Research Guides: Mechanical Engineering: Free or Open Access Resources

Open Textbooks and Other Resources

There is a growing body of freely-available, serious, scholarly or professional material on the web in engineering fields. Some are distributed with a Creative Commons license, which can allow a variety of non-commercial uses and adaptations.

All of the following links are free for anyone on the internet to access and use. Open-access material should be clearly marked when applicable.

Engineering Thermodynamics (Urieli)
"This web resource is intended to be a totally self-contained learning resource in Engineering Thermodynamics, independent of any textbook. It is designed to be suitable for a two course sequence for Mechanical Engineering majors. It may, however, be used in any format and for any purpose, including self-study."
Basics of Mechanical Engineering
Designed as an introductory MechE course at the University of Southern California, this course aims to teach students what MechE is (and is not) all about, how to consider the field, and in general give an intellectual background to the discipline.
Open Textbook Library: Engineering
The Open Textbook Library provides reviews and links to open access textbooks in many fields. The selection for engineering, particularly mechanical engineering, is growing but currently limited. Check this page periodically for updates.
SpringerOpen: Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics
Springer Publishing has a growing line of engineering journals whose articles are peer-reviewed and freely available online.
Directory of Open Access Books: Mechanical Engineering
DOAB is a directory of open access, scholarly or professional publications in the applied sciences and engineering.
ASME Videos
ASME hosts a number of videos, usually short, which illustrate engineering processes, profile engineers, recap conferences, and much else.
Espacenet Patent Search
A database of more than 100 million patent documents from across the world, hosted by the European Patent Office. NOTE: Original documents are not viewable in Firefox.
Patent Lens
Lens allows searching of both open source scholarship and 100 million patent documents. Has analysis and visualization tools.