Mechanical

Mechanical14 Aug 2026 · 22 min read

Engineering History: Mechanisation and Industrial Power

Engineering handbook for engineering history: mechanisation and industrial power, covering high-pressure steam engine, steam turbine, two-stroke diesel engine.

Mechanical14 Aug 2026 · 6 min read

Engineering History: Navigation, Surveying and Maritime Systems

Engineering handbook for engineering history: navigation, surveying and maritime systems, covering compass, square-rigged wooden sailboats, gunter's chain.

Mechanical14 Aug 2026 · 8 min read

Engineering Origins: Tools, Mechanisms and Early Technology

Engineering handbook for engineering origins: tools, mechanisms and early technology, covering bow and arrow 30,000 bce, hunter & gatherer tools otzi 3300 bce,...

Mechanical13 Aug 2026 · 13 min read

General Principles of Technical Drawing

A practitioner

The Engineering Design Process

A repeatable loop from defining the problem to iterating on a tested solution.

Assembly Modelling: Mates, Trees and Motion Studies

Assembly modelling in parametric CAD: standard, mechanical and advanced mates, bottom-up versus top-down approaches, the assembly tree, exploded views, interference and collisio…

CAD Analysis Tools: Mass Properties, FEA and Flow

The analysis capabilities built on a CAD model: neutral file data exchange, mass property calculation, motion analysis, flow simulation, the finite element method, and interpret…

CAD Data Exchange: Neutral Formats and Interoperability

How CAD models move between systems: native versus neutral formats, STEP IGES and the de facto standards, export and import translators, why translation loses data, healing impo…

CAD Modelling Management: Topology, Parametrics and Boolean Operations

The conceptual base of parametric CAD: the four model types, solid model topology and the Euler-Poincare relation, parametric modelling, sketch relations, patterns and Boolean o…

Curve Geometry for CAD: Analytic and Synthetic Curves

The mathematics of curves in CAD: analytic versus synthetic families, explicit and parametric representation, the tangent vector and why it matters for mass properties and NC pr…

Design Intent in Parametric CAD Modelling

What design intent means in parametric CAD, how it is captured through modelling plans, relations, equations and mates, and how to document it so that models survive change and …

Engineering Drawings and Drafting Standards in CAD

How engineering drawings are generated from CAD models: ASME drafting and dimensioning rules, first and third angle projection, view types, sheets, title blocks, bills of materi…

Mechanical13 Aug 2026 · 11 min read

Engineering Tolerances: Conventional, Geometric and Stack-Up

Tolerancing from first principles: sources of variability, nominal basic and actual size, the four ways to express a tolerance, standard fits, tolerance accumulation, statistica…

Feature-Based Modelling, Libraries and Design Automation

The full feature set of a parametric modeller beyond extrude and revolve — sweep, loft, hole wizard, rib, draft, shell and dome — plus design libraries, configurations, design t…

Injection Moulding and Mould Design from CAD Models

Injection moulding for designers: the machine, the four-stage cycle, mould classification, core and cavity, part design guidelines including wall thickness draft ribs and bosses…

Numerical Control Machining and CAM Programming

Numerical control machining from a design perspective: machine tool anatomy, motion axes and cutting parameters, turning, drilling, milling and EDM, design for manufacture rule …

Rapid Prototyping and Additive Manufacturing from CAD

How rapid prototyping turns a CAD model into a physical part: the RP process chain, triangulation and STL resolution, build orientation, layer thickness, support structures, the…

Rendering, Visualisation and Animation of CAD Models

How CAD rendering works: scenes and light types, the reflection model, decals, textures, materials versus appearances, transparency, camera sleds and key-frame animation.

Sheet Metal and Weldment Design in CAD

Specialised modelling for sheet metal and welded structures: gauge and bend allowance, the K-factor, flange types, flat pattern generation, the four sheet metal creation methods…

Sketching Discipline: Entities, Relations, Planes and Patterns

The sketching layer of parametric CAD in detail: model and working coordinate systems, sketch planes, the three sketch states, sketch entities, relations, equations and link val…

Mechanical13 Aug 2026 · 11 min read

SOLIDWORKS as a Design System: Series Overview

An engineering-led overview of the SOLIDWORKS Design Approach series: treating CAD as a design system rather than a menu structure, and the eighteen-part pathway from first prin…

SOLIDWORKS Certification Pathways for Designers

How SOLIDWORKS certification works and how to prepare for it: exam structure, the associate and professional levels, discipline-specific certificates, a mapping of exam topics t…

Surface Modelling: Theory, Creation and Solid Conversion

Surface modelling for free-form parts: what a surface is, the available surface types and their inputs, parametric surface representation, curvature visualisation, and the three…

Sustainable Design and Life Cycle Assessment in CAD

Sustainable design as an engineering discipline: design guidelines, the product life cycle, life cycle assessment, the four core environmental impact factors, ISO framework stan…

The Engineering Design, CAD, Manufacturing and CAM Processes

How the engineering design process, the CAD process, the manufacturing process and the CAM process nest together, and what each one contributes between an idea and a finished en…

The SOLIDWORKS Environment: Interface, Options and Templates

Orientation to the CAD working environment: the three panes and the modes they serve, system options versus document properties, customisation and productivity tools, templates …

Biology as Manufacturing: Recombinant Proteins, Gene Editing and mRNA at Scale

Three milestones that turned living systems into a manufacturing platform, made the instructions programmable, and compressed the development timeline to months.

Bolted Joint Design

Designing bolted joints in tension, shear, gasketed pressure joints and combined loading: stress area, preload stress, assembly torque, bearing on the plate and shank against th…

Chemical Engineering at Scale: Ammonia Synthesis and the Continuous Process Plant

Industrial ammonia synthesis resolved a direct conflict between thermodynamics and kinetics, and in doing so established catalysis, high pressure, recycle and continuous operati…

Closing the Loop: Fly-by-Wire, Functional Safety and Propulsive Landing

Three milestones in which software became the thing keeping a machine stable, and one standard written because that made software a structural safety concern.

Compression Ignition: Otto, Diesel and Thermal Efficiency

Three milestones in which an engine was designed from a thermodynamic argument rather than developed from an existing machine, and immediately outperformed everything else.

Mechanical13 Aug 2026 · 17 min read

Detail Drafting in CAD

Producing detail drawings in CAD — absolute, relative and polar coordinate entry; the template and layer standard; dimension styles set to AS 1100; the model-space insertion-sca…

Mechanical13 Aug 2026 · 11 min read

Electric Motor Selection

Selecting three phase and single phase squirrel cage motors: frame size, pole count and synchronous speed, slip and design-load speed, part-load efficiency, IP protection and ra…

Engineering Education: From Apprenticeship to Degree

Four milestones in the institutional answer to applied science: if engineering rests on theory, apprenticeship alone can no longer produce an engineer.

Flow Production Comes of Age: The Moving Assembly Line and Statistical Process Control

The moving line made work flow at a fixed cycle; the control chart made process variation intelligible. Together they define how physical goods have been made ever since.

Fluids and Comfort: Powered Flight, Sailing Hydrodynamics and Air Conditioning

Three milestones united by fluid mechanics: a machine that generates lift to fly, a rig that generates lift to outrun the wind, and a cycle that moves heat against its gradient.

From Vacuum to Engine: Savery, Newcomen, Smeaton and Watt

Five milestones across eighty years that turn a laboratory observation about atmospheric pressure into a general source of industrial power.

Generation Without Fuel: Photovoltaics and the Modern Wind Turbine

Two milestones whose importance lies in decades of accumulated process improvement rather than in a breakthrough, and in what a zero marginal fuel cost does to a power system.

Heat into Work: The Gas Turbine and the Fission Reactor

Two technologies with a straightforward efficiency argument that says run hotter, and one shared constraint: both are limited by what the hot parts are made of, not by thermodyn…

Helical Spring Design and Selection

Designing and selecting helical compression and extension springs: spring rate and pre-load, spring index, allowable stress by duty, the Wahl factor, active coils, free length w…

High Pressure and the Portable Engine: Trevithick and Evans

Three milestones that made the engine small enough to move, by doing the one thing James Watt refused to do.

History of Engineering: Complete Collection Index

Master index to a six-series reference collection covering the history of engineering from the first engineered cities to 2020, with every page listed by series and order.

Mechanical13 Aug 2026 · 13 min read

History of Engineering: From the First Cities to the Age of Steam

A structured reference series covering fifty-eight engineering milestones from the first engineered cities to the Rainhill trials, organised by engineering problem rather than b…

History of Engineering: Milestones of the Modern Era 1845-1910

A structured reference series covering twenty-six engineering milestones between 1845 and 1910, organised by engineering problem rather than by date.

History of Engineering: Milestones of the Modern Era 1911-1969

A structured reference series covering thirty-five engineering milestones between 1911 and 1969, organised by engineering problem rather than by date.

History of Engineering: Milestones of the Modern Era 1970-2020

A structured reference series covering forty-one engineering milestones between 1970 and 2020, organised by engineering problem rather than by date.

Hot Rolled Steel Section Selection

Selecting hot rolled steel sections for machine frames and supports: available grades and strengths, section families, and beam selection by section modulus including the self-w…

Iron at Scale: Coke Smelting, Puddling and the Boring Mill

Four milestones in metallurgy and machine tools without which the steam engine would have remained a curiosity, one of them driven by an environmental crisis.