Research Guides: Mechanical Engineering: Getting started

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This guide covers search tools for introductory research in topics related to Mechanical Engineering. It is aimed at undegraduate researchers.

Start with:

Scopus
Search for information from scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. Covers the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
Web of Science
Web of Science indexes a curated collection of 32,800 journals, plus books, proceedings, patents, and data sets. Use cited reference search to track prior research and monitor current developments in over 100 year's worth of content that is fully indexed, including 59 million records and backfiles dating back to 1898. Web of Science also provides access to the Derwent database of patent citation information.

Then try any of the following:

American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
Search ASME journals from 1959 - present, conference proceedings from 2000 - present plus select proceedings back to 1955, and ebooks from 1993 - present with select titles back to 1944.
Access to full text is limited; we do not have online subscriptions to all resources indexed here.
SAE Mobilus
The SAE Mobilus platform provides access for the University Libraries subscriptions to the SAE Journals from 2008-2017 and the SAE Technical Papers from 1998 to present. The Technical papers portion of SAE Mobilus references thousands of SAE Technical Papers covering the latest advances and research in all areas of mobility engineering including ground vehicle, aerospace, off-highway, and manufacturing technology. SAE was previously known as the Society of Automotive Engineers.
Note: This resource does not work well with the Safari browser on Macs. Firefox works fine on the Macintosh platform.

Also check out:

Knovel
Online access to books, databases, and conference proceedings from a number of publishers that cover all areas of engineering and includes content relevant to related sciences (e.g., chemistry and earth sciences). It includes interactive graphs and tables.
For a tutorial on using Knovel, go to Start a research project with Knovel.
ASTM Standards and Engineering Digital Library
Produced by the American Society for Testing and Materials, this resource provides instant access to the current digital edition of the Annual Book of ASTM Standards.

Off-campus access to library resources

Current University students, staff and faculty should be able to get full text and online access to the University Libraries from anywhere. Here are three ways to access the library full text from off campus.

Search the University of Minnesota library website. Log in with your UMN Internet ID and password to access resources.
Log in using the U of M Virtual Private Network (VPN). You will need to download it VPN software to your computer from campus OIT (Office of Information Technology).
Install the Libraries' Proxy Bookmarklet to your browser and click it to reload the page with your U of M login to get access to full text. Watch a proxy bookmarklet video (3 min) to learn more.

View examples and learn more on our How to get to full text from on and off campus Guide.

Last Updated: Apr 21, 2025 4:50 PM