Engineers need software. true or false?.

Yes, and not just simple calculations programs but virtuall engineering software where any device could be designed in 3D CAD or assembled from library of standard parts, and then tested under all aplicable conditions and forces that would act on or inside device during actuall >>real world<< operation, with results measured by simulated analog metering devices too!

I am professionall programmer for last 34 years, during which period I learned and used 16+ different languages for programming, some on severall platforms and in severall generations... I am also inventor myself, and even if I am just IT Systems Engineer 1st. Class, it helps me to have more abstract wiew on engineering :-))

I was planing to make such program for use by any inventor, designer or engineer, because that would let people to do creative work instead endlesly calculate all necesary parameters...

But to answer Your question differently, engineers could do all calculations by hand also, as they were doing it before somebody invented even slide rule.......

But, as any person who want to build something, they need tools also, and computers are so far best tools for engineers, no?

Hello Pompie

In earlier days we managed quite OK, with Slide Rules, 7 decimal point Logarithm Tables, and also just careful calculations.

I do agree that the modern usage of Software for Engineering and other calculations has "eliminated much drudgery".

There have been spectacular errors in Software, also do you remember the infamous faulty Intel Pentium "floating point" problem, in their Maths co-processor?

So, as you can see, even the so-called Software experts can make mistakes of huge proportions.

There is nothing quite as good as doing the Maths, along with the actual experience gained, by which you know intuitively, whether the answer is correct, or otherwise.

Kind Regards....

Yes, this debacle with Pentium floating point processor has cost me over 6 months of searching for mistake in my astronomical calculations program I have developed and was testing........ Programs/applications You are refering to must have been made by Microsoft :-(( because in my time we did not make it fashionable to have bugs in programs, simply because our clients would not tolerate errors in calculations, so we would lose our reputation (and with it, our source of income) and it was hard to persuade companies to use expensive computers instead of regiments of bookkeepers or engineers/matematicians with paper and pencil.........

Call me oldfashioned, but I dont recognize anybody making buggy programs or OS-es as >>Software Experts<<, least of all Microsoft team that is made of hackers that are not sistematicaly taught programming, and that know nothing about Systems Analyse and Systems Engineering....

In my opinion, Software companies that cannot guarantie that program/aplication they are selling would work as advertised and give 100% correct results should be boycoted by users, or even forced to pay users money back and damage for lost time and money for inability to get what they paid for and rightfully expected!

But if using tools (other than pencil and paper) would not help engineers, they would not use them, would they? For that matter, matemathic is tool by itself, and its formulas are nothing but programs, no? I look to get results from engineering calculations in form of usefull product, but still I dont like to do mathematic research that establish formulas I use, I leave this to mathematic scientists...... They also have to debug their programs (formulas) by proving that results match observed phenomena and thus explain them. Now, if I could save days of my life that would be othervise spent on endless calculations, I would surely use computer, even if I would calculate some examples by hand to be sure that I get correct result from program, and then I could be at peace using it for countless thousands of similar calculations.

I would not deny You joy of calculating by hand, specially if You do it on Your free time, but would not be happy as Your employer since time You would spend on this cost money and could mean difference of being late to launch new product on the market........ So instead of engineer, perhaps You should be matematician.....:-))

I'll throw another idea out. I do use software tools, particularly FEA, a lot. But, I'm a really OF who started on slide rules. Because slide rules had no way of keeping track of the tens exponent, and because the calculation did not print out as you did it, many of us developed the habit of estimating the answer before picking up the ole slipstick. I still do that and, once in a while, find software tools have given the wrong answer, usually because I set up something wrong. I would still maintain that you ought to know approximately the answer before you do any calculation, else you're not doing good engineering or science.

as a mathamatically challenged thinker who constantly estimates and is hardly ever able to get the exact number, I agree with TVP45. Someday I expect people like me will have a camera calculator that will spit out the numbers from the pictures we take. Of course my problems come from what exists and must be mated to what is being built to the degenerated. Truly it is easier to build from the ground up, than to mate to the weathered and distorted even if it was originally done well.

Nevil Shute Norway is one of my heroes because he designed intuitively and then made the numbers work and described a spiritual catharsis coming from calculations made on the Sliderule.

Perfect answer and well worth a GA.

The Mars shot that completely failed of a few years ago would have worked if you had been on the project!!!

Without computers and software, you wouldn't have the aircraft we currently have. It would be impossible to perform the Finite Element Analysis required, for instance, to produce the Boeing 777, or so many other things. The share volume of calculations required are just prohibitive. It's not just a matter of drudgery, it would take decades or even centuries in some cases to do the same thing on a slide rule. If engineers didn't have the software tools, this would be one very different world we'd be in right now.

The fastest plane ever built which was also not easy to see on a radar screen (just the exhaust) because of the way it was designed, the SR71 Blackbird, was designed using slide rules and no computers........

Although Mothballed, there is still nothing that can do the same job at the same speed and it must be coming up to being over 40 years old by now!!!

More infos can be seen & read at:-

SR-71 Blackbird

Yeah, closer to 44 years now, and it is still holding record for high flight...

But if You think then there was no computers, then You are wrong, and since some reconstructed projects from 2005 have found out, there was over 3 milion calculations necesary :-))

Then, it was made in great secrecy, so how would You know which way it was calculated?

I read they used wind tunnel extensively and therefore must be they made smaller models first, and it was built using speciall toolset, which say that actually they copied curves of most succesfull model by making enlargement in proper proportion. Do You know that only 32 was ever built, out of which 12 have been destroyed in accidents and none in action :-))

I am sure they used computers whenever they could, and they had CDC 6000, designed by Seymour Cray, that was one of first sucessful scientific computers built for army.

Marijan Pollak, IT SA/SE 1st. Class, Instructor and Team Leader Director and owner of company OBERON d.o.o. Zagreb

Even the F-117a, which was designed in times of relatively powerful computers, in comparison to the SR-71 era at least, only had flat panels because the computers of that time could not do the calculations for rounded panels in a reasonable time and manner......Started in 1975.

You will please note that the SR-71 is mostly rounded in shape, far more than the F-117a for example......this precludes most design work being done on a computer at that time and much much later.....

The B2 Spirit (started in 1981), has many rounded features.....it cost a lot of computer time and power to design it!!! Look just how much later it was designed than the SR-71, almost 20 years time difference....

Believe me, the SR-71 was designed with almost no computer help as computers were fairly weak and in their infancy at that time.....

Well, that was same time when Mrs. Ada Augusta made first FORTRAN compiler, so I think it was possible to use computers for that, even if program and data were on punched tape and results were output same way too. It is time first plotter device was made, so even plotting contours was possible. But since I know that my father was building airoplane models using simple drawing tools as his only help, and that one of them flied 14 Km (it were sailplane) simply thrown from hand on top of the small hil. Professional engineers of aeronautic could have done same, even without sliderules....... My two uncles were studying aeronautic engineering in Moscou, and I remember talking with them how Russians are constructing airoplanes. If Russians were able to do it, then surely it could be done at Lockheed.... At least they had windtunel and they could have carved those models from balsa wood. With good idea, anything is possible to be constructed, given time and resources.

Still some characteristics of this plane show that somebody has to make lot of calculations, specially for motors in regard to damping shockwave of Mach 3.2 flight, and I must tell You that in this time people were very resorcefull in using even limited capabilities of existing computers. That was hard work, but I have seen computers of this time on Institute of Atomic, Chemistry and Biology Research Institute >>Rudjer Boskovic<< where Croatian scientists have calculated using them.....Takes more time, and single bug can preclude program from working, but it could be done. It is true also that I have met engineers at approximately same times that were extremely efficient using slide rule, and they beat mechanicall calculators of this time in speed and accuracy.........

Now, can we move to some more fruitfull discusion, about present time engineers and what present time computers and computer programs could do for them?

Speed!

Good question with multiple answers.

First, software does not make one appear LAZY any more than a using a hand-cart is more lazy than carrying a load by hand. Software is a tool to ease repetitive processes and without it, we would be taking a lot more time to use more manual methods.

There is a problem when those who don't understand a technology resort to software tools to gain an 'answer' without the ability to know if the answer is valid or not. Many software solutions are algorithms that only approximate answers and if exacting answers are needed, other methods, often empirical, are required.

The other consideration, which more regards the 'business' of writing and selling software tools concerns the basics of if or if not you can generate income. There are lots of tools available that I would LIKE to have, but simply can't justify the expense, and (sadly) if something needed and valuable is available, but not affordable it will be pirated. The flip side is more affordable solutions, but you need to sell more to make a buck. And, don't forget, you have to offer support after the sale and that will take a lot of man-hours, more times the number of copies you have sold.

Yes, we do need software, but finding that which meets our needs, is affordable, and can be supported is quite a challenge.

Truly, I wish you well, but hope you can consider all the ramifications of what you propose.

True! But there is another way to make software affordable to everybody, which would also bring more money to author(s), at least I would do it that way: Give software in exchange for contract guaranteeing that succesfull projects would pay at least 10% from profit gained...

If I make such program for design and testing of devices, then first of all there would not be ANY bugs in it, and it would be organized the way people who want to engineer something allready think, therefore lot of explanations would not be necesary, and all tests would be there as default option, with posibility to turn them off, and of course with posibility to variate parameters, by hand or automaticaly, to be sure device is tested under all imaginable conditions or combination of conditions. Since there would be big library of >>virtuall<< or scalable/adjustable components, that could match prefabricated, off shelf components from real world, process of design would be like virtuall assembling of device, and program would be able to check if there is allready similar device engineering plan, even on concept level, so instead of doing it all from the start, user could just adapt existing project to get some improvement over existing solutions. For example, if there is allready some windpower electric generating device, one can change number of wings used, make them wider or completely change shape of wings, change system from horizontall rotation to verticall rotation system and so on... Then, users could be earning the money by constructing universall assemblies or making virtuall representation of off shelf parts and assemblies for factories that produce them, and be paid by program owner(s) for inclusion of this components in library or factory that vould vant that their products would be available for construction and later for production of devices. There could be option for big companies to rent program instead of signing a contract for giving part of profit, and any and all users would have right for free upgrades of program and its library of >>prefabricated<< parts that could also be tested to confirm to real world use and that results that they show on computer would match real performance as closely as it is possible. Because of this testing of components by same program, they would be ready to fit in as a part of some device, and at same time prepared for testing as part of this device, where internal state of device sourounding part would be used to retest its functioning. So for instance a electricity generator that could be tested in >>standalone<< mode by varying torque aplied to its shaft and eventually varying temperature, humidity, speed of air and its direction, would be tested inside device by receiving torque from its connection to windmill blades shaft, but at same time that same wings would create direction and speed of air for it, and air could also contain rain sleet or hail like it would be in real world, or lightning could strike it, or it could be overprotected by some enclosure and so would be unable to cool itself and so on.......... User would be able to make separate (proprietary) library of assemblies or parts, and all would be available for use in new projects, so much repeatable work would be reused, and since such part would be allready tested, new projects could be made faster and faster, just assembling them from available parts like any good engineer would do from off shelf components.......

Unfortunately, I still cannot have enough money to just sit and work, much less to hire physicist that would help make simulation of real world conditions.........

Speed and accuratecy. How many calculation can you do in a minute? How many can a computer do? How many times do you need to do the same calculation during a design project?

The ability to solve a problem fast means one can test different scenarios to find best solution. One can concentrate on better design and not worry if it'll works in the end.

Here's an interesting link, having to do with software tools for analog design. I tried to find the number one in the series, but couldn't; I remember it for it's varnish-blistering critique of SPICE. For those who don't know him, Bob Pease appears to be older than water and crabbier than me but is arguably the best damn analog designer in the world. BTW, I disagree with him about SPICE, but I sure wouldn't say it to his face.

http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=5632