Mechanical Design Practice

Magnesium is the material that generates the most nervous questions in a design review of anything I specify. Someone al...

Copper and Brass Alloys: Electrical, Thermal, and Machinability Trade-offs. Covers Electrical Conductivity Applications, Thermal Conductivity Applications.

Reading a Mill Test Report: Verifying Material Certification for Critical Parts. Covers Chemical Composition Section, Mechanical Properties Section.

Titanium has a reputation that precedes it into almost every design review I have sat in over the past twenty years: exp...

I remember the first time I saw a fractured part from a "ductile" steel component that had failed with almost no visible...

I have spent twenty years as a contract mechanical designer embedded at large manufacturers in Japan, and if there is on...

I first specified a ball spline on a project where the customer wanted a shaft that could both rotate under servo contro...

Early in my career I designed a support bracket for a piece of process equipment that ran hot — not glowing hot, just co...

Ratchet and Pawl Mechanisms: Design Rules for Reliable One-Way Motion. Covers Spring Selection for the Pawl, Backlash and Positioning Accuracy.

I have used timing belts on everything from simple conveyor indexing to servo-driven linear stages where the customer wa...