Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Engineering

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Welcome to the Engineers Site Office. This is where engineers gather and check in when they have project tasks to organise and carry out.

This page is to discuss anything related to WikiProject Engineering

and Issues of going concern

More articles or pages in need of attention could be found here at Category:Unreferenced Engineering articles and Category:Engineering articles needing attention.

Failure

Failure has been rated by the project as of high-importance while only being a start class article. However, the current article deals almost exclusively with non-engineering related failure. Does it make sense to split the article into Failure (engineering) and Failure, have a section of the Failure article introduce engineering related failure, and then finally write a new article that will deal exclusively with engineering related failure? I think this makes the most sense, since a sizable article about engineering related failure will make the non-engineering material seem out of place and obscuring while the article does maintain, in its current state, a good source of information for people unfamiliar with the various connotations of the word failure (not sure who that would be, but it doesn't mean it's not useful...) Others' thoughts would be beneficial. I plan to begin to update this page, but would like to sort out this matter first. Schmittz (talk) 07:40, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I see engineering-related failure and related topics as very important, and distinct from non-engineering failure. A discussion of why engineering failures are important, how they happen, how engineers predict failure, etc., are all important and won't fall under the umbrella of the current Failure article. Charlesreid1 (talk) 04:28, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Articles listed at AFD

• Moving parts (AfD discussion)

The aforementioned article is listed at AFD. You may have missed it because the discussion page was incorrectly categorized. It's now in Category:AfD debates (Science and technology), though. Please contribute to the discussion. Uncle G (talk) 14:23, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Diamond grinding

Would this WikiProject like to adopt Diamond grinding? It is a newish article. It has plenty of info but it needs a bit of attention from someone who knows how to write about this sort of thing. Yaris678 (talk) 23:34, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:COI: volunteers needed

There’s a good number of people, e.g. Kww (talk), Tim Vickers (talk), Coren (talk), among many others, who have expressed desire to have me permanently banned from Wikipedia for writing on the subject of the “human molecule”, efforts of which resulted in a one year ban on me, back in 2007. To exemplify one objection, as expressed by Coren earlier this year: “You seem to ignore, Mr Thims, that Wikipedia is not the proper venue to document your novel theories.” The central problem here is that this is not “my novel theory”; but rather the theory dates back over two hundred years, with over ninety different people publishing content on this subject:

• HMS pioneers

There have been at least six books written on the subject, one painting, four aluminum Molecule Man statues (one 100-foot tall), movie mentions, articles, over a dozen videos, many debates, posters, as well as college courses (dating back to 1894) taught utilizing the human molecule perspective as a basis. What seems to be the case is that either: (a) I have been mis-labeled as an editor with aims of self-promotion over that of an editor with a genuine interest in a subject (that very few people write on or know about); or (b) the subject is an anathema to many editors (and as such are using the various bylaws of Wikipedia in their favor to block the subject from Wikipedia)? To give a bit of history of my failed efforts to write neutral overview article on the subject:

Article	EoHT article	Deletion #1	Deletion #2	Desired neutral article
Human molecule	(human molecule)	AFD (I requested deletion) redirect to nanoputian (10 Oct 2007)	Delete per WP:CSD#G4 (11 Jun 2010)

What I am looking for, at this point, being that there obviously exists some form admitable of conflict of interest (being that I wrote a history book on the subject of the human molecule in 2008 and that I seem to be one of only three people, including Robert Sterner and James Elser (2000), who have every made an attempt at the calculation of the molecular formula for one person), is for a minimum of about two or three neutral volunteer editors to write up a one page article (or even stub paragraph) on the subject of the “human molecule” (encompassing its derivative terms human atom, social atom, human chemical, human element, etc.), and I will confide my contributions or guidance of the article to the talk page. The topic, to note, is very controversial being that it is at odds with many cherished theories, particularly those of religion as well as many secular theories, such as life, free will, choice, purpose, etc.

My interest in having a Wikipedia article on this subject is so that children, age 15 or younger, will know that there is an alternative viewpoint out there on what it means to be a “human” (in contrast to the dogma of outdated subjects such as religion or other secular philosophies), and that this subject has been tossed around for at least 200-years now. At a minimum I would like to see:

(a) the mention that French philosopher Jean Sales (friend of Voltaire) coined the term in 1789 as follows: "we conclude that there exists a principle of the human body which comes from the great process in which so many millions of atoms of the earth become many millions of human molecules."

(b) the Sterner-Elser 2002 published calculation for the empirical molecular formula for one “human molecule”, as found in their Ecological Stoichiometry textbook, where they define a human (a publication which has been cited over 750-times):

$H_{375,000,000} O_{132,000,000} C_{85,700,000} N_{6,430,000} Ca_{1,500,000} P_{1,020,000} S_{206,000} Na_{183,000} \,$

$K_{177,000} C_{l127,000} Mg_{40,000} Si_{38,600} Fe_{2,680} Zn_{2,110} Cu_{76} I_{14} Mn_{13} F_{13} Cr_7 Se_4 Mo_3 Co_1 \,$

It is my view that the ban of this topic from Wikipedia is equivalent to the hysteria that results in acts of book burning of olden days or the inquisitions of Galileo for believing in the work of Copernicus. As Physchim62 (talk) put in on 11 Jun 2010 "It seems like the witch hunt is still on, more than eighteen months after the original events". I would like to think that there are more than myself and Physchim62 amenable to having a short stub article on the subject of the human defined atomically. I will post this help-message on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics and Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry talk pages. Comments welcome. --Libb Thims (talk) 19:28, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Per suggestion by Kww at the 27 Aug 2010 deletion review, I have initiated an incubator space page: Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Human molecule. I will work on developing a cogent acceptable article over the next week or so. Feel free to contribute with objections or suggestions. Thanks. --Libb Thims (talk) 18:24, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Signal processing

Hi, Is there a Wikiproject signal processing? I do not see one. The signal processing articles are generally reference free and in need of help, e.g. Quantization (signal processing) has no references whatsoever. Anyway, whoever wants to should probably start a project on that, at least to tie these overlapping articles (with a great deal of redundant text) together. As is the ratio of text to references is really large. History2007 (talk) 20:49, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Engineering articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Engineering articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 22:25, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Portal Revamp

Please could contributors have a look at my offering for a portal revamp? the page is at User:Samdlacey/sandbox and i would love some feedback. Thanks Sam Lacey (talk) 21:57, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Moving the comments

The revamp comment isn't a discussion of the wikiproject page, it's a note concerning the portal page...and as such I think it's more suited to the actual wikiproject page. I'll not move it back to save an argument but I stand by the placement. Do you have any comments on the portal?

Sam Lacey (talk) 20:40, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

This talk page isn't just for talking about the main page, its for talking about any engineering related topic. See the above discussions. Wizard191 (talk) 20:54, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Coandă-1910 thrust comparison

Hi all. I posed a question on the Coandă-1910 talk page which as yet has not been answered and thought that maybe someone here might be able to help. Basically, the Coandă-1910 was an aircraft built to test an experimental propulsion system comprising a rotary fan driven by a 50 hp conventional piston engine, argued as being the first jet engine (but that's another matter). This propulsion system was claimed to have generated approximately 485 lbf thrust with the piston engine running at 1,000 rpm, but it's not known whether this figure was achieved during static tests or while using a test bed at the front of a moving railway locomotive. Considering this was 1910 and that aircraft were typically reaching speeds of around 50 mph, my question is what thrust figure might be generated by a typical aircraft propeller of the day driven by the same 50 hp engine? There might be many variables to consider, and assumptions made to answer the question, but I'd just like to get an idea of how significant (or not) this propulsion system would have been had it not been destroyed in a crash.--TransientVoyager (talk) 17:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:45, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper

FYI, IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper has been prodded for deletion. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 08:32, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks 76.66.203.138 for intiating the improvement! Article is improved, copyedited, verified on recipient names and got one more reference. Article is now also moved to IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award. I deleted the proposal for deletion and unreferenced template. SchreyP (talk) 10:51, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Perennial debates

I would appreciate some input here regarding the perennial issue of the Main Branches of Engineering. Many thanks. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 09:22, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Marine engineering

The Marine engineering article is kind of a mess. It is currently NOT a part of any Marine-related nor Engineering-related WikiProject. It is a part of both the Technology WikiProject and the Transport WikiProject—but I'm guessing those projects are not heavily peopled with folks who understand engineering, nor marine technology. Furthermore, the article seems to be confused about whether it is about the operation side of "engineering" (in the sense that railroad train operators and ship operators are "engineers") or the design side of "engineering" (folks who do the design of large engines, big ships, power plants, electrical networks, etc.).

In short, I think the article badly needs to be in some other project to get it the attention it (probably) deserves. Thought it might be a good idea to let your project think/discuss it. N2e (talk) 01:44, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Tadashi Suetsugi engineer - can you help?

The article on Japanese engineer and mastermind behind the Edogawa River Project (also known as the G-Cans project) Tadashi Suetsugi has been an unreferenced biography of a living person since January 2009 (which is the current focus month for the Unreferenced BLP Rescue Project. I have tried, and failed to find any reliable sources to support the text of this stub - which I find surprising if he did, indeed, play a major role in the creation of this huge project. I have tried more than one spelling of his name. I'm posting here in the hope that someone with better knowledge of the area might like to take an interest and provide a source for the text. If it remains unreferenced much longer it will probably be nominated for deletion.--Plad2 (talk) 22:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Communication engineering

Is there a significant difference in meaning between communication engineering, communications system engineering and telecommunications engineering ? In particular, would it be incorrect to rename Category:Communication engineering to Category:Telecommunications engineering? Thank you, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 07:49, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I have nominated the category for renaming. Comments and suggestions would be welcome at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 18:19, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Citation templates now support more identifiers

Recent changes were made to citations templates (such as {{citation}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}...). In addition to what was previously supported (bibcode, doi, jstor, isbn, ...), templates now support arXiv, ASIN, JFM, LCCN, MR, OL, OSTI, RFC, SSRN and Zbl. Before, you needed to place |id={{arxiv|0123.4567}} (or worse |url=http://arxiv.org/abs/0123.4567), now you can simply use |arxiv=0123.4567, likewise for |id={{JSTOR|0123456789}} and |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/0123456789 → |jstor=0123456789.

The full list of supported identifiers is given here (with dummy values):

• John Smith (2000). "How to Put Things into Other Things". Journal of Foobar 1 (2): 3–4. arXiv:0123456789. ASIN 0123456789. Bibcode 0123456789. . ISBN 0123456789. ISSN 0123456789. JFM 0123456789. JSTOR 0123456789. LCCN 0123456789. MR0123456789. OCLC 0123456789. OL0123456789. OSTI 0123456789. PMC 0123456789. PMID 0123456789. RFC 0123456789. SSRN 0123456789. Zbl 0123456789. |id=____. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=0123456789. 

Obviously not all citations needs all parameters, but this streamlines the most popular ones and gives both better metadata and better appearances when printed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:46, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Please review seriousness v. proposed deletion as parody of new article Names of small numbers at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of small numbers

Engineering WikiProject members, please, this is being discussed at:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of small numbers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Names_of_small_numbers#Names_of_small_numbers

Thank you. Pandelver (talk) 00:08, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Gerrards Cross collapse

Suggested move. See talk:Gerrards Cross tunnel collapse. Simply south...... 23:36, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Template:Pi

The usage of {{pi}} is under discussion, see Template talk: pi . 65.95.13.139 (talk) 13:41, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Infinitesimals

What is the role of infinitesimals in engineering? Was there a previous discussion along these lines? The article hardly mentions applications in engineering at all. Tkuvho (talk) 14:20, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

no WikiProject Electrical Engineering?

I can find WikiProjects for Electronics and Computing, but none for Electrical Engineering. Have I just not found it and it is there, or does it really not exist? If not, shouldn't we get it started? -- Nczempin (talk) 09:37, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps a task-force for WP Engineering would be sufficient until it is big enough. Electrical engineering is one of the one of the basic fields of engineering according to the WP Engineering. It is also distinct from Electronics/Electronics Engineering, which is a sub-field of EE. -- Nczempin (talk) 10:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

There should be wikiprojects for each major field of engineering. We already have WP:WikiProject Civil engineering; there should be one for EE, Computer Engineering & Software Engineering, Mechanical Engineering & Industrial Engineering. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 06:22, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to rename the Torque article to Moment of force

There is an issue of inconsistent terminology between physics and engineering courses regarding torque. As the article states: "The terminology for this concept is not straightforward: In the US, in physics it is usually called "torque" and in mechanical engineering it is called "moment".[2] However outside the US this varies. In the UK for instance, most physicists will use the term "moment". In mechanical engineering, the term "torque" means something different,[3] described below. In this article the word "torque" is always used to mean the same as "moment"."

I am proposing to change the article title from the physics term torque, to the engineering term, moment of force. You can agree or disagree at Talk:Torque. :-) --Steve (talk) 04:24, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Combat engineering

Combat engineering has been requested to be renamed. 65.94.45.160 (talk) 08:48, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Six-stroke engines

Crower six stroke has been nominated for deletion. Expert opinion needed there and at Six-stroke engine. Cheers, John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:47, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

AfD

Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marc Edwards (civil engineering professor). Steve Dufour (talk) 01:12, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Oil platform

Hi. This article could have sections copied from here, as "Types" or Introduction. Please, check. I tell you because it has a template is under your scope. Thanks. --Andreateletrabajo (talk) 22:39, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

RFC on identifiers

There is an RFC on the addition of identifier links to citations by bots. Please comment. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:00, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Request for assistance

If any WikiProject Engineering members wish to contribute to the Edward J. Wasp (the pioneer of coal slurry pipelines) article, please feel free. I am not familiar enough with the technical aspects of his contributions to get this article to Good status. I have posted a few links on the article's talk page, and I am certain other articles exist so more research is needed. Any assistance would be much appreciated. --Another Believer _(Talk) 02:25, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Arachno-Bot

I've started new article on Arachno-Bot. Will appreciate your help in copy-editing, minor fixes or anything you desire to improve the article. ASHU^IND 09:03, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Articles listed at AFD

• ICASE 2009 (AfD discussion)

The aforementioned article is listed at AFD. Please contribute to the discussion. Gsingh (talk) 19:21, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Need some help with bridge scour

The article on bridge scour needs to be moved and generalized since this is a phenomenon involving any submerged structure. I'm not sure where to move it to: scour is currently occupied by a defunct software product. I'm inclined to either move it there and displace the software, or move it to scour (hydrology). Assistance on the move and/or updating the article would be appreciated as I am not a civil engineer; I just happen to write articles on structures which are plagued by scouring. Mangoe (talk) 14:40, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

request for review: Strength of materials

Could someone take a look at Strength of materials and make notes on the talk page about what needs further work, please. I did some reorganizing to try to get rid of the old cleanup tag but it seems to consist mainly of definitions. Suggestions on how to improve the article appreciated. RJFJR (talk) 14:25, 29 February 2012 (UTC)