The Mathematical Expertise of Mechanical Engineers: Taking and Processing Measurements

Abstract

This chapter reports about a project that tries to capture the mathematical expertise a mechanical engineer needs in his or her daily work. We study how mechanical engineering students work on typical tasks in their final semester. The task considered in this article is concerned with measuring strain and stress in a critical component of a steering mechanism and processing the measurement data. One major qualification we identified was diligent work in a small algebraic model which has to be interpreted in application terms. Moreover, relating mathematical properties of the measurement curves to behaviour of the steering mechanism is important for making plausibility checks and for drawing conclusions.