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Mechanical Engineering

Resources for research in the mechanical engineering discipline, including research databases, resources for data and properties, codes and standards, and product information

Resources for Current Students, Faculty, and Staff at Illinois Tech

Galvin Library subscribes to numerous research databases on behalf of current students, faculty, and staff, as well as to any other users having access to the University's WiFi network or the EduRoam network while on campus. Regrettably, because of publishers' licensing restrictions on subscribed resources, we cannot provide remote access to subscribed resources for alumni or others. Alumni and others are encouraged to use the "Resources for Alumni & Others" tab to find resources available to them from off-campus.

Below is a list of the ten most relevant and/or most useful databases, in alphabetical order. For more options, see the sub-tabs under "Resources for Current Students, Faculty, & Staff" for lists of resources by information type.

Top Mechanical Engineering Databases

  • Academic Search Complete
    • Access restricted to Illinois Tech students, faculty, & staff
    Featured

    Academic Search Complete is a multidisciplinary database offering full-text access to thousands of peer-reviewed journals, magazines, newspapers, and other publications across a wide range of academic disciplines, including social science, humanities, computer science, engineering, physics, chemistry, and more. A good place to begin researching a topic.

  • AIP Publishing (Scitation)
    • Access restricted to Illinois Tech students, faculty, & staff
    Citations and abstracts for approximately 300 journals and proceedings in a broad range of fields including: all areas of physics, materials science, nanotechnology, biological physics, and astronomy. Created by the American Institute of Physics (AIP).
  • ASME - American Society of Mechanical Engineers
    • Access restricted to Illinois Tech students, faculty, & staff
    Best Bet
    Digital collection of journals published by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
  • ASSIST-Quick Search
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    ASSIST-Quick Search is a public website that lets users search for defense and federal specifications and standards, military handbooks, commercial item descriptions, data item descriptions, MS detail drawings, Qualified Product Lists (QPLs), and related technical documents prepared in accordance with the policies and procedures of the Defense Standardization Program (DSP). In most cases, users may download documents that have been cleared for public release.
  • ASTM - American Society for Testing and Materials
    • Free to search. Full-text content likely to be paywalled or restricted to Illinois Tech
    ASTM is one of the worlds leading developers of engineering, industrial, and product safety standards.
    NOTE: Illinois Tech does NOT have a subscription to this database & therefore no downloads are available. However, students may join ASTM for FREE and in that way gain access to ASTM standards and other materials. Just follow the "Get Involved" link on ASTM's website.
    For more standards access, the library provides a print copy of the complete ASTM standards. Also, any ASTM standards referenced by the international building code can be accessed in the MADCAD database.
  • BASE - Bielefeld Academic Search Engine
    • Free to search. Full-text content likely to be paywalled or restricted to Illinois Tech
    BASE is one of the world's most extensive search engines of networked academic resources. BASE provides more than 150 million documents from more than 7,000 sources, including Illinois Tech's Institutional Repository. You can access the full texts of about 60% of the indexed documents for free (Open Access). BASE is operated by Bielefeld University Library.
  • City of Chicago Data Portal
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    More than 200 datasets about Chicago departments, services, facilities and performance.
  • Contrails
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    An online repository of technical reports and documents covering the history of the first century of powered human flight, including the space race in the 1950s and '60s.
  • Data Repositories on OAD
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    The Open Access Directory (OAD) maintains a list of open data repositories as part o their website. While not searchable, the list is broken out by subject area.
  • Data.gov
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    Data.gov is a searchable database of public datasets maintained by the U.S. General Services Administration. In addition to the searchable web interface, there are also a number of free APIs.
  • Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    DOAB is a community-driven discovery service that indexes and provides access to scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books and helps users to find trusted open access book publishers. All DOAB services are free of charge and all data is freely available.
  • DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. DOAJ can also be used as a "whitelist" by researchers wishing to identify high quality open access journals to publish their research.
  • DTIC Online: Public Technical Reports
    • Mostly free or Open Access. Some content may be paywalled or restricted to Illinois Tech
    The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC®) serves the DoD community as the largest central resource for DoD and government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information available today .
  • Engineering Case Studies Online
    • Access restricted to Illinois Tech students, faculty, & staff
    Video and text material focusing on engineering failures and successes. At completion, the collection will contain 250 hours and 50,000 pages of quality documentaries, accident reports, experiments, visualizations, case studies, lectures and interviews from leading engineering institutions around the world.
  • Engineering Technology
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    This website consists of a series of 3D simulations on engineering technology topics. These simulations, developed by e-Learning Company Lucid Way, are approximately from 2-9 minutes long and are used as part of their curriculum to help students quickly and thoroughly grasp the concepts being presented in a visual format.
  • engrXiv
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    engrXiv (engineering archive) is dedicated to the dissemination of engineering knowledge quickly and efficiently
  • Ethics Code Collection
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    The Ethics Codes Collection is the largest online repository of ethics codes and guidelines in the world. With over 2500 individual codes and guidelines from over 1500 organizations around the world, including current and historical codes dating to 1887, it is maintained by the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at Illinois Institute of Technology.
  • Google Dataset search
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    Google Dataset Search is a search engine for datasets. Using a simple keyword search, users can discover freely available datasets hosted in thousands of open access repositories across the Web.
  • IEEE Xplore - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
    • Access restricted to Illinois Tech students, faculty, & staff
    Featured

    IEEE Xplore is a database providing access to cutting-edge technical literature in electrical engineering, computer science, and related fields. It offers full-text access to millions of documents from IEEE journals, conferences, standards, and other publications, making it an invaluable resource for engineers, researchers, and students seeking the latest advancements in technology and applied sciences. 

  • Illinois Tech Library Catalog
    • Free to search. Full-text content likely to be paywalled or restricted to Illinois Tech
    The library catalog searches through all of Illinois Tech’s physical library holdings and hundreds of thousands of digital titles available through our databases and digital collections. Sign in to your Illinois Tech Library account to access all available materials and review your current loans, requests, fees, blocks, messages, and other personal details.
  • LibreTexts
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    The LibreTexts mission is to unite students, faculty, and scholars in a cooperative effort to develop an easy-to-use online platform for the construction, customization, and dissemination of OERs to reduce the burdens of unreasonable textbook costs to our students and society.
  • Mason OER Metafinder (MOM)
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    The Mason OER Metafinder allows you to simultaneously search across the multiple OER repositories (e.g., MERLOT II, OAOpen.org, OER Commons, OpenStax CNX, etc.) as well as many open archival repositories (e.g. HathiTrust, Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg, etc.).
  • Merlot
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
  • National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    The NHTSA hosts important safety information and traffic information.
  • NTRL- National Technical Reports Library
    • Mostly free or Open Access. Some content may be paywalled or restricted to Illinois Tech
    The NTRL fills a recognized void in access to a large collection of historical and current government technical reports that exists in many academic, public, government, and corporate libraries. Through NTRL, NTIS provides a comprehensive offering that delivers high-quality government technical content in all subject areas directly and seamlessly to the user's desktop.
  • OER Commons
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    OER Commons is a collection of free open educational resources, such as recorded class lectures, exercises, and document spanning all subjects and all age groups from preschool through college-level.
  • Open Library
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    The eCampusOntario Open Library provides educators and learners with access to more than 500 free and openly-licensed educational resources.
  • Open Textbook Library
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    Launched by the University of Minnesota, the Open Textbook Library hosts a large collection of openly licensed, peer-reviewed textbooks in all subject areas.
  • Open Textbooks for Engineering
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    This is a browsable list of open textbooks in engineering compiled by the Engineering Libraries Division (ELD) of the American Society for Engineering Education. It is organized by engineering discipline.
  • OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories)
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    OpenDOAR is the quality-assured, global Directory of Open Access Repositories. We host repositories that provide free, open access to academic outputs and resources. Each repository record within OpenDOAR has been carefully reviewed and processed by a member of our editorial team which enables us to offer a trusted service for the community.
  • Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS)
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    OASIS is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches open content from 117 different sources and contains 388,707 records. OASIS is being developed at SUNY Geneseo's Milne Library.
  • OpenStax
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    Rice University's resource which contains peer-reviewed open textbooks in science, math, business, and the social sciences.
  • Proceedings Index
    • Access restricted to Illinois Tech students, faculty, & staff
    Index of worldwide conference proceedings. Covers every published congress, symposium, conference, exposition, workshop and meeting received by The British Library Document Supply Centre.
  • ProQuest Dissertations and Theses
    • Access restricted to Illinois Tech students, faculty, & staff
    Featured

    ProQuest Dissertations and Theses is a database containing millions of doctoral dissertations and master's theses from universities around the world. It provides researchers with access to original scholarly work across numerous disciplines, offering full-text downloads for many recent submissions and abstracts for older works, making it an essential resource for in-depth academic research and literature reviews. 

  • ProQuest SciTech Collection
    • Access restricted to Illinois Tech students, faculty, & staff
    Best Bet Featured

    The ProQuest SciTech Collection is a database providing access to scientific and technical literature across various disciplines. It offers full-text articles, abstracts, and citations from journals, conference proceedings, and technical reports in fields such as engineering, computer science, physics, and environmental science. 

  • re3data
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    Re3data is a global registry of research data repositories that covers research data repositories from different academic disciplines. In addition to the fully functional search and browse features on the website, they offer a free API to facilitate retrieval of data.
  • repository.iit
    • Mostly free or Open Access. Some content may be paywalled or restricted to Illinois Tech
    The repository supports cross-disciplinary collaboration by collecting, preserving, disseminating, and providing persistent and reliable access to all faculty, staff, and student digital research and scholarship. It is supported and maintained by the Paul V. Galvin Library. The repository also preserves library and archival collections, and serves as a living archive for other materials representing the many diverse aspects of the IIT community.
  • Retraction Watch
    • Free to search. Full-text content likely to be paywalled or restricted to Illinois Tech
    Retraction watch is a searchable database of research papers that have been retracted due to ethical issues, such as plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of research results, or unauthorized release or publication of data. Because of these problems, retraced papers should not be cited or used in your own research.
  • ROSA P - The Repository & Open Science Access Portal of the National Transportation Library
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    ROSA P is a searchable collection of resources across all modes of transportation and related disciplines, with specific focus on information produced by USDOT, state DOTs, and other transportation organizations. Content types found in ROSA P include textual works, datasets, still image works, moving image works, other multimedia, and maps. All resources in ROSA P are in the public domain and/or explicit permission has been provided by the rights holder to NTL to make their materials available for free over the web.
  • Science.gov
    • Mostly free or Open Access. Some content may be paywalled or restricted to Illinois Tech
    Science.gov is a gateway to over 50 million pages of authoritative selected science information provided by U.S. government agencies, including research and development results.
  • ScienceDirect
    • Access restricted to Illinois Tech students, faculty, & staff
    Full text scientific research database focusing on science, technology and medicine while also stocking certain humanities publications.
  • Springer Nature Link (SpringerLink)
    • Access restricted to Illinois Tech students, faculty, & staff
    Provides electronic access to the complete contents of a growing collection of SpringerLink journals in subjects including Mathematics and Computer Science (formerly Kluwer Journals).
  • SpringerMaterials
    • Access restricted to Illinois Tech students, faculty, & staff
    SpringerMaterials is based on the Landolt-Börnstein New Series, the unique, fully evaluated data collection in all areas of physical sciences and engineering. SpringerMaterials also comprises the Dortmund Data Bank Software & Separation Technology, a Database on Thermophysical Properties and the Linus Pauling Files, a Database on Inorganic Solid Phases and chemical safety data.
  • ThomasNet
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    Online version of the Thomas Register of American Manufacturers. In addition to information on hundreds of B2B industrial suppliers and manufacturers, it includes specifications or links to the specifications of industrial and laboratory equipment.
    Note: Requires free personal registration.
  • TRAIL (Technical Report Archive And Image Library)
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    The Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) is an initiative led by the University of Arizona in collaboration with CRL and other interested agencies to identify, digitize, archive, and provide access to federal technical reports issued prior to 1975.
  • unpaywall
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    Unpaywall is a free, open database indexing millions of legally free versions of otherwise paywalled scholarly articles. It also has a downloadable browser extension that integrates into the Chrome and Firefox browsers, allowing users to access millions of legally free research papers as they browse.
  • USPTO - U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
    • Free or Open Access Resource. Unrestricted public access.
    Database of all U.S. patents issued since 1790.
  • Web of Science
    • Access restricted to Illinois Tech students, faculty, & staff
    Best Bet Featured

    Web of Science is a multidisciplinary citation indexing database that provides coverage of high-impact scholarly literature across the sciences, technology, engineering, and math. It offers powerful tools for tracking research trends, analyzing citation networks, and evaluating research impact. 

  • Wiley Online Library
    • Access restricted to Illinois Tech students, faculty, & staff
    Publishers of 1500 journals, Wiley Online Library hosts a broad multidisciplinary collection of online resources covering life, health and physical sciences, social science, and the humanities.
  • WorldWideScience.org
    • Mostly free or Open Access. Some content may be paywalled or restricted to Illinois Tech
    WorldWideScience.org, developed and maintained by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information in partnership with the British Library, is a global science gateway enablling federated searching of national and international scientific databases. Users get the most current findings in fields such as energy, medicine, agriculture, environment, and basic sciences, published by contributing nations. WorldWideScience.org is a global science gateway comprised of national and international scientific databases and portals. Multilingual WorldWideScience.org provides real-time searching and translation of globally-dispersed multilingual scientific literature.
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