Talk:Mechanical engineering

Latest Changes

Added several pictures and links to wikibooks -Âme Errante 22:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I just made an expansion to the subdisciplines section, and as this is my first wikipedia edit, I was hoping that somebody would double-check my work and let me know of anything I should be doing differently.

• I also took the stuff about education out of the intro section and made an Education section, added info about accreditation and did some misc. cleanup and additions there, added the statistics section, added the current areas of research, and added a number of references. If someone could check these sections as well, I would much appreciate it.

Also, I am an engineering student specializing in CAD/FEA, so if anyone has questions regarding those subjects as they pertain to this article, please feel free to send them my way. -Brandon

Included in Mechanical Engineering is often the supervision of fabrication, and construction of engineered systems. This involves coordination with other engineering specialties such as electrical engineering and structural engineering. Instrumentation and control of engineered systems is often part of the mechanical requirements and this involves the coordination with instrumentation specialists. Such systems may: measure and control flow of materials, stress and strain on equipment, and recording of operational parameters. Engineered systems include Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) specialties.

---

UK government appointed Ann Dowling, a mechanical engineer, to head its study of nanotechnology molecular assembler issues. This seems to imply they're worth mentioning here.

• There is now a subsection on Nanotechnology. If you feel more information is necessary, feel free to add it here. -Brandon

---

From the old introduction: Some major divisions of mechanical engineering are: designs and controls, thermo-science and fluids, engineering mechanics, and manufacturing. In addition, specialized fields exist within mechanical engineering or as a joint field of mechanical engineering and another engineering discipline. Some fields include: mechatronics (and more specifically robotics), transport and logistics, cryogenics, and biomechanics.

Modern analysis and design processes in mechanical engineering are aided by various computational tools like finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD), computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM). In system design and controls, a mechanical engineer may apply CAD/CAM systems to feed “instructions" to computer numerically-controlled (CNC) machines such as robots, milling machines, and lathes.

A mechanical engineer working in thermo-fluids might design a heat sink, an air conditioning system, or an internal combustion engine. Other processes might focus on the fluid itself, such as a fan to cool an electrical system, a turbine to power a submarine, or a spray gun to apply chemical coatings.

What HVAC software is that?

Could anyone please enlighten me as to which HVAC software belongs this screenshot? The one in the caption...

Sorry if it's off topic, I'm just curious. --Clapaucius* 22:51, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Help

I am a mechanical engineer. I passed last year. Now I am searching for jobs. The main problem is this that I live in a country(Bangladesh) which offers very poor fields for mechanical engineers. So i am searching for foreign jobs. Can any one tell me how can i get a foreign job???

Please ask questions unrelated to the development of this encyclopedia article at Wikipedia:Reference desk. Thanks. — Edward Z. Yang^(Talk) 21:58, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Terse page

The ideology of this page seems to be descendant of Laconia? Is there some reason for the resistance to expand the page to include more detailed information about mechanical engineering? Just wondering where everyone's coming from around here? Cypa 18:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

:There is an open request that the article be expanded. Subdisciplines and History look open if you would like to add something there. Tom Harrison ^(talk) 14:41, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

:: I'm planning to expand it soon! deeptrivia (talk) 14:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

A Broad Area

Mechanical engineering covers a very broad area. Depends on where you are in the world, your experience about this subject may differ. People should add whatever they know about this topic as much as possible. A complete write up is quite impossible at this moment without the help of many professional writers. Perhaps this is why it is in such a sorry state. If you are interested, please take a look at Electrical engineering. hoo0 10:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

History Section

As it was explained to me, the mechanical engineer gets his roots from the steam engine. This is alluded to in the article, but not fully. The idea is that only an ME has the skills necessary to design the entire engine. Thermodynamics, structures, kinematics and dynamics, and some controls (Centrifugal governor) are necessary to design the whole thing successfully. - EndingPop 02:35, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I would argue the mechanical engineer gets his roots in the beginning of engineering (i.e. Ancient Rome, etc.). I wouldn't agree the roots are from steam engines. It was part of the evolution and addition to the field. Taalo 06:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I would say that it started even sooner, to say that the person who first used a wheel was not an engineer would be an injustice. However, the main point is finding references to expand the history section rather than putting in our own assumptions. I'll look into this a little if I get some time over the weekend and post. Jeb8828 17:43, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

We are definitelly on the same page, my friend. I just brought up Ancient Rome as an example, but didn't mean to imply any sort of specific start date with it. :-) I like to think of mechanical engineering as the grandfather of all disciplines. Something that started out as engineering, but expanded into civil, electrical, etc. Just my assumption though, yup! Taalo 17:51, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I both agree and disagree. I would say mechanical engineering was a child of necessity, just as others were. While engineering has been around for a long time, ME as a profession didn't appear until the steam engine. Before that it was a civil engineer. Just my 2 cents. - EndingPop 12:55, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Structural Failure Analysis

I think this should be just Structural Analysis, minus the failure bit. Failure analysis is really just one subset of structural analysis, not to mention any design/engineering area (controls, etc.) is going to have some sort of "failure" analysis. Taalo 06:17, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. It should really point to Structural Analysis and be rewritten in that context. It's more about prediction of structure behavior, not necessarily whether failure occurs or failure mode. Structural analysis is still pretty intense when trying to design for cost or packaging or durability even when failure isn't likely to occur. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EndingPop (talk • contribs)

• I reworded/rewrote the section to be more general. Failure analysis is one part of Structural Analysis. Please review. -Fnlayson 17:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a note

Here is an old engineering joke. It's funny because its true. What is the difference between a mechanical engineer and a civil engineer? Mechanical engineers build weapons, while civil engineers build targets. Zengief 15:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

This article reads like a textbook

And I'd be willing to wager that it was written by an American teacher judging by the MASSIVE number of references to Mech Eng in US colleges/universities. "Solid understanding of key concepts"? What? Lets cut the vague crap and get right to the point shall we? ANY area of professional expertise requires a solid understanding of key concepts, we needn't tell people what anyone with half a brain stem already knows. Lots of little things like this add up to one big wording problem.

Also, not everyone reading this encyclopedia is an American student, and therefore I DON'T think a section on "coursework" specific to the US is really necessary! Nobody cares that some schools offer a 4 year degree either - this is an encyclopedia not a bulletin board for the American higher education system to advertise it's wonderful opportunities. Mainly this is because it has NOTHING whatsoever to do with Mechanical Engineering!

Come on guys, you should all know better than this. Clean it up, or at least reword some of it. If you don't, then I'll be forced to clean it up for you (and you don't want that, because I'll just delete the entire section on education). ▫Bad▫harlick♠ 00:51, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey Chill OUT ^^^

Hey shill out, this is a place where if you want to add something, then add it, only if you know what you're talking about. The person who wrote this, or the people who wrote this were Americans, so they can't write about engineering in Europe because they know squat about it. If you'd like call up some buddies that graduated form some prestigious German engineering school, and ask them to add a European flavor to the article, Otherwise cut the crap.

Excessive lead reverted

A user reworded the lead to this:

Mechanical engineering is concerned with the design and analysis of mechanical systems, large and small, from screws, bolts and gears to aircraft engines, space stations, satellites. Its scope is easy to describe and awesome to contemplate. Any artificial device that involves physical movement calls for the discipline of mechanical engineering. A mechanical engineer is trained in physics and mathematics, classical mechanics of points and rigid bodies, strength of materials, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, kinematics of machines, heat engines, and the modeling techniques needed to understand descriptions such as experimental, computational, mathematical and textual descriptions of such systems. The curriculum is shared in large part with other branches of engineering, and to a lesser extent with other academic disciplines across the physical and social sciences, the humanities and other professions. As with many or most academic disciplines, very little is studied in the mechanical engineering department and nowhere else. It is unique in its focus and experience, indispensable to civilization. But it is a modern discipline, not an ancient one. Some aspects of the craft are ancient, but it is a modern academic discipline.

I think it is non-neutral and too detailed. So I'm reverting to the previous one. The later sections cover a lot of that better, imo -Fnlayson 22:01, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

M.E. Experience Levels

How are job positions of Mechanical Engineer I, II, III, IV, etc defined? A lot of engineering job position listings have these numerals in their titles. Please add this to the article if you know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Posilute (talk • contribs) 03:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

• That'll vary from company to company as to what exactly the levels mean. I've seen junior, senior, principal and other terms used as well. I don;t think wikipedia articles should get into that kind of thing. -Fnlayson 05:09, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

ME user box

If you are a mechanical engineer, please add this to your user page. Thanks: ----CheMechanical 00:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

This user is a  
Mechanical Engineer.

PE user box

If you are a professional engineer, please add this to your user page. Thanks: ----CheMechanical 00:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

PEThis user is a licensed
Professional Engineer.

How do you become a mechanical engineer?

How do you do it? What is the difference between other engineering things? Someone should put this into the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.63.60.32 (talk) 02:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Update to Tools section

I updated the Tools section to more better represent the state of the CAE industry (which I assume was the point of the section). Feel free to fix anything I missed! - EndingPop (talk) 22:23, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the edit... that section looks a lot better now. The section was originally added several years ago by someone (I don't remember exactly who it was) who didn't like how I split the article into subdisciplines. He felt the article needed a section on exactly how mechanical engineers do their engineering, rather than just discussing all the areas we work on, hence this section. From my experience at several companies, a large part of the design process is computer-aided. However, you'd be surprised at how much of it is still low-tech and rule of thumb in practice. Perhaps this would be something to discuss eventually, but I'm not sure this is the article for it. All that being said, I'm going to remove the 'please improve this section' tag... it could certainly be expanded, but it's not exactly in 'dire need' compared to any other section.

Also, in relation to the note about this article being written by a teacher, I was actually a student when I wrote most of this article, hence the focus on education... you write what you know, certainly. I never expected my edits to last this long, so please feel free to (intelligently) edit the article as you wish. -Brandon (Âme Errante (talk) 21:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC))