Re: [PipingDesign] Tirade

>What I have
>noticed is that new designers who haven´t had the experience of designing on
>the drafting borad , do not quite get to the point, nor they get the real
>feeling of designing.

Interesting. I think what you're seeing are sprogs who have learned to run software but haven't learned any of the art of engineering. They also haven't learned that engineering isn't just cartooning, and that the guts of engineering is communication and organization.

I see exactly the same thing over here on the analysis end. Plenty of FEA guys know how to run programs but haven't a clue about making a free body diagram. As a result they can run 50000 element FEA models, but are totally clueless about how to validate the results. They also can't distinguish a question (What's the yield strength of A106 at 850F?) from an issue (Do we add a system to cool the pipe or use expensive high temperature material?).

The trouble is that they don't teach this stuff in school (and never have, to my knowledge), and a lot of academia imagines that computer power is a substitute for oraganizational skills. so they teach the software and ignore the fundamentals. Design is learned from designers--it isn't taught in 'senior design projects' where the sprog spends a few weeks cartooning up an undersea habitat or tinkering around with solar cells. I don't think students should graduate in a real engineering curriculum without at least a year as a co-op or an intern.

I guess I can tirade with the best of them.

Christopher Wright P.E.    |"They couldn't hit an elephant from
chrisw@skypoint.com        | this distance"   (last words of Gen.
___________________________| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania 1864)