Engineers cannot do without sound engineering judgement based upon practical knowledge acquired through experience. The web is an increasingly useful descriptive resource. In practice, some components are designed to guidelines laid down in standard Codes of Practice whose implementation could be disastrous if they are treated like recipe books. Rather students are expected to demonstrate an understanding of why a certain approach is used to throw light on a particular component's behaviour, an appreciation of the general trends of that behaviour, and an ability to modify the component economically to suit the design problem in hand. For these reasons Lectures will trace out only the broad arguments.
Examinations are open-book and test ability to adapt course material to new situations.
Students should therefore attempt many tutorial examples, to become adept at adaptation. Detailed answers to all tutorial problems are provided, but they should not be consulted until the problems have been tried and the solution steps appreciated. Students should realise that when they graduate they must be prepared to tackle the difficult, ie.