Challenges for an Engineering Scientist

As a concluding chapter to this section of the book on ‘An Engineering Life’, Dr. Palani introduces us to the concept of engineering science and describes how this field can be crucial in many new and cutting edge areas relevant for the 21^st century.

Dr. Palani (Civil Engineering, 1986)

Introduction

I got my start training in Civil Engineering when I joined PSG College of Technology.  Finite Element Analysis and Boundary Element Analysis were cutting edge concepts in those days, taught by Prof. Rajasekaran.  We devoured these subjects with great interest.  This inspired me to pursue an advanced career in Civil Engineering.   I decided to pursue a doctoral degree in Faculty of Engineering at Indian Institute of Science and was honored to receive a gold medal.

My first role was as a fellow at the CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Centre

(CSIR-SERC), Chennai in 1988, where I worked as Scientist at various grades and until the present day where I am a Senior Principal Scientist.

My field of research interests include advanced finite element analysis, computational structural dynamics, fatigue and fracture analysis, steel structures - analysis, design and testing and material science. Through the course of my career I have had the opportunity to publish well over a 100 papers and reports.

I bring all this up to say that you can of course pursue a career in the field and around the world.  These examples are well document by my class-mates in the preceding chapters.

I would like to introduce you to the life of research and science.  Can one be an engineer and a scientist at the same time?  If research is your appetite, then engineering science is a terrific path to pursue.  So, in the following few pages, I will describe what the field of engineering science is and what kind of challenges and advances one can drive in the 21^st century.

What is engineering science?

Engineering science is a multidisciplinary field that involves the practical application of principles and facts dealing with various aspects of our physical or material world. The discipline of engineering is extremely broad and encompasses a range of more specialized fields of engineering, each with a more specific emphasis on particular areas of applied science, technology and types of application.  Citing Arvid Eide et al, engineering science involves creative application of scientific principles (i) to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus or manufacturing processes (ii) for utilizing them singly or in combination for an intended purpose (iii) to construct or operate these with full cognizance of their design and (iv) to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions, encapsulating the economics of operation or safety to life and property in all spheres.

As M.A. Robinson has written in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, engineers generally make use of their knowledge of science, mathematics, logic, economics and appropriate experience or tacit knowledge and all other available information to find suitable solutions to a problem within the given boundaries and assumptions. Although engineering solutions make use of scientific principles, engineers also take into account of safety, efficiency, economy, reliability and constructability or ease of fabrication as well as the environment, ethical and legal considerations such as patent infringement or liability in the case of failure of the solution. Creating an appropriate mathematical model of a problem allows them to analyze it and to arrive at potential solutions. Usually multiple reasonable solutions exist, so engineers must evaluate the different design choices on their merits and choose the solution that best meets their requirements.

Engineers Can Make a World of Difference

The role played, and the challenges faced by an Engineering Scientist is quite different from a Normal Scientist. While, normal scientists try to understand nature to evolve new things, engineering scientist try to make things that do not exist in nature. Engineering scientist stress on invention of something. To embody an invention, the engineering scientist puts his idea in concrete terms and designs something that people can use. That something can be a device, a gadget, a material, a method, a computing program, an innovative experiment, a new solution to a problem or an improvement on what is already existing. Since a design has to be in concrete terms, it must have its geometry, dimensions and characteristic numbers, so that the intended item can be visualized and subsequently productized. Almost all engineering scientists working on innovative solutions find that they do not have all the required information. Most often, they are limited by insufficient basic scientific knowledge about the natural processes or phenomena, which demands perfect understanding about mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and mechanics.  

As Walter Vincenti asserts in his book What Engineers Know and How They Know It: Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History, engineering research has a character different from that of scientific research. First, it often deals with areas in which the basic physics or chemistry are well understood, but the problems themselves are too complex to solve in an exact manner.   “Engineering Scientists always look for cutting-edge solutions, technologies and products.’

Grand Engineering Challenges for Engineering Scientists

From urban centers to remote corners of earth, the depths of the oceans to space, humanity has always sought to transcend barriers, overcome challenges and create opportunities that improve life in our part of the universe. During the 20th century, many great engineering achievements have become so commonplace that we now take them mostly for granted.  Technology involving Green and White Revolutions allows an abundant supply of food including milk and safe drinking water for much of the world.  The electricity and electrical and electronic equipment and gadgets have become essential part of many of our daily activities.  The travel across the globe has become much easier and affordable enabling movement of people, goods and services wherever they are needed.  Growing computer and communications technologies are opening up vast stores of knowledge and entertainment. As remarkable as these engineering achievements are, certainly many more great challenges and opportunities remain to be realized. 

Some of the exciting grand challenges are spelled out below, though not exhaustive:

Reverse-Engineer the Brain

A lot of research has been focused on creating thinking machines for e.g. computers capable of emulating human intelligence. However, reverse-engineering the brain could have multiple impacts that go far beyond artificial intelligence and will promise great advances in health care, manufacturing and communication.

Advanced Health Informatics

As computers are available for all aspects of human endeavors, there is now a consensus that a systematic approach to health informatics - acquisition, management and use of information in health care can enhance the quality and efficiency of medical systems and the response to widespread public health emergencies.

Engineer Better Medicines

Engineering scientists can enable the development of new systems to use genetic information, sense small changes in the body, assess new drugs and deliver vaccines to provide health care directly tailored to each person.

Make Solar Energy Economical

Currently, solar energy provides less than 1 percent of the world's total energy, but it has the potential to provide much & much more. Exciting technological solutions needs to be explored to tap this chief source of energy.

Provide Energy from Fusion

Fusion is the energy source for the sun. The challenges facing the engineering scientific community are to find ways to scale up the fusion process to commercial proportions in an efficient, economical and environmentally benign way.

Enhance Virtual Reality

Within many specialized fields, from psychiatry to education, virtual reality is becoming a powerful new tool for training practitioners and treating patients, in addition to its growing use in various forms of manufacturing as well as entertainment industries.

Secure Cyberspace

Computer systems are involved in the management of almost all areas of our lives, from electronic communications and data systems to controlling traffic lights to routing airplanes. It is clear that engineering scientists need to develop innovations for addressing a long list of cyber-security priorities.

Advance Personalized Learning

A growing appreciation of individual preferences and aptitudes has led toward more “personalized learning,” in which instruction is tailored to a student’s individual needs. Given the diversity of individual preferences and the complexity of each human brain, developing teaching methods that optimize learning will require engineering solutions of the future.

Restore and Improve Urban Infrastructure

Infrastructure is combination of fundamental systems that support a community, region or country. Society faces the formidable challenge of modernizing the engineered structures that will support our civilization in centuries ahead.

Engineer Sustainable Materials

Future world needs will require materials that are fully recyclable or biodegradable, as well as a whole new paradigm for designing components by adopting a “cradle-to-cradle” philosophy that supports the remanufacturing of components from spent products into new products. Evolving innovative technologies for effective and efficient recycling of materials towards this objective is one of the foremost challenges.

Provide Access to Clean Water

About 1 out of every 6 people living today do not have adequate access to water, and more than double that number lack basic sanitation, for which water is needed. It's not that the world does not possess enough water; it is just not always located, where it is needed. Though there is overall equilibrium, effective & efficient distribution of water in order to eradicate flooding as well as drought is the real challenge to engineering scientific community.

Prevent Nuclear Terror

Engineering scientists share the formidable challenges of finding the dangerous nuclear material in the world, keeping track of it, securing it and detecting its diversion or transport for terrorist use.

Manage the Nitrogen Cycle

Human-induced changes in the global nitrogen cycle pose engineering challenges just as critical as coping with the environmental consequences of burning fossil fuels.

Develop Carbon Sequestration Methods

The growth in emissions of carbon dioxide, implicated as a prime contributor to global warming, is a problem that can no longer be swept under the rug. Cement industry is one such examples and evolving technological solutions for partial or complete replacement of cement in construction is need of the hour.

Summary

The challenges describes above are only indicative considering the facts as on date. Many others are indistinct and many more surely lie beyond most of our imaginations.   I leave you with these three quotes that have animated me:

“To the Optimist, the glass is half full; To the Pessimist, the glass is half empty; To the Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.”

“Engineering Scientists like to solve problems; if there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.”

“Engineering Scientists turn dreams into reality.”

Grand experiments and missions of exploration always need engineering expertise to design the tools, instruments and systems that make it possible to acquire new knowledge about the physical and biological worlds.  I hope these examples above cause you to pursue careers in engineering science.

About the author:

Dr. Palani graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering from PSG College of Technology.  He has a doctorate from the Indian Institute of Science.  He works as a Senior Principal Scientist at CSIR – Structural Engineering Research Centre.  He lives in Chennai with his family.