The application areas of engineering are referred to as disciples or branches. The main eight branches are:
- Aeronautical engineering
- Agricultural engineering
- Civil engineering
- Chemical engineering
- Electrical/Electronical engineering
- Industrial engineering
- Mechanical engineering
- Mining engineering
These disciplines (or “branches”) are often broken down into several sub-disciplines (or “twigs”) as shown in the diagram below.
Despite the wide range of specialist knowledge all these disciplines and sub-disciplines are joined together by a “trunk” of fundamental knowledge and common competencies.
For example all engineering professionals must have good problem analysis abilities coupled with the ability to synthesis solutions to problems, the application of knowledge, design, investigation, the management of engineering activity, ethical behaviour and the assessment and mitigation of impact of engineering solutions.
Specialist knowledge is built on approximately 16 fundamental engineering sciences which are rooted in the natural sciences, physics and chemistry in turn relying on mathematics to solve problems. Click here to view the list of 16 fundamental engineering sciences
A typical discipline relies typically on five or six out of the total of these sixteen fundamental engineering sciences. For example, mechanical engineering specialties are built on engineering mechanics, materials science, mechanics of solids, theory of machines, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics.
Believe it or not, but civil engineering substitutes only one of these fundamentals “mechanics for machines” with “theory of structures”, otherwise its foundation is similar to mechanical engineering!
Click here to see how all the disciplines are interrelated.
It is because of these common competencies and fundamental knowledge that engineering professionals can be trained in a specific discipline, but can throughout their career become multi-disciplined and working in potentially a variety of economic sectors such as construction, energy, manufacturing, chemical industries, mining, local government services, transportation, agriculture, defence and water.
