• Question: What do you think is the most complex area of engineering?

    Asked by 534sftb43 to Matthew, Neil, Paula, Pete, Philippa on 15 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Neil Taylor

      Neil Taylor answered on 15 Mar 2015:

      Hi 534stfb43!

      This is a tough question to answer! I think that if you were to ask this question to 100 different engineers, you may well get 100 different answers. For me, I think that there are very complex aspects of every area of engineering.

      For example: in electrical engineering, figuring out the behaviour of some seemingly simple electronic circuits can become VERY complex VERY quickly as new components are added.

      In a branch of engineering called “fluid mechanics” (which looks at how liquids and gases behave), the number of complex equations needed to solve a problem are often so large that you need to use special computer programs to find an answer.

      In my own industry, modelling how frequent and how large waves are in the sea (to work out what impact they will have on a structure like an oilrig, for example) involves lot of complex formulae. On top of this, working out the probability of waves coming from various directions (e.g. North, or South-West, or East) add an extra level of complexity.

      So I think that if you look at any area of engineering, you’re likely to find very complex aspects!

      Hope this helps!

    • Photo: Philippa Jefferis

      Philippa Jefferis answered on 15 Mar 2015:

      Anything with the word “quantum” in scares me, I just can’t really understand the theory myself. I prefer working with things I can see and touch.

    • Photo: Pete Symons

      Pete Symons answered on 19 Mar 2015:

      Hi 534sftb43,

      I would have to software engineering, I have tried to understand it but because I can’t see it and I don;t understand coding languages that well then it is particularly tough. It is also one of the biggest headaches for safety because how to you assure something that runs on software is totally safe when you haven’t tested every single line of code.

      For example the flight control systems on an aircraft are pretty important to being able to keep the aircraft in the air, most modern aircraft have software in which controls the ‘control surfaces’ and the pilots interface with the working part of the aircraft. The software used probably has billions of lines of code, and hidden in there could be the one fault that could give you a problem.

      I leave the experts in software engineering to advise me if ever I have to get involved!!

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