Mechanical Engineering posters
LearnPosters has 100 free printable mechanical engineering posters, grouped into 7 topics: Statics & dynamics, Mechanics of materials, Thermofluids, Machine design, Manufacturing. Statics through thermofluids, with the equations that recur. They are made for undergraduates, professionals and anyone revising the subject. Every one downloads as a vector PDF that prints sharp on US Letter, A4 or a copy-shop A1.
The core of a mechanical degree: forces, materials, heat, fluids and the design decisions built on them.
100 free printable posters · 7 topics · vector PDF
Statics & dynamics
Equilibrium, motion and rigid bodies.
Drawing a Free Body
The five-step method that prevents most statics errors.
Static Equilibrium
The three scalar equations that solve every determinate 2D problem.
Supports & Reactions
What each support blocks, and how many unknowns it adds to the problem.
Determinacy & Redundancy
Whether statics alone can solve a structure, or whether it cannot.
Method of Joints
Solving a pin-jointed truss one joint at a time.
Joints or Sections?
The two truss methods, and which one the question is actually asking for.
Zero-Force Members
Spotting members that carry nothing, and why they are still in the truss.
Dry Friction
Why friction is an inequality, and what changes when sliding starts.
Finding a Centroid
The composite-area method: split, locate, weight, sum, divide.
Area Moment of Inertia
Standard values of I, and the parallel axis rule that moves them.
Motion Coordinates
Three ways to write velocity and acceleration, and when each is easiest.
Rigid-Body Kinetics
The two equations that govern a body which both moves and spins.
Work-Energy Method
Net work equals change in kinetic energy, translation and rotation together.
Energy or Momentum?
Choosing between the two integrated forms of Newton's second law.
Free Vibration
Two numbers describe any mount: natural frequency and damping ratio.
Mechanics of materials
Stress, strain, beams and failure.
Axial Stress & Strain
Load over area, extension over length, and the modulus that links them.
Elastic Constants
Stiffness and Poisson ratio for the metals and polymers you meet first.
The Tensile Test Curve
Every strength a datasheet quotes, and where it sits on the curve.
Drawing Shear & Moment
Six steps to the diagrams, and the relationships that check themselves.
Beam Bending Stress
The engineers' bending formula, and what the section modulus buys you.
Transverse Shear Stress
Where shear stress peaks in a beam, and why the web carries it.
Beam Deflection Cases
Maximum deflection for the five standard cases, ready to use.
Torsion of Shafts
Shear stress and angle of twist in a circular shaft under torque.
Euler Buckling
Why a long strut fails on stiffness and length, not on material strength.
Mohr's Circle
Turning a stress state into principal stresses by drawing one circle.
Von Mises or Tresca?
The two yield criteria for ductile metals, and where each is used.
Fatigue
Cyclic loading, S-N curves and why finish and notches matter so much.
Stress Concentration
How much a hole or a fillet multiplies the stress around it.
Thin-Wall Pressure Vessels
Hoop and axial stress, and why a cylinder splits along its length.
Thermal Stress
Why restraint, not temperature alone, is what creates thermal stress.
Thermofluids
Thermodynamics and fluid mechanics.
First Law: Closed System
Heat in, work out, and the internal energy left over, with the sign rule.
Steady Flow Energy Equation
The first law rewritten for a device with fluid flowing through it.
Entropy & Irreversibility
What entropy actually measures, and where real machines lose work.
Power Cycles
Five ideal cycles, their efficiency expressions and what limits each.
Fridge or Heat Pump?
One machine, two purposes, and why the heat pump always wins on paper.
Fluid Statics
Pressure with depth, manometers, and the gauge-versus-absolute trap.
Continuity
Mass in equals mass out, and what that does to velocity in a pipe.
Bernoulli's Equation
Pressure, velocity and elevation heads trading against each other.
Reynolds Number
The ratio that decides whether flow is laminar, turbulent or neither.
Pipe Head Loss
Darcy-Weisbach for the pipe, K factors for the fittings.
Drag & Lift
Typical drag coefficients, and why power rises with the cube of speed.
Modes of Heat Transfer
One rate equation for each mode, and what actually controls it.
Thermal Resistance
Treating a heat path as a circuit, with resistances that add in series.
Sizing a Pump
Matching a pump curve to a system curve, and keeping the inlet safe.
Machine design
Fasteners, bearings, gears and tolerances.
Factor of Safety
What the number means, what it hides, and what it must be stated against.
Bolt Preload
Why a bolted joint works by clamping, and how torque relates to clamp force.
Sizing a Bolt
From joint load to a fully specified fastener, in six steps.
Metric Thread Sizes
Coarse pitches and tensile stress areas for the common metric sizes.
Bearing Life
What an L10 rating means, and how load exponent punishes overloading.
Choosing a Bearing
What each bearing family takes, and where it belongs on a shaft.
Spur Gear Geometry
Module, pitch diameter, centre distance and the meshing condition.
Gear Trains
Working out an overall ratio, including the idler that trips everyone.
Belt or Chain?
The trade between a forgiving drive and an exact one.
Shafts, Keys & Retention
How torque gets into a shaft, and what actually limits the diameter.
Helical Springs
How wire diameter, coil diameter and coil count set the stiffness.
ISO Fits
The hole-basis fits you actually use, and what each one behaves like.
Selecting a Fit
Going from what the joint must do to a written tolerance on the drawing.
Welded or Bolted?
The trade between a permanent stiff joint and a serviceable one.
Manufacturing
Processes, tolerances and design for making.
Process Families
Five ways to make a shape, what each is good at and what it costs you.
Turning or Milling?
Which machine the feature belongs on, and why the cut feels different.
Speed & Feed
Surface speed, spindle speed and feed per tooth, and how they convert.
Cutting Tool Materials
Hardness against toughness, and which tool suits which cut.
Casting Processes
Five casting routes ranked by tolerance, volume and tooling cost.
Sheet Metal Bending
Why the flat blank is shorter than the sum of the legs.
Designing for Moulding
The geometry rules that come from how plastic flows, packs and shrinks.
Additive Processes
Four printing families, what each part is really good for, and its weakness.
Welding Processes
What each joining process suits, and what it demands in return.
Surface Finish
Typical roughness by process, and why each finer step costs more.
Process Capability
Cp and Cpk, what each one counts, and why only one of them is honest.
Design for Manufacture
The sketch-stage decisions that set most of the eventual part cost.
Heat Treating Steel
What each heat treatment cycle does, and what you get back.
Selecting a Material
Turning a function into a material index you can rank candidates by.
Control systems
Feedback, stability and response.
Open or Closed Loop?
What feedback buys you, and the stability it costs in exchange.
Block Diagram Algebra
Four moves that reduce any single-loop diagram to one transfer function.
Laplace Pairs for Control
The handful of transforms control engineering actually uses.
Plant Poles & Zeros
Where the poles sit is the whole story of how a system behaves.
First-Order Response
One time constant describes the whole step response, landmarks and all.
Second-Order Response
Natural frequency sets the speed, damping ratio sets the overshoot.
Poles and Response
A map from where a pole sits on the s plane to what you see in time.
Steady-State Error
How many integrators a loop needs to track a step, a ramp or a parabola.
The Three PID Terms
What each term does for you, and what each one costs you.
Tuning a PID Loop
The closed-loop Ziegler-Nichols method, and the checks around it.
Routh-Hurwitz Test
Deciding stability from the characteristic polynomial, without finding roots.
Root Locus Rules
Sketching where the closed-loop poles travel as the gain rises.
Gain & Phase Margin
How much extra gain or lag the loop can absorb before it oscillates.
Nyquist Criterion
Counting encirclements of the critical point to settle stability for good.
CAD & drawing
Projection, dimensioning and GD&T.
First or Third Angle?
The two projection conventions, and how to tell which one you are reading.
Choosing Views
The fewest views that describe the part completely, and no more.
Section Views
Six ways to cut a part open, and what each one is for.
Auxiliary & Detail Views
Two ways to show what a standard orthographic view distorts or hides.
Drawing Line Types
Line style carries meaning, and line weight carries priority.
Dimensioning Rules
The rules that make a drawing measurable, inspectable and unambiguous.
Sheets & Scales
The ISO A series and the preferred scale ratios that go on them.
Tolerance Stack-Up
Why tolerances add along a chain, and what statistical stacking assumes.
GD&T Controls
The families of geometric control, named in plain words.
Datum Reference Frame
Constraining six degrees of freedom in the order the part is actually used.
Bonus Tolerance
Why a hole made away from its worst size earns extra position tolerance.
Position or Plus-Minus?
The round tolerance zone against the square one, and what each really means.
Parametric Modelling
Building a CAD model that survives being changed by somebody else.
Assembly Drawings
What the assembly sheet carries that a detail sheet never does.
Questions about the Mechanical Engineering posters
- What is the Mechanical Engineering section of LearnPosters?
- Statics through thermofluids, with the equations that recur. The core of a mechanical degree: forces, materials, heat, fluids and the design decisions built on them.
- What topics do the Mechanical Engineering posters cover?
- 100 posters across 7 topics. Statics & dynamics — Equilibrium, motion and rigid bodies. Mechanics of materials — Stress, strain, beams and failure. Thermofluids — Thermodynamics and fluid mechanics. Machine design — Fasteners, bearings, gears and tolerances. Manufacturing — Processes, tolerances and design for making. Control systems — Feedback, stability and response. CAD & drawing — Projection, dimensioning and GD&T.
- Who are the Mechanical Engineering posters for?
- The mechanical engineering charts are pitched at undergraduates and professionals — the frameworks and equations a course keeps returning to. Nothing here is tied to a school year, so a curious beginner and someone revising the same material for an exam are looking at the same mechanical engineering chart.
- Which Mechanical Engineering poster should I print first?
- Drawing a Free Body, Static Equilibrium and Supports & Reactions are the ones people reach for first — they are the references the rest of the mechanical engineering set assumes you already have on the wall.Drawing a Free BodyStatic EquilibriumSupports & Reactions
- Are the Mechanical Engineering posters free to print?
- Yes — all 100 of them. Each mechanical engineering poster is a free vector PDF that needs no account, prints on US Letter or A4, and enlarges to A1 without softening. Home, classroom, library and tutoring use are all covered by the licence.Read the licence
Where the mechanical engineering charts come from
These posters summarise. When you need the full account — or the normative text a chart is compressing — start here.
- ASME codes and standards — American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The standards the mechanics and thermodynamics charts are checked against.
- Engineering ToolBox — Engineering ToolBox. Material properties and unit conversions in the same reference form.