Difference between engineering and Non engineering products?

Answer 1

Engineered products are products designed to meet a particular design criteria. Non-engineered products are products that were not specifically engineered for a particular design criteria.

The structural wood products industry is a good example of engnieered and non-engineered products.

Lumber and heavy timbers are good examples of non-engineered materials that are used in construction. Specifically, lumber or timber is a product that is cut from logs. Lumber is not designed, although we test lumber and have design values that apply to many types of lumber. There exists natural variation in lumber so the way we come up with reasonable design values is test a reasonable size sample of lumber, determine the statistical variation of the test results, then assign a conservative material value to allow it to be used structurally.

In contrast, plywood, OSB, I-joists, laminated veneered lumber, parallel strand lumber and glulam are engineered wood products. Those products were designed to be used in certain structural applications. The design of the products was thought out, typically combining a mixture of different smaller layers or materials, combined with structural connectors, typically adhesives, or small nails or screws. These products often use the best properties of the individual products to come up with a better mix. These products often have a higher strength to weight ratio when compared with non-engineered products.

Other engineered products include rolled steel shapes, bar-joists, metal decking, reinforced concrete, plastics, composites and fibers.

I hope this has been helpful.