Engineering

Fluid Mechanics

Fluid fundamentals for machines: properties and viscosity, pressure and head, Pascal's principle in hydraulics, buoyancy, continuity and Bernoulli, Reynolds number and flow regi…

Forming Tools

Form tools that cut a whole profile in one plunge: flat and circular form tools, why the profile must be corrected for rake, the heavy full-width cutting force they generate, an…

Gear Trains

Gear trains from simple to planetary: overall ratio of simple and compound trains, the role of idlers, the epicyclic train equation with a fixed-ring worked example, and where e…

Engineering Mathematics13 Aug 2026 · 9 min read

Geometry

Analytical and mensuration geometry for engineering: lines and coordinates, polar conversion, the circle and conic sections, areas of plane figures, regular polygon data, circul…

Grinding and Other Abrasive Processes

The abrasive processes and their tools: the grinding-wheel marking system decoded, the abrasive types and when each is used, and the finer processes of honing, lapping and super…

Grinding Feeds and Speeds

The parameters of grinding: high wheel surface speed against slow work speed, wheel rpm from surface speed, the tiny depths of cut, the grinding ratio, and the burst-speed limit…

Hardening, Tempering and Annealing

The heat treatment of steel: the iron-carbon transformations behind it, quench hardening and the martensite it forms, tempering to restore toughness, annealing and normalising t…

Mechanical13 Aug 2026 · 6 min read

Helical Coil Screw Thread Inserts

The wire coil that puts a steel thread into soft metal: why aluminium needs far more thread engagement than steel, how a helical coil insert works, fitting it with an oversize S…

Helical Gears

Helical gears for parallel shafts: the helix angle, normal versus transverse module, why the gradual tooth engagement runs quieter and stronger, the axial thrust it produces, th…

Inch Threaded Fasteners

The unified inch thread system: reading a designation like 1/4-20 UNC, the coarse-versus-fine choice and the stress area that decides it, classes of fit, and the SAE grades and …

Iron and Steel Castings

Making shapes by pouring molten metal into a mould: sand casting and its mould, the shrinkage allowance the pattern must carry, how solidification and Chvorinov's rule govern fe…

Keys and Keyseats

The little block that carries all the torque: the parallel key sized in shear and crush for a Ø40 shaft — and why crushing governs — the taper, Woodruff and feather family, the …

Knurls and Knurling

Rolling a grip pattern into metal: straight, diagonal and diamond knurls, why knurling displaces rather than cuts, the tracking condition that keeps a pattern clean, and the dia…

Lasers

The laser as a manufacturing tool: what makes laser light special, the enormous power density at focus, cutting with an assist gas, keyhole welding and marking, and the differen…

Lubrication

The one curve of tribology: friction across the boundary, mixed and full-film regimes, viscosity as the single property that matters, the lambda ratio that names your regime, bo…

Machine Screws and Nuts

The small end of threaded fastening: machine screw head styles and drive types, the numbered gauge sizes and the formula behind them, why a standard nut is the height it is, and…

Machining Econometrics

The economics of a cut: how machining cost and tooling cost pull against cutting speed, the U-shaped cost-per-part curve, and the optimum tool life for minimum cost and for maxi…

Machining Nonferrous and Nonmetallic Materials

Cutting the materials that are not steel: aluminium and copper at high speed with sharp positive tools, built-up edge and how to beat it, and the special care plastics and compo…

Engineering Mathematics13 Aug 2026 · 6 min read

Manufacturing Data Analysis

Statistics for the shop floor: samples and populations, mean and standard deviation, distribution curves, the normal curve and z-values with a computed table, estimating the fra…

Engineering Mathematics13 Aug 2026 · 6 min read

Matrices

Matrix operations for engineering: addition and scalar multiples, matrix multiplication, transpose, determinants, minors, cofactors and the adjoint, rank and singularity, the in…

Measuring Instruments and Inspection Methods

Workshop metrology: accuracy, precision and the ten-to-one rule, callipers and micrometers with worked readings, dial indicators and cosine error, gauge-block stacks, the sine b…

Measuring Screw Threads

Reaching the diameter you cannot touch: limit gauging and Taylor's principle, the three-wire method with its geometry derived and an M10×1.5 worked over best and ordinary wires,…

Measuring Units

The SI system for engineers: the seven base units and their constant-based definitions, named derived units resolved to base units, coherence and why consistent units need no co…

Metric Screw Threads

The ISO metric system that fastens the planet: reading the designation, the coarse and fine pitch series, the 6g/6H tolerance scheme, the geometric proof that plating grows a pi…

Metric Threaded Fasteners

The ISO metric thread system: reading a designation like M10 x 1.5, the coarse and fine series, the tensile stress area formula validated against standard sizes, and the propert…

Micromachining

Machining at the scale of microns: the size effect and minimum chip thickness, ploughing versus cutting, the very high spindle speeds tiny tools demand, and the fragility that d…

Milling Cutters

Milling with rotating multi-tooth cutters: the main cutter types, conventional versus climb milling, spindle speed and the feed-per-tooth that sets table feed, material removal …

Nails, Spikes and Wood Screws

Fastening into timber: why nails hold laterally but not in withdrawal, how holding power scales with wood density, penetration rules, the wood screw and the clearance-hole disci…

Nonferrous Alloys

The metals that are not steel: aluminium and its designation system, copper and its brasses and bronzes, the light and specialty metals, electrical conductivity, and how to choo…

Engineering Mathematics13 Aug 2026 · 10 min read

Numbers, Fractions, and Decimals

Working arithmetic for engineering: signed numbers, ratio and proportion, percentage, fractions and reciprocals, the inch–millimetre bridge, continued fractions and change-gear …

O-Rings

The almost-perfect seal: the self-energising principle, squeeze, fill and stretch worked for a standard 3.53 mm section, gland geometry, extrusion and its cures, the elastomer m…

Other Threads

The threads that fit no other page: round and knuckle forms that shrug off dirt, the Edison lamp thread, the worm that is a gear, closure threads that open in one turn, and inte…

Pins and Studs

The fasteners that locate rather than clamp: dowels and the two-pin rule, taper pins and the 1:50 taper, spring and grooved pins that make their own fit, cotter and clevis pins,…

Pipe and Hose Threads

Threads that must not leak: why the name is not the bore, the 1:16 taper arithmetic of NPT and BSPT, the parallel threads that seal on a face instead, the flare fittings that se…

Plain Bearings

The sleeve that outlived every rival: pressure, speed and the PV product worked for a real bush, the hydrodynamic wedge that lets a shaft float on its own oil, Petroff's frictio…

Plastics

Engineering plastics for the mechanical designer: thermoplastics versus thermosets, low density and the float test, low stiffness, high thermal expansion, the common families an…

Plates, Shells, and Cylinders

Pressure containment: thin-cylinder hoop and longitudinal stress, thin spheres, the thin-versus-thick criterion, Lamé thick-cylinder analysis, and uniformly loaded flat circular…

Properties of Wood, Ceramics, Plastics and Metals

How the material classes compare: stiffness, strength, density and their weight-adjusted forms, the surprising result that the common metals share one specific stiffness, and ho…

Reamers

Reaming to finish a drilled hole to size and finish: how a reamer works, the reaming allowance and why it must be small, hand and machine reamers, speeds and feeds, and fluting …

Retaining Rings

The circlip and its relatives: how a sprung ring in a machined groove replaces a shoulder, nut or cover, the external and internal families, and the computation showing the groo…

Rivets and Riveted Joints

The permanent fastener and its arithmetic: proportioning a joint with Unwin's rule, the four ways a riveted joint fails, working a lap and a butt joint through all four checks, …

Rolled Steel, Wire, Sheet Metal and Wire Rope

Stock as a component: hot- and cold-rolled character, the sheet-metal bend worked to its allowance, wire as bottled cold work, wire rope's many-small-wires bargain with the shea…

Screw Machines, Band Saws and Cutting Fluids

Three production essentials: automatic screw machines that turn parts by the thousand, band sawing with the three-tooth rule for pitch selection, and the cutting fluids that coo…

Screw Thread Systems

The helix that runs through all of engineering: thread anatomy, pitch against lead, why every fastening thread is self-locking, the efficiency arithmetic that makes a bolt a del…

Self-Threading Screws

Screws that make their own thread: forming against cutting, the self-drilling point, how much a thread in thin sheet can actually hold, the drive-strip torque window that produc…

Shaft Alignment

The element every other element assumed: offset and angle as four numbers at the coupling, dial readings decoded — TIR halved, sag corrected, soft foot first — the similar-trian…

Shafts

Shaft torsion: the torsion formula and polar moments, converting power to torque, design for shear strength, design for torsional stiffness with the degree-per-metre guideline, …

Sheet Metal Working and Presses

Shaping sheet metal in a press: blanking and piercing and the force they take, bending with its allowance and springback, and deep drawing with its ratio limit — with worked fig…