A History Of Mechanical Engineering

This book explores the history of mechanical engineering since the Bronze Age. Focusing on machinery inventions and the development of mechanical technology, it also discusses the machinery industry and modern mechanical education. The evolution of machinery is divided into three stages: Ancient (before the European Renaissance), Modern (mainly including the two Industrial Revolutions) and Contemporary (since the Revolution in Physics, especially post Second World War). The book not only clarifies the development of mechanical engineering, but also reveals the driving forces behind it – e.g. the economy, national defense and human scientific research activities – to highlight the links between technology and society; mechanical engineering and the natural sciences; and mechanical engineering and related technological areas. Though mainly intended as a textbook or supplemental reading for graduate students, the book also offers a unique resource for researchers and engineers in mechanical engineering who wish to broaden their horizons.

What is mechanical engineering? What a mechanical engineering does? How did the mechanical engineering change through ages? What is the future of mechanical engineering? This book answers these questions in a lucid manner. It also provides a brief chronological history of landmark events and answers questions such as: When was steam engine invented? Where was first CNC machine developed? When did the era of additive manufacturing start? When did the marriage of mechanical and electronics give birth to discipline of mechatronics? This book informs and create interest on mechanical engineering in the general public and particular in students. It also helps to sensitize the engineering fraternity about the historical aspects of engineering. At the same time, it provides a common sense knowledge of mechanical engineering in a handy manner.

This book treats several subjects from the History of Mechanism and Machine Science, and also contains an illustrative presentation of the Museum of Engines and Mechanisms of the University of Palermo, Italy, which houses a collection of various pieces of machinery from the last 150 years. The various sections deal with some eminent scientists of the past, with the history of industrial installations, machinery and transport, with the human inventiveness for mechanical and scientific devices, and with robots and human-driven automata. All chapters have been written by experts in their fields. The volume shows a wide-ranging panorama on the historical progress of scientific and technical knowledge in the past centuries. It will stimulate new research and ideas for those involved in the history of Science and Technology.

Updated classic explores importance of technological innovation in cultural and economic history of the West. Water wheels, clocks, printing, machine tools, more. "Without peer." — American Scientist.

Machines, devices, and systems that have touched our lives, both intimately and for the public good, are often unheralded inventions that we take for granted or never even see. Fortunately, they claim landmark recognition by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, which now makes these engineering marvels accessible to teachers and students, travelers, researchers, and the curious. The 135 historic mechanical engineering landmarks in this book represent the accomplishments of mechanical engineers over the past 250 years - from the steam engine of Thomas Newcomen (1712), which launched the Industrial Revolution, to the Saturn V rocket (1967). This roster of landmarks tells a magnificent story of people and places and of innovation and discovery.

Sponsored by the ASME History & Heritage Committee With full color and black & white images, this hardcover, photographic book highlights 100 key landmarks in the history of mechanical engineering, devices or innovations that have shaped the world. The products of mechanical engineering sustain the very fabric of modern life. Some are obvious, like the automobile; some hide behind casings, like the disk drives of computers. Sometimes they are large and visible, like the rockets that took astronauts to the moon; sometimes they are all but invisible to the general public, like the pumps that provide water to our cities or the turbines that generate our electric power. This volume provides brief introductions to 100 key landmarks in the history of mechanical engineering, devices or innovations that have shaped the field and broadly influenced modern civilization. -- From the Foreword

A History of Engineering and Technology offers a highly readable account of the development of engineering and technology from prehistory to the present. The author uses the broad sweep of history as a backdrop for expositions of important benchmarks in engineered works and products. The book presents early hydraulic engineering in the context of modern ideas relating technology to the complex social structures that arose in Sumeria and Egypt. It also provides a comprehensive and objective review of the greatest engineering civilization of antiquity-Greco-Roman-and discusses the western world's attempts to recover its achievements after the Middle Ages. The flowering of French and British engineered technology is portrayed through the men and machines that led to today's industrial society. Other topics discussed in A History of Engineering and Technology include the evolution of the modern ship, engineering in modern war and medicine, the advent of the computer, and the Space Age. Over 100 illustrations and the book's in-depth presentation of key theoretical developments make this volume essential as a college textbook for students, as well as an important reference resource for libraries, engineers, and scientists.