Mechanical Engineering

One of the four traditional main branches of engineering: the study of the design, analysis and manufacture of machines and mechanical systems that convert energy into motion or force. This branch groups the technology atlas's own machine-and-motion family of fields: Mechanical Engineering itself (engines, mechanisms, thermodynamics and machine design), Aerospace Engineering (aircraft and spacecraft), Marine Engineering (ships and marine propulsion and machinery), Industrial Engineering (the optimization of manufacturing processes and production systems), Systems Engineering (the integration and management of large multi-part technical systems), Biomedical Engineering (mechanical and instrumentation technology applied to medicine and the human body) and Acoustical Engineering (the control, measurement and reproduction of sound). Does not belong here: the software and control algorithms that run inside a mechanical device, considered on their own, grouped under Electrical Engineering, or the chemical composition of the materials a mechanical system is built from, grouped under Chemical Engineering's own Materials field.