

Exist in a wider system or environment with which it interacts

Be bounded Have resources and some degree of continuity and stability

The complexity implies that they will have emergent properties (seeChallenger example)

We draw the system boundaries and choose what may pass through theboundaries

To get good answers we need to ask good questions and draw goodsystem boundaries

We need to simplify the system to a level we can analyse in doing thiswe might loose essential detail

See Section 3 of the prescribed textbook

15Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it


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Engineering in the modern era Effects of trendsand cycles (p46-47)

If parameters such as GNP per capita/energy requirements/ researchfunding is plotted over time certain trends become apparent.Exponential growth as a secular trend is useful.

Individual product life: The sigmoid curve.

y = 1/(1+e^(-x)) where x = k(t-t0)

(t-t0) = elapsed time, k = constant that

describes the rate of diffusion of the product

K is essentially empirical

Cyclic behaviour

British and American wholesale prices

from 1800-1950

Hi price index indicates a hi level ofdemand-pull and possible surplus

3 predominant wavelengths

fundamental wavelength = 53 years

(Kondratieff cycle)

16If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic


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Engineering in the modern era Effects of trendsand cycles (p46-47)

Long cyclic behaviour not only in economic activity and innovationbut also in invention on average the economic peak occurs about28 years after the innovation peak which itself occurs about 27years after the corresponding peak in inventive activity

It can be argued that most innovation occurred in times of prosperitythat afforded freedom to invent. If this is true then it might be an

explanation for the average two generation gestation periodbetween an major invention and the associated economic return.

Clustering of innovation

The introduction of innovation was bunched into periods of rapidexpansion

As a technology comes of age it tends to become specialised, over-

organised and unprofitable.

17A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in human history,

with the possible exceptions of tequila


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Engineering in the modern era Consumer rightsand protection product liability (p175-181)

Major purpose of Engineering is the creation of new technologies and toinnovate right?

Two US judges concluded that engineering is an exact science andproceeded to specify damages accordingly for an engineering failure.

This view has gained widespread acceptance and has stifled thedevelopment of new products in certain areas.

One of the implication is that we as engineers should be more open tothe possibility of failure and the acceptance of risk

Engineers do not really solve problems. They make choices between

options for the deployment of resources in response to a need, in theface of considerable uncertainty and gap in knowledge. It follows thatwhatever choice is made, it must be, to some extent, wrong : IEAust

18Fast, good, cheap: pick any two


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Do we need consumer protection and regulations?

Conspiracy by motor vehicle/tyre/petrol cartel

General motors, firestone and Standard oil developed a market for thereproduct by destroying public transport.

They bought the electric trolley network in 45 US cities and replaced themwith busses, then ran the service to the ground forcing the public to buy there

products

19A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?


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Engineering in the modern era Consumerrights and protection product liability(p175-181)

Do we need consumer protection and regulations? Ralph Nader Unsafe under any speed (1965)

He successfully challenged the worship of the automobile anddramatically exposed some of the shortcomings of the American

Automobile

Cheverolet Covair.

...had such poor suspension geometry that it could roll over if it hit abump going round a moderate curve at 60km/h. The irony of theCovair was that the problem could be corrected by simply fitting astabilizer bar.

Swing axel suspension

Great amount of single wheel camber change.

Rebound on suspension unloading causes positivechamber which can overturn the car

Reduction in cornering force due to camber change

can lead to over steer

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21Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler.

Ford Pinto

Tests showed that the fuel tank could be punctured in a

rear end collision

The cost to prevent this was around $11/vehicle

Ford decided against it because its costs would be significantly higherthan likely compensation claims for deaths and injuries


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Is someone always at fault?

Attitude arose that the hazards, injuries and deaths on the road were allcaused by the manufacturers

This attitude is remarkably similar to some tribal societies that all illness iscaused by the ill-will of some other person Its ultimate extension is thatlife should be safe and that all injuries are therefore the result of

negligence and should be compensated The problem has been compounded by exaggerated claims for the safety,

reliability and social benefit of all sorts of extreme technologies.

Such claims fed the unfortunate notion that engineering is an exactscience

One result of these developments have been the rapid increase of

government regulations In the US the cost of litigation has become a major constraint on the

introduction of new products and processes

The expected cost of litigation is said to be the cost of a motorcyclehelmet.

22A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.


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Legislation and innovation We do need to consider how the law affects product commercialization

There is an increased recognition of the need to protect consumers from productsthat can harm them

Design and manufacturing need to produce safer products

Wrt. liability a few things you can consider are:

Packaging, labelling and warnings (The Coviar was sensitive to rear tyre pressure- proper warning could have reduced the risk for rollover)

The effect of the manufacturing process and risk associated with changing it

Intended use and possible misuse scenarios

List of accessories that can be used with the device and there interaction

Standard Bodies

Have promoted a uniform approach to product development

ISO is a nongovernmental society established in1947 for the purpose of developingworldwide standards, improving international communication and collaboration,promoting smooth and equitable growth of international trade

23A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others


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Negligence and strict liability

Two main approaches when it comes to liability: Negligence and strictliability

Negligence:

The injured party must show that there was a defect in the productand that that defect caused him/her injury or loss

2ndly he/she must show that the defect resulted from negligence ofthe designer/manufacturer in that they failed to exercise areasonable duty of care in the design/manufacture of the product

1st step of duty from designer/manufacturer would be to insure thatthe product met the relevent statuatory requirements

24Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy


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Negligence and strict liability

Two main approaches when it comes to liability: Negligence and strictliability

Strict liability

The onus of proof is on the manufacturer to prove that

The product was not defective. (A product is only defective of itfails to provide the degree of safety that people are generallyentitled to expect

The defect that caused the damage probably did not exist whenthe product was put into circulation

The manufacturer did not put the product into service

The product was only defective because it had to meet therequirements of a mandatory standard

The state of scientific knowledge at the time the product wasput into circulation was such as not to enable the existence ofthe defect to be discovered

25To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction


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Increased emphasis on safety

When hazards cannot easily or inexpensively be removed by gooddesign, the inherent risks must be communicated clearly to thoseresponsible for preparing product warnings and instructions

A comprehensive hazard assessment is essential .

The requirement to prove misuse can be costly and a constraint on

product development

26One cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem


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Were still getting it wrong

Last months FDA recalls

(http://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls/default.htm)

17/07/2012 EnVe Ventilator A leak may occur in the patient breathingcircuit resulting in the ventilator not holding the present positive endexpiratory pressure

06/07/2012 Flow-i-Anaesthesia system Software problem withMan/Auto switch

06/07/2012 Stryker Rejuvenate, ABG II Modular neck hip stemsPotential risk associated with fretting and corrosion at modular neck

junction

02/07/2012 AirLife Infant breathing circuit. Can develop cracks andlead to leaks in the closed ventilation system

28Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.


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Consumer protection in South Africa.

The Consumer protection act, No 68 of 2008 (dti.gov.za / info.gov.za)

It aims to:

Promote a fair, accessible and sustainable marketplace for consumer products and

services;

Establish national norms and standards to ensure consumer protection;

Make provision for improved standards of consumer information, to prohibit certain

unfair marketing and business practices;

Promote responsible consumer behaviour;

Promote a consistent legislative and enforcement framework, related to consumer

transactions and agreements;

Establish the National Consumer Commission; and Replace, in a new and simplified manner, existing provisions from five acts, including

the Consumer Affairs (Unfair Business Practices) Act of 1988; Trade Practices Act

of 1976; Sales and Service Matters Act of 1964; Price Control Act of 1964; and

Merchandise Marks Act of 1941 (specifically Sections 2-13, and 16-17).

29Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.


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It applies to the following:

Every transaction occurring within the Republic of South Africa;

Promotion or supply of any goods and services occurring within the Republic; and

Goods or services that are supplied or performed, in the Republic, in terms of

transactions mentioned in the Act

The Act is not applicable in respect of:

Goods or services promoted or supplied to the state;

Industry-wide exemption being granted to regulatory authorities;

Credit agreements, in terms of the National Credit Act, but not goods or services; Services under employment contracts;

Agreements giving effect to collective bargaining agreements; and

Agreements giving effect to bargaining agreements (Section 213 of the Labour

Relations Act).

30One man's "magic" is another man's engineering.


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What are consumer rights?

The Bill of Rights enshrines the rights of all South Africans including consumer rights.

The Consumer Protection Act further outlines these key consumer rights, of which all

South African consumers should be aware. These include the following:

1. Right to Equality in the Consumer Market and Protection Against Discriminatory

Marketing Practices;

2. Right to Privacy;

3. Right to Choose;

4. Right to Disclosure of Information;

5. Right to Fair and Responsible Marketing;6. Right to Fair and Honest Dealings;

7. Right to Fair, Just and Reasonable Terms and Conditions;

8. Right to Fair Value, Good Quality and Safety; and

9. Right to Accountability by Suppliers.

31The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.

engineering in modern era

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