First In Engineering: Elements Of Mechanical Design

The role of design in engineering education and the teaching of design has changed over the past several decades. In the specific case of mechanical design, increasing emphasis has been placed on mechanical analysis rather than on design methodology. This can be seen in the dominance of mechanical analysis in mechanical design or machine design textbooks and the relatively light (or non-existent) treatment of how to make design decisions. The reasons for this trend have been described in Suh’s Principles of Design1 and Hazelrigg’s Introduction to Systems Engineering2, among others.