[Kevin Jackson]

What are the duties of engineers in general in today's society?

[bignaked101]

Could you be a little more specific? I mean, the list goes on here...

Engineers can do anything as to engineering a jet airplane, to making a small RC race car..

The creation of anything mechanical would be mechanical engineering. So that would be the duties, creating anything mechanical.

[bignaked101]

My apologies, the last one was just a guess, but it stumped me, so I looked up the definition.

The branch of engineering that encompasses the generation and application of heat and mechanical power and the design, production, and use of machines and tools.

That is pretty much their duties

[Nutter butter]

I work with some. Its really tough work. You have to read pressure gages, oh and record what you found. Other than that they rebuild motors and pumps.

[enigmagnetic]

My apologies, the last one was just a guess, but it stumped me, so i looked up the definition.

The branch of engineering that encompasses the generation and application of heat and mechanical power and the design, production, and use of machines and tools.

That is pretty much their duties

That it's pretty much it dude. A mechanical engineer builds whatever they ask him to while incorporating the use of energy and heat as your power. This is anything from a bridge to helicopter rotors.

[msk]

The question is very simple but the answer may be too long and may be many answers. First of all what do you mean by duties in society (do you mean as a professional). Broadly talking by field criteria a engineer is involved right from design, development, installation, erection, commissioning,maintenance, quality control, sales/marketing, estimation etc. These are applied to almost all branches of engineering whether mechanical, electrical, electronics,chemical, civil and so on. The more you go deeper the more they become advanced. For example in mechanical further comes automobile, hydraulics, thermal, hvac, and so on

[queens]

I have seen those answers for your question before I post this answer. I agree with the friend call msk, so I would like to give you a more specified answer.
Thermal Dynamics - automobile (majority)
Heat transfer - HVAC
Fluid Mechanics - ship building, pump industrial, hydraulic industrial, piping etc
Fire Fighting - fire fighting
Mechanics of Solid and Structure (MOSS) - moulding, welding industrial etc
Engineering Design - Tools engineer (mostly)
These are NOT every thing, for what you can see in your live which regarding to mechanical, is their work. Mechanical has occur sense the first civilization and no one can escape from it.

[sayed ejaz ahmed naqeeb]

kevin the basic duty of an engineer is to work keeping the ethics in mind a engineer is an educationist who not only uses the available resources properly but also has an ethical value