Visual Rhetorical Analysis

My visual analysis piece is of an old aircraft tolerances and lubrication.  This is a standard technical drawing that is used in the engineering industry.  It involves a cross section drawing of the assembled engine with all its various components.  Every part is labeled with a number that specifies a certain part and tolerance of that part.  Within an engine, you have a lot of moving parts so they have to fit nicely with as little friction as possible.  The engine also heats up so you have you take into account that all the parts will heat up and expand.  They only heat up a few hundredths of an inch but that is enough for things to go wrong.  This drawing was clearly made for engineers and people who are trained in such a field.  This is because there is such specific jargon and symbols to convey what the author is trying to say or show.  The purpose with this drawing is to let the engineers or mechanics know how tightly things are supposed to fit together and to show the flow of oil.  This is important because it can prove why an engine failed or diagnosis an engine that is not performing correctly. 

Almost everything we do has a purpose.  Within engineering, there is nothing that is unnecessary on technical drawings.  Everything you will ever need to find comes from something on the drawing itself.  With this information in mind, I was able to figure out what this drawing was intended for and what it is saying.  Labeling everything is extremely important because you do not want someone assuming something that you did not or vice versa.  Therefore, most of the obvious information will tell you exactly what the intent of this drawing is.  This way when someone else goes to read it, they know precisely what they are looking at to find if it’s relevant to their information need.  The title is clearly stated on the lower right side of the page.  Most of the methods employed to analyze this visual was stated directly on the visual itself.  Engineering is very direct as well as cut and dry, when it comes to presenting information.  They want it given directly to them without any extra unneeded details. 

The large main drawing is displayed in the center because it is most important.  It contains the most information.  The right side of the page is dedicated to smaller views of the engine from different angles.  These are not as important because they do not have as much information available on them.  In engineering practice, we have standards for the way that drawings are supposed to look and ways of dimensioning them.  The common practice is to have a front, side and top view of the object with the front being the side with the most detail.  If you have an oblique surface or plane then you have to do a different angle view to get the correct dimensions.  With some drawings you have to do detailed views which display a larger view of something that you are already showing in the drawing.  This is required a lot on wheels that have a large total area but also have a smaller more detailed area in the spokes.  The front view is used as convention in this drawing.  The reason for the other smaller drawings on the right is for the same reason as before if we have an oblique plane.  The only way to show those features are to make a separate view than what is normally used. 

This drawing was definitely meant for engineers and mechanics who have training on reading drawings like this.  It is very technical in nature with field related jargon and codes.  Just from looking at this, someone can see that it is extremely complex and heavy in engineering conventions.  If one wanted to use this in a presentation to marketers or other people who are not so familiar with these customs then a lot of modifications would have to be made.  What someone could do is create an isometric view of this engine with certain parts cut away.  An isometric drawing is one at an angle to all three axis.  It shows off all of the main features of the object.  It also makes the object look very nice and professional as well as what it would look like in real life when it is built.  Within engineering, if we need to show the full function of something but most of the function in intern, then we will create an isometric drawing with parts cut away.  What this does it lets us see the internal mechanics and view its full operation.  As in with an engine, you have four cycles that allow it to function.  We would then create four different drawings of this to display the four cycles that it goes through.  We draw the regular isometric drawing and then draw a wavy line where we “cut” to display that we cut through right here and that is what it looks like on the inside at this exact spot.  Repeat this for the other stages of internal workings and you have something that you can present to a client.   

Overall, this technical drawing of a Royal Air Force plane engine is very cut and dry.  It displays a diagram of the engine with all its various internal components to show other engineers and technicians what the tolerances of the parts should be and the lubrication of the engine.  These are all very important as they are vital to the performance of the engine and thus to the aircraft.  This was written in plain black ink with an off white paper color.  This is to ensure that your focus stays on the diagram and the information it presents.  The whole point of this is to find out information of this particular engine so there is no need to spend money or fancy paper to print this on.  It looks professional, which is part of the reason too.  As stated previously, the intended audience is other engineers who might be working on the design of the engine, fixing the engine, manufacturing the engine or mechanics/technicians who would be working on this as well.  The logic behind this is you need training to read this.  Other people might be able to see that it looks like an engine but they will have no knowledge about the specific numbers or references that are displayed in this drawing.  To open the audience more, we would have to do a major change to this drawing.  It would require a conversion of this working drawing to an isometric drawing that shows more of the function of the object rather than the high level technical details.  Isometric drawings provide a more three dimensional look to the object.  Now couple that with cut away section that show the internal workings and you now have something you can show a business client.  To conclude, this visual representation of the specific measurements and lubrication system of an aircraft engine from the post-world war two era is intended for engineers and technicians trained in this field of study.  It requires functionality rather than esthetically pleasing colors.  It is to easily access information about the function of objects.

Work Cited List

"Clearance Index Chart." CAC Wirraway Technical Details. DB Design Bureau , 29 Dec. 2010. Web. 7 Feb. 2014. <http://dbdesignbureau.buckmasterfamily.id.au/images/CAC_R-1340_Wasp_S1H1-G_Clearance_index_chart_1_of_2.jpg>.