Engineering reference books

[marshmat]

After a couple of hours at the drawing board, I often find that I have half a dozen textbooks open in front of me, because I needed one or two formulae from each. This gets annoying, especially when a particular book doesn't have a nice "summary of formulae" page for each section. eFunda and the like are a bit better, but it's not always easy to find what I'm looking for there.

So, do any of the other designers and engineers around here know of any good, catch-all mechanical/structural engineering reference books? I'm not looking for academic texts or tutorials- just something with tables of equations and formulae for analyzing beams, trusses, plates, shafts, columns, and other common engineering situations. Something that'll remind me which parameters go where in formulae that I already know how to use, but don't want to spend 10 minutes hunting for in three different books.

Do any of you have books in this sort of style that you find useful for boat / mechanical / structural work?

[Ad Hoc]

Matt

You can't go wrong with:
"Formulas for Stress & Strain" by Roark/Young
and
"Mechanical Engineers Data Book" by J. Carvill

I still have from my Uni days:
"An Engineering Data Book" by Munday/Farrar
This is a small A6 size paper back book. Only 80 pages, but has the lot!

[MatthewDS]

I will second Roark's Forumulas for Stress & Strain, that's a great reference.

I also like "Structural Engineering Formulas" by "Ilya Mikhelson" It's very small, has concise diagrams and equations, and best of all, most of the left hand pages are left blank for notes.

[baeckmo]

In our corner of the world, the "Dubbels Taschenbuch für den Maschinenbau", edited by Sass, Bouché and Leitner, was the mech students bible. It's still on top of my pile of referrences close to my drawing board. Spans most issues from math, over strength to production and environment.

[Guest62110524]

Matty
I guess you use two screens, why do you not find something you can use online and have that running on one
I use two , I trade, so its impossible with one.
When I use rhino I use one for dwg, one for tute,
I believe you can use up to 4, if you have two video slots
just an idea

[LyndonJ]

Yeah, programs like MIT calc (an addin for excel) MDsolids, and miscellaneous tools many free to download can replace a lot of books and save a lot of time.

[DMacPherson]

My first stop - and frequently the only one I need - is Marks "Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers". Not cheap, but worth every penny.

Don MacPherson
HydroComp, Inc.

[messabout]

I second Don's nomination for Marks. That one is my most revered reference book. For quicky reference, there are some advantages for The Steel Construction Manual of the American Institute of Steel Construction. Beam diagrams and formulae, columns, load tables, conversion tables, timber sizes and section moduli, properties of geometric sections, weights and measures, properties of the circle, properties of the ellipse and parabola, and lots more.

[CDK]

MIT calc from the internet has it all for mechanical constructions, my reference book is "Reference data for radio engineers" from Howard W. Sams & Co. It is much wider than the title implies (Chemistry, properties of materials, Fourier equations etc).

[BMcF]

Mark's and Machinery's Handbook...between those two you can design and build the space shuttle...;-) Seriously, those two and an engineering econ book were the sum total of reference material I used for EIT aned PE exams.

[marshmat]

Thanks for the tips, guys.... time to see what the bookstores can track down.

[ancient kayaker]

A lot of magazines, and likely some textbooks, are now migrating from paper to USB memory sticks, probably with spreadsheet compatible formulas and other handy stuff. that would be what I would look for.

[LyndonJ]

Many journals are now online. Newspapers will head that way. Many of my more recent books are downloaded. It's great.

[tspeer]

If you're doing anything in the way of aero/hydro work, you can't be without Hoerner's Fluid Dynamic Drag, and to a lesser degree Fluid Dynamic Lift.