I am looking for book recommendations about basic mechanical
engineering design of simple mechanical systems. I have managed to
write out the following specifications for the book:
. Target audience. I have a degree in engineering but not in
mechanical engineering; I am looking for books at my level.
. Scope. The book should be fairly general in scope without being
excessively mathematical. It should focus on providing 'insights' to
the aspiring mechanical engineer, rather than training him or her in
the theory or the mathematics as an end in itself.
. Examples. After reading the book, I should be able to design (and
understand the mechanical design of) fairly common objects, such as
casette/CD players, printers, clocks, ATMs, etc. -- mechanical gadgets,
if you will.
. Manufacturability. The book must describe mechanical design for
manufacture. If it specifically discusses cheap manufacturing
techniques for materials such as steel, aluminum, plastic etc., that
will be a definite plus.
. Realism. The book should describe 'professional' mechanical designs,
as opposed to 'academic' ones. By this I mean that it should have
examples chosen from real applications, discussing the devil in the
details and finer points that are valuable to a hands-on engineer.
. Availability. I would like a book that is ideally widely used and
popular, and that can be borrowed either from the Stanford University
library or from the Alameda County libraries
(http://alam1.aclibrary.org/search/). It should definitely be
available on Amazon.com or eBay or similar for a price of less than
$40.
The goal of the book will be self-study, to an end that I will be able
to build mechanical gadgets and contraptions by designing them in,
say, ProE (which I will learn separately), and then having them
manufactured cheaply by small local manufacturers. |
