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ESDU (originally an acronym of "Engineering Sciences Data Unit" but now used on its own account) is an engineering advisory organisation based in the United Kingdom.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2022) |
ESDU (originally an acronym of "Engineering Sciences Data Unit" but now used on its own account) is an engineering advisory organisation based in the United Kingdom.
ESDU provides validated engineering analysis tools to engineers and teachers in the aerospace engineering, process engineering and structural engineering fields. The tools include methodologies, design guides, equations and software, and are accompanied by an advisory service that enables engineers to discuss their requirements and data application directly with ESDU staff.[ citation needed ]
ESDU's engineering staff are assisted and guided in their work by independent committees of specialists drawn from industry and academia worldwide. They are responsible for ensuring the technical quality of the work and for presenting the data in a clear, concise, authoritative manner. They also determine the future direction of the work, taking into account the views of users.[ citation needed ]
The services offered by ESDU cover a wide variety of different engineering fields. These include:[ citation needed ]
In 1940 with World War II raging the British aircraft industry was rapidly expanding. Engineers from other industries as diverse as bicycle manufacture and piano making who lacked the specialised knowledge required for aircraft design were being drafted into the war effort to assist with the design and construction of aircraft.
To meet this challenge, the government asked the Royal Aeronautical Society to form a Technical Department with the aim of producing easy-to-use design guides, data sheets and analysis methodologies. More importantly the Technical Department was to validate this work to ensure its accuracy. To ensure the authority and quality of the work, a Technical Committee was established, with its expert members drawn from across the many aircraft companies and research establishments. In short, ESDU were tasked with bridging the gap between research and industry. This unique philosophy of collaboration allowed the team to assemble a large collection of validated design guides and data sheets for use by the aircraft industry.
Towards the end of the 1960s, grant aid was withdrawn and ESDU became a commercial entity selling subscriptions to its services. In 1998 ESDU was purchased by IHS Inc. based in Denver, United States.
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The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to engineering:
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Theodore von Kármán was a Hungarian-American mathematician, aerospace engineer, and physicist who was active primarily in the fields of aeronautics and astronautics. He was responsible for many key advances in aerodynamics, notably on supersonic and hypersonic airflow characterization. He is regarded as an outstanding aerodynamic theoretician of the 20th century.
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The Bauman Moscow State Technical University, BMSTU, sometimes colloquially referred to as the Bauman School or Baumanka is a public technical university (Polytechnic) located in Moscow, Russia. Bauman University a Russian technical university offering B.S., M.S. and PhD degrees in various engineering fields and applied sciences.
Ludwig Prandtl was a German fluid dynamicist, physicist and aerospace scientist. He was a pioneer in the development of rigorous systematic mathematical analyses which he used for underlying the science of aerodynamics, which have come to form the basis of the applied science of aeronautical engineering. In the 1920s he developed the mathematical basis for the fundamental principles of subsonic aerodynamics in particular; and in general up to and including transonic velocities. His studies identified the boundary layer, thin-airfoils, and lifting-line theories. The Prandtl number was named after him.
Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes the ability of equipment to function without failure. Reliability describes the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a specified period of time. Reliability is closely related to availability, which is typically described as the ability of a component or system to function at a specified moment or interval of time.
Hugh Latimer Dryden was an American aeronautical scientist and civil servant. He served as NASA Deputy Administrator from August 19, 1958, until his death.
Jerome Clarke Hunsaker was an American naval officer and aeronautical engineer, born in Creston, Iowa, and educated at the U.S. Naval Academy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work with Gustav Eiffel outside Paris led to the first wind tunnel in the US at MIT. He was instrumental in developing a weather reporting and airway navigation. Hunsaker was also pivotal in establishing the theoretical and scientific study of aerodynamics in the United States. And he was primarily responsible for the design and construction of the Navy-Curtiss airplane (NC-4) that accomplished the first transatlantic flight, and the first successful shipboard fighter. Later he championed lighter-than-air flight but the loss of the Navy airship he designed, the USS Akron, led to the withdrawal of federal support. His WW2 chairmanship of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was notable for favouring the development of existing aircraft designs rather than experimenting with turbojets or missile technology.
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Alexander Henry Flax was the Chief Scientist of the U.S. Air Force (USAF) from 1959 to 1961, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Research and Development from 1963 to 1969, and the third Director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) from 1965 to 1969. He was the director at a time when the second generation of imaging systems became operational and began to play a major role in United States intelligence during the Cold War. He oversaw major growth in NRO funding and personnel, the development of signals intelligence collectors from space, and the development of electro-optical imaging for US reconnaissance satellites.
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Professor Bhagavatula Dattaguru is an Indian engineer and academic. He has received several awards, including the Padma Shri Award, India's fourth highest civilian honour in 2005 in the field of science and engineering.
Tumkur Seetharamaiah Prahlad is an Indian aerospace scientist and the former director of the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Bengaluru, known as a specialist in Aerodynamics and Aerospace Design. His contributions are reported in Indian civil aircraft development programmes of Hansa and NAL Saras and light combat aircraft development programme. The Government of India awarded him the civilian honour of the Padma Shri in 2004, The same year, he received the H. K. Firodia Award from H. K. Firodia Memorial Foundation.
Frances Beatrice Bradfield was an aeronautical engineer at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE). She worked at RAE Farnborough, where she headed the Wind Tunnels Section. Here she mentored many of the younger male engineers who joined the RAE.