Engineering Your Future: An Australasian Guide

Engineering Your Future: An Australasian Guide, Third edition, is the ideal resource for undergraduate students beginning their engineering studies. Building on the success of the popular first and second editions, this new edition continues the strong and practical emphasis on skills that are essential for engineering problem solving and design. Numerous topical and locally focused examples of projects across the broad range of engineering disciplines help to demonstrate vividly the role and responsibilities of a professional engineer. Themes of sustainability, ethical practice and effective communication are a constant throughout the text. This edition extensively covers the concepts of sustainability, design, engineering economics and professional responsibility. In addition, its many exercises and project activities will encourage students to put key engineering principles and skills into practice.

Table of Contents:
About the authors xvi Preface xxi Engineering text applications at a glance xxiv Acknowledgements xxxiv Part 1 Introduction to engineering 1 1. What is engineering? 3 2. The engineering method 55 Part 2 Engineering in society 113 3. Sustainable engineering 115 4. Professional responsibility and ethics 171 Part 3 Professional skills 219 5. Self-management 221 6. Collaborating with others 281 Part 4 Communication 325 7. Understanding communication 327 8. Communication skills 379 Part 5 Applying the engineering method 429 9. Understanding the problem 431 10. Engineering design 485 11. Evaluating options 537 12. Engineering decision making 569 13. Managing engineering projects 605 14. Communicating information 653 Part 6 Planning your career 715 15. Your engineering future 717 Glossary 757 Index 764

About the Author :
David Dowling, DipLSurv, ARMIT, BAppSci, MSurvMap, FIEAust, Honorary Professor of Engineering Education, Faculty of Engineering and Surveying, University of Southern Queensland David Dowling is passionate about facilitating student learning and helping engineering students to achieve their career goals. Consequently, much of his work and research is focused on working with industry representatives to develop practice-based curricula and enhance teaching and learning environments. Recently his focus has been on: facilitating student transition to university; identifying and addressing factors that influence success at university; assessing workplace learning; working with practitioners to define graduate attributes; embedding graduate attributes into program curricula; and engineering technician education. David worked as a surveyor for 12 years prior to accepting a lecturing position at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) in 1978. David was appointed Head of Surveying in 1989 and worked intensively with industry organisations to design, develop and gain accreditation for three new distance education programs. In 1995, he accepted the role of Associate Dean (Academic) in the Faculty of Engineering and Surveying, a position he held until 2009. His major achievements in this role included the successful accreditation of the first Australian Bachelor of Engineering to be offered by distance education. More recently, David developed the content, structure and study materials for the innovative Master of Engineering Practice program. This distance education program is accredited by Engineers Australia and enables experienced Engineering Technologists to become Professional Engineers by using their workplace learning to demonstrate their competence. Over the last five years David led two major Office of Learning and Teaching–funded projects and is a member of the project team on three other projects. He has been a member of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) since 1998, serving as President during 2005 and 2006, and a member of Engineers Australia’s National Articulation Committee since 2006. In 2006 David received the AAEE Excellence in Engineering Education Award for Inclusive Teaching, and in 2008 he received an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Citation which read: For sustained leadership in using graduate attributes to design and deliver programs, courses and resources that enhance students’ learning and their achievement of career goals. When David retired in 2015 he accepted a three-year appointment as an Honorary Professor at the University of Southern Queensland. This will allow him to continue his research in engineering education topics that will help students achieve their career goals. Roger Hadgraft, BE(Hons), MEngSc, DipCompSc, PhD, Deputy Dean, Learning and Teaching, CQUniversity Roger Hadgraft is a civil engineer with more than 20 years of involvement in improving engineering education. He has published many papers on problemand project-based learning, and the use of online technology to support student-centred learning to meet the needs of engineering employers. He was instrumental in introducing a project-based curriculum in civil engineering at Monash University in 1998 and in civil, chemical and environmental engineering at RMIT between 2003 and 2006, with special emphasis on new, project-based subjects in first year. Roger was the Foundation Director of the Engineering Learning Unit at the University of Melbourne, assisting with the introduction of the Melbourne Model, 2007–11. He coordinated the new program in Sustainable Systems Engineering at RMIT in 2012–13 and is currently Deputy Dean at CQUniversity. He has also been involved in issues of sustainability for the last ten years, introducing new undergraduate subjects and a Master of Sustainable Practice. Roger has consulted on PBL to universities both nationally and internationally. He was a member of the  Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) Executive during 2001–09 and was the 2008 President. Anna Carew, BSc(Hons), PhD, Senior Lecturer, University of Tasmania Australian Maritime College In 1996, Anna Carew was a water microbiologist and began working with engineers to research novel microbial indicators of water and wastewater quality. Havingr ealised engineering was such a powerful and fascinating field, she moved into industrial training at a private consultancy, and, between 1998 and 2000, worked alongside engineers as a research consultant in sustainable water and waste management with the Institute for Sustainable Futures. A passion to effect change led Anna to undertake her PhD at the University of Sydney investigating the teaching and learning of sustainability in engineering. Since then, Anna has enthusiastically researched and supported the teaching and learning of undergraduate engineering. Her engineering education work has included mapping the teaching and assessment of graduate attributes in engineering, supporting engineering curriculum review and renewal, documenting engineering academics’ and students’ conceptions of sustainability, and researching why some students struggle to learn first-year mechanics. In 2011, Anna was awarded an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Citation for her outstanding and sustained contribution to graduate attribute teaching and learning. Anna has supported major curriculum renewal and reaccreditation at four Australian engineering faculties, and attracted World Bank funding to assist engineering academics in Chile to modernise curriculum (2007–08). She was the recipient of several grants from the ALTC, including leading a major multi-institutional, cross-disciplinary project on the teaching and assessment of meta-attributes in engineering (2006–08). In 2010, Anna joined the Tasmanian Institute for Agriculture at the University of Tasmania to refocus on technical research; she now spends her time investigating the marvellous fusion of microbiology, chemistry and bioprocess engineering that is pinot noir wine-making. Tim McCarthy, BE, MSc, PhD, MIEI, Professor of Structural Engineering, University of Wollongong Professor Tim McCarthy joined the School of Civil Mining and Environmental Engineering in December 2004 after nearly 20 years as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. Tim’s specialisations include sustainable buildings, engineering education research, integrated design systems and steel structure design, and he has supervised and co-supervised 52 PhDs, MPhil and MSc theses. In 2010 he received an Australian Learning and Teaching Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning for leadership in curriculum and space design that fosters collaborative learning. Tim is also the author of best-selling textbook AutoCAD Express. In 2013 he led the UOW construction team to victory in the Solar Decathlon China defeating 20 teams from around the world. Doug Hargreaves, PhD, MSc, BEng Professor Doug Hargreaves is a professor in mechanical engineering at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He has spent his professional life in a mixture of academic and industry practice. He was National President of the peak professional body for engineers, Engineers Australia, which had more than 100 000 members in 2010. He was Head of School of Engineering Systems at QUT for seven years, leading about 125 staff members. More recently, he returned to teaching over 1000 firstyear engineering students a unit called ‘Engineering and Sustainability’, which effectively taught what engineering graduates do in the real world. He has published over 50 papers on the topic of engineering education and over 100 on his discipline of tribology. He is co-author of a leadership book called Values-Driven Leadership. He was awarded a member of the Order of Australia in the 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honours list for his significant contribution to engineering education and to the community. Caroline Baillie BSc(Hons), MHEduc, PhD, Chair in Engineering Education; Director of Faculty Academy for the Scholarship of Education, University Western Australia Caroline Baillie is Chair of Engineering Education at the University of Western Australia, Perth, and has previously held appointments at the University of Sydney; Imperial College, UK; and Queens University, Canada. She has taught students from all engineering disciplines and all academic years. Beginning her academic career in materials engineering, she has also gained qualifications, expertise and experience in education, psychotherapy, mediation and social science, holding positions in educational development within engineering at a departmental, faculty and national level. Caroline is particularly interested in ways in which science and engineering can help to create solutions for the environment as well as social problems. In 2006 she founded the not-for-profit organisation Waste for Life (wasteforlife.org), which uses materials engineering knowledge to co-create income streams for marginalised populations in different parts of the Global South. Caroline is a Thomson Reuters Highly Cited author, with over 200 publications, papers and books on materials, engineering education, and engineering and social justice.