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History of Engineering Overview

History of Engineering Overview. Engineers use knowledge that scientists discover to solve problems and create technologies that make life easier. Scientists ask and answer questions and discover new knowledge about how the world works. Prehistoric Times.

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History of Engineering Overview

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  1. History of Engineering Overview • Engineers use knowledge that scientists discover to solve problems and create technologies that make life easier. • Scientists ask and answer questions and discover new knowledge about how the world works.

  2. Prehistoric Times • Invention and use of the wedge, lever, and wheel (possibly).

  3. Mesopotamia • Invented the wheel around 4500 BC. Originally used for pottery, then used for wheeled carts (4500-3200 BC). • Sumerians built canals, walls, and temples. • Astrolabe built in 2000 BC. • Also invented metalworking, copper-working, glassmaking, lamp making, textile weaving, flood control, water storage, as well as irrigation. • Nahrwan Canal was used to control floods and irrigate – paralleled the Tigris. It was 400 feet wide and 200 miles long.

  4. The Code of Hammurabi • Hammurabi was one of Babylonia’s kings from 1792 BC to 1750 BC . • The Code of Hammurabi (~1772 BC) was a set of 282 laws which, among other things, established a set of building ethics, reinforced the importance of quality, and specified consequences for breaking the code.

  5. The Code of Hammurabi • 229. If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death. • 230. If it kills the son of the owner, the son of that builder shall be put to death. • 231. If it kills a slave of the owner, then he shall pay, slave for slave, to the owner of the house. • 232. If it ruins goods, he shall make compensation for all that has been ruined, and inasmuch as he did not construct properly this house which he built and it fell, he shall re-erect the house from his own means. • 233. If a builder builds a house for someone, even though he has not yet completed it; if then the walls seem toppling, the builder must make the walls solid from his own means.

  6. Egypt • First known civil engineer was Imhotep, 2550 BC • Developed a controlled irrigation system for the Nile River, which spread water and rich soil to the valley to grow food during the dry season. • The pyramids. • Created first known, recognizable map – the Turin papyrus, which shows the plan of a gold mine in Namibia. • Designated a “chief of works” who oversaw the construction of all projects, especially related to irrigation, flood control, and surveying.

  7. India • In the Indus Valley they had closed gutters, public baths, granaries. • Ship design and building. • Hydrology • Sanitation

  8. China • Seismographs • Matches • Double-action piston pump • Gunpowder • Magnetic compass • Suspension bridge • Paper • Iron plough • Propeller • Cross-bow • Solid-fuel rocket (1150 AD) • Glasses (spectacles)

  9. The Greeks • Greeks were unique in pre-industrial times in their ability to combine scientific research with the development of new technologies. • Harbor constructing, shipbuilding, Pharos lighthouse, dry docks • Archimedean screw, piston pump, domes, hand-powered lifts, central heating systems • Gears, differential gears, screws, showers, torsion catapults, cranes, odometers, organ

  10. Pharos Lighthouse

  11. The Romans • Romans developed an intensive and sophisticated agriculture, expanded upon existing iron working technology, advanced stonemasonry technology, advanced road-building (exceeded only in the 19th century). • Developed water power through large scale aqueducts, water mills, hydraulic mining methods. • Focused on public works projects built by slaves: monumental arches, amphitheaters, aqueducts, public baths, arch bridges, harbors, dams, domes, cement. • Developed construction machines such as the treadmill hoist, pile driver, and wooden bucket wheel (precursor to hydroelectric dams).

  12. The Middle Ages • A slow time for engineering developments, but some advances in structural design were made. • Developed and built on water mills and windmills (beginning of vertical windmills). • Sawmills for timber and stone. • Spectacles/glasses, mechanical clocks • Plough, horseshoes, chimneys, rib vault (ceilings), textiles, wheelbarrow

  13. Age of Transportation • Steam engines – first used in late 1700’s to pump water out of mines and to help power textile mills and iron works. In 1823, steam engines were being used to power trains. • Canal systems were constructed in England from 1780-1900 and in the US from about 1800-1860. • Needed better roads to keep up with the transportation technology -

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