Appreciating Complex Engineering in Our Everyday Lives

Our world is a fantastic, mechanically complex place, but many people aren’t really aware of this—and that’s by design. When you think about the marvels of modern engineering, your mind instinctively goes to bullet trains and jet aircraft, robotics, or maybe other sophisticated computing devices.

While these products are obviously complicated and amazing triumphs of human imagination, ingenuity, and persistence, in many ways, it's the everyday products – the ones you seldom think about – that are testament to the remarkability of human achievement.

After all, the best designs are sometimes the ones that go unnoticed. Even seemingly simple designs consist of various bits of machinery working together to achieve a particular goal.

Here are six everyday products that don’t seem particularly sophisticated when you use them but have a subtle genius simplicity to their design.

1. A lock

The standard lock and key mechanism is perhaps one of the simplest yet cleverest inventions you encounter every day. You interact with several secured entryways on the daily from home to office. Each key has unique ridges designed to perfectly line up with a fault line inside the lock. Only when all the ridges and fault lines line up, will the lock turn.

Locks have been in use for the entirety of modern life, with the earliest examples dating back over 6000 years to the ruins of Nineveh in Ancient Assyria. The earliest locks were wooden structures consisting of a bolt, door fixture plus key. The key would move lift pins within the fixture out of their drilled holes within the bolt allowing it to move. Now because of the proliferation of precision engineering, lock and keys are manufactured with increasing complexity and sophistication.

2. Manual Can Opener

You've probably wondered how to use a manual can opener, but have you wondered how they work. Manual can openers are simple machines especially compared to other kitchen appliances. However, the intricacies of their design make them an incredible piece of machinery. A manual can opener consists of four parts: the handles, crank, traction gears, and the cutting wheel.

When you use a manual can opener, to start with, you separate the handles and place the traction gear on the lip of the can, which focuses the cutting wheel onto the can. When you use force to bring the handles together and turn the crank, the cutting wheel is propelled and digs into the lid of the can.

All these parts are intricately machined to ensure you don’t have to use that much force.

3. 3D printing

Let's talk about the marvel that is 3D printing. 3D printing is a staple of modern manufacturing, allowing for the design and manufacture of more complex structures, rapid prototyping, and fast time to market. So, what can you create with 3D printing? Well, practically everything.

From medicine, architectural design to the design of mechanical components, 3D printing can be applied in virtually every field. 3D printing has revolutionized mechanical engineering and the manufacture of mechanical parts. It offers unparalleled design freedom that allows engineers to make complex designs consisting of high geometries.

3D printing has been refined over the years and now uses an ever-increasing amount of materials, including metals, plastics, and resins. Whatever your mind can conceptualize can be 3D printed.

4. Sustainable HVAC Systems

For decades, geothermal HVAC systems have been used to heat and cool homes without burning any fuel. The hidden genius of these systems lies in the piping. The engineering discipline of piping deals with the efficient transfer of fluids.

Geothermal heat pump systems work with nature, not against it. During winter, the heat pump extracts heat from the earth and circulates it into your home. In summer, the heat pump removes hot air from your home and re-injects it back into the ground.

In industry, flanges avail an instrumental connecting link for piping and valves, providing an easy point of access for cleaning, inspection, and modification. Without these mechanical components, piping systems would not be as effective.

To ensure efficiency and durability, these mechanical parts have to be manufactured from a resilient material such as stainless; otherwise, they would prove to be the weak point.

5. Hammer Strength Machines

Exercise enthusiasts will be familiar with this piece of machinery. It is considered one of the best equipment lines for working out. The hammer strength machine utilizes iso-lateral technology to copy the natural movement of the human body. The biomechanics of the device ensure improvement of everyday training effectivity, but the most significant benefit has to be the reduction of injuries.

The field of sports biomechanics is a particularly interesting one. It's a field focused on optimizing human performance by analyzing and mimicking human movement patterns. Since it's a relatively new field, the possible applications in sport are endless!

Beltim & Associates is here for your engineering needs. We have a wide array of services ranging from machining to sheet metal manufacturing, 3D printing, injection molding and more. Get a free quote today!