Mechanical engineering Nanotechnology
At the smallest scales, mechanical engineering becomes nanotechnology and molecular engineering—one speculative goal of which is to create a molecular assembler to build molecules and materials via mechanosynthesis. For now this goal remains within exploratory engineering.
Mechanical engineering Finite Element Analysis
Main article: Finite Element Analysis
This field is not new, as the basis of Finite Element Analysis (FEA) or Finite Element Method (FEM) dates back to 1941. But evolution of computers has made FEM a viable option for analysis of structural problems. Many commercial codes such as ANSYS, Nastran and ABAQUS are widely used in industry for research and design of components.
Other techniques such as Finite Difference Method (FDM) and Finite Volume Method (FVM) are employed to solve problems relating heat and mass transfer, fluid flows, fluid surface interaction etc.
