An Introduction to Mechanical Engineering: Part 1

My son is attending Portsmouth Uni - foundation year for mechanical engineering - and he tells me that the book is very useful for his studies. Of course he has other books and loads of course work but this is a great book to refer to!

Used for my HNC in Engineering course and it worked a treat, I would recommend this book to any budding engineers and it is used as a course material for some courses.

Good book. Quality was good and delivered quickly,

I'm a second year Mechanical Engineering Student (a year too late for this book, it was released as I finished my first year) at Nottingham University. However, it's not without it's uses, I've used it constantly to top up on some base ideas and principals, essential when entering second year.If your a first year you'll find this incredibly useful to have as a secondary resource, it's literally the first year in book form* and great for reveiwing the weeks work and making sure there are no sticking points. Plus you'll find it invaluable when you enter your second year, realise everything is built on knowledge gained from the first year and realise those 3 months off in summer can make you forget the previous 12 months of lectures.The book itself is split into 6 main topics each written by the relevant lecturer, and each topic is split into sections with a learning summary, making the book clear and concise. Futhermore, there is a section devoted to questions on topics throughout the book, great to test whether you've learnt a topic or just read it.I cannot recommend this book highly enough.*Note: When I say the book covers your first year, I mean it covers most of the School of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering modules you'll be taking in your first year. In addition to these, you'll also study Design and Manufacture (a generic design module comprising of design drawing, CAE/ProE work on the computer, learning about the principles of design etc), Engineering Maths 1 and 2 (first in autumn, second in spring, neither covered in this book), and Professional Studies. However, I do not feel these modules are missing from the book as I would never look to reference any of these topics in a book as such: there are design manuals (and google) to quickly find any details on design drawings, and the maths modules have very comprehensive notes.

I was a mechanical engineering undergraduate at Nottingham and have been using the book to familiarise myself with some of the material I haven't looked at since graduation. The book follows the lecture materials very closely. It is therefore very useful as a catch-all text for first-year undergraduates and much cheaper than buying individual recommended texts, which go into far more detail than is required for most people.My only gripe, and it is quite a big one, is that the book has clearly not been proofread, or if it has, the person who did it needs to be sacked! It really detracts from the learning because you find yourself questioning correct things in the book because you no longer trust it. As I am reviewing material I have studied before it is perhaps not as serious as for someone going through it for the first time. I've also bought part 2 but they don't seem to have faired any better second time around.

Covers most aspects of the basics used in the first year of most engineering degrees comes with fully worked and easily understandable examples. Makes a good addition to course notes on particularly complex areas. Does require previous undrstanding of some engineering theories its not a beginers guide.

where are the solutions/answers to the questions? they are not included in this book

I bought this book and the companion part 2 but I have lived to regret it. It has so many typos, particularly in it's formulae as to make it utterly unreliable and confusing. It's a great pity as it is a very well laid out, pleasing format but also appears to have been printed without proof reading by a qualified engineer. The hard to find erratum document, buried on one of the publisher's websites is lengthy. There are over 4 pages of errors listed in one chapter alone. I myself have found further errors not listed in this erratum. As I say it's a great pity as the layout is excellent and covers all the necessary arrears but after a while you don't know whether you don't understand it or it's just wrong.