13 Free Online Mechanical Engineering Courses

In this article, you will find several free online mechanical engineering courses for students. Upon successful completion of any of the courses, you will be awarded a certificate based on demand which may in some cases require a nominal fee.

Mechanical engineering is a discipline that applies engineering principles to the design, analysis, fabrication, and maintenance of machines and mechanical production techniques. It requires a strong background in mathematics.

To study mechanical engineering, the student must have a comprehensive knowledge of mechanics, dynamics, thermodynamics, materials science, structural analysis, and electricity.

Mechanical engineering unlike other programs covers different coursework that allows students to learn different skills that can be applied in any sector. It covers mathematics, science, and design. Students are trained using laboratory projects, research, fieldwork, and lectures and seminars.

You can go through the table of contents below to see what we have covered in this article and also choose any of the free online mechanical engineering courses that meet your needs as statistics show that most students now embrace online learning unlike it was treated in about a decade ago.

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Can I take mechanical engineering courses online?

Yes, you can. This is just similar to on-campus learning but the only difference is that you will have to take classes online from the comfort of your home or office.

You will have to browse the internet to know the institutions that offer online mechanical engineering courses. Once you see the schools, you can select any of the schools that offer the exact mechanical engineering course that you want.

Then, complete the online registration of the school and course you selected. Make sure that you have all the required documents needed for the online registration. Some schools offer free online mechanical engineering courses while others require just a little fee for enrolment.

Most online courses require an interview before students can start taking them. So, if any of the free online mechanical engineering courses require an interview, make sure that you have an internet connection on your device so as to take the interview. Afterward, you start your class on the online mechanical engineering course.

Free Online Mechanical Engineering Courses

The free online mechanical engineering courses that you see here are offered by prestigious universities across the globe with high-quality explainer videos attached at every practical end of the courses to help you understand the processes involved even more better.

Certificates are also offered upon successful completion of the courses. With the certificate, you can secure the same jobs as on-campus mechanical engineering graduates if you understand the know-how very well.

Consequently, some of the best free online mechanical engineering courses are as follows:

  • Introduction to Engineering Mechanics
  • Mechanics of Materials III: Beam Bending
  • Introduction to Aerospace Engineering: Astronautics and Human Spaceflight
  • Machine Desing Part I
  • Introduction to Biomedical Engineering
  • Advanced Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals
  • Elements of Solar Energy Conversion
  • Mechatronics
  • Mechanical Measurement Systems
  • Introduction to Fluid Mechanics
  • Engineering Mechanics – Statics and Dynamics
  • Oil Hydraulics and Pneumatics
  • Manufacturing Processes: Casting and Joining

Introduction to Engineering Mechanics

In this course, students learn how to apply the principles that are needed to solve mechanics problems in engineering. The course also deals with the modeling and study of static equilibrium problems along with real-world engineering applications.

The modules that you will find in this course include:

  • Forces and Particle Equilibrium
  • Define and Calculate Moments
  • Equilibrium and Equivalence of Force Systems
  • Free Body Diagrams and Equilibrium Analysis Techniques
  • Application of Static Equilibrium Equations

This online course is administered by Dr. Wayne E. Whiteman. A paid certificate is also available upon completion of the course.

  • Start date: Flexible
  • Duration: 5 weeks (5-7 hours per week)
  • Venue: Georgia Institute of Technology via Coursera (online)

Enroll

Mechanics of Materials III: Beam Bending

This course will teach you about the design and study of problems in beam bending. To be successful in this course, you need to complete the Mechanics of Materials I: Fundamentals of Stress and Strain and Axial Loading.

As one of the free online mechanical engineering courses, Mechanics of Materials III comprises of the following syllabuses:

  • Shear Force and Bending Moment Diagrams
  • Elastic Beam Bending
  • Inelastic beam bending
  • Shear Stresses in Beams subjected to Non-Uniform Loading
  • Design of Beams

Dr. Wayne Whiteman teaches this course.

  • Start date: Flexible
  • Duration: 5 weeks
  • Paid certificate
  • Venue: Georgia Institute of Technology via Coursera (online)

Enroll

Introduction to Aerospace Engineering: Astronautics and Human Spaceflight

In this course, you will learn about the major principles of space travel and exploration. In addition, you will get to know how rockets work, the movements of spacecraft in the orbit, how to build artificial environments inside spacecraft to keep astronauts alive, the experience of living in an environment with no gravity, how the human body adapts to space, and how spacewalks occur.

This online course is taught by Prof. Jeffrey Hoffman. He is a former astronaut with five spaceflights and the first astronaut to log 1000 hours on the Space Shuttle.

  • Start date: Self-paced
  • Duration: 8 weeks (2-3 hours per week)
  • Venue: Massachusetts Institute of Technology via edX (online)

Enroll

Machine Desing Part I

This course covers the basic mechanical designs including static and fatigue failure principles, the study of shafts, fasteners, and gears, and the design of mechanical systems like gearboxes. You will begin this course by learning the crucial material properties in design including stress, strength, and the coefficient of thermal expansion.

Additionally, students will analyze many design case studies such as the material selection of a total hip implant, the design and testing of the wing on the 777 aircraft, and the result of dynamic loads on the design of a bolted pressure vessel.

This course will also teach you the investigative methods that are used to forecast and confirm design performance.

Machine Design Part I contains the following syllabuses:

  • Material Properties in Design
  • Static Failure Theories: Part I
  • Static Failure Theories: Part II
  • Fatigue Failure: Part I
  • Fatigue Failure: Part II

As one of the free online mechanical engineering courses, Machine Design Part I is taught by Dr. Kathryn Wingate.

  • Start date: Flexible
  • Duration: 5 weeks
  • Paid certificate
  • Venue: Georgia Institute of Technology via Coursera (online)

Enroll

Introduction to Biomedical Engineering

This online course is designed for students in the university that are studying engineering, who wish to have a fundamental knowledge of modern biomedical engineering.

It is also created for those involved with modern R&D as the course will teach you the practical ideas used in developing and prototyping theories in the modern engineering field.

In this course, students will learn the basic practicals in modern biomedical engineering such as electronics, control theory, microcontrollers, and MATLAB. Upon completion of this course, you will know how to build electronic systems for electrophysiological signal acquisition, connect and program the microcontroller, organize the data transmission between a controller and PC, process the acquired signal, and control a simple robot with the acquired signal in real-time.

Introduction to Biomedical Engineering, as one of the free online mechanical engineering courses, comprise of the syllabuses below:

  • Electronics
  • Control theory
  • Real-time Embedded Systems (Arduino)
  • High-level programming and complex control (MATLAB)

Dr. Kirill Aristovich teaches the Introduction to Biomedical Engineering.

  • Start date: Flexible
  • Duration: 4 weeks
  • Paid certificate
  • Venue: St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University via Coursera (online)

Enroll

Advanced Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals

In this course, students will learn the basics of advanced fluid mechanics such as hydrostatics, buoyancy, rigid body accelerations, inviscid flow, the application of Bernoulli’s theorems, and applications of control volume analysis for more complex fluid flow problems.

Students will learn this course with aid of demo videos, lecture concept checks, practice problems, and extensive problem sets.

In fluid mechanics, this course is the first of a three-course series and the series is as follows:

  • Advanced Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals
  • Advanced Fluid Mechanics: The Navier-Stokes Equations for Viscous Flows
  • Advanced Fluid Mechanics: Potential Flows, Lift, Circulation & Boundary Layers

Students will be aided with the material from the first-year graduate class of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT.

Gareth McKinley, Bavand Keshavarz, John Liu, and Emily Welsh teach this online course.

  • Start date: Flexible
  • Duration: 6 weeks (8-12 hours per week)
  • $99 certificate available
  • Venue: Massachusetts Institute of Technology via edX (online)

Enroll

Elements of Solar Energy Conversion

This course is designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate mechanical engineering students who wish to work or specialize in the field of solar energy. For a proper understanding of the course, you need to have basic knowledge in undergraduate level thermodynamics, optics, semiconductor physics, heat transfer, and engineering mathematics.

In this course, students will acquire the basic knowledge and skills that are needed to work in solar energy fields including research and industrial installation.

This course will concentrate majorly on the apparent movement of the sun, irradiation prediction, intensity estimation on the tilted plane, flat plate collectors, concentrating collectors of various kinds, thermal and photovoltaic routes of solar energy conversion.

  • Start date: Flexible
  • Duration: 12 weeks
  • Paid certificate available
  • Venue: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and NPTEL via Swayam (online)

Enroll

Mechatronics

Mechatronics comes from the words Mecha which means mechanism and Tronics which means electronics. This course is actually a union of mechanical engineering with electronics and computer control in the design and production of industrial products and processes.

Students will learn how to:

  1. execute electronics control in a mechanical system
  2. improve already existing mechanical design with intelligent control
  3. replace mechanical components with an electronic solution

Additionally, this course will teach students everything related to mechatronics including sensors and transducers, actuators and mechanisms, signal conditioning, microprocessors and microcontrollers, modeling & system response and design, and mechatronics.

This course is taught by Prof. Pushparaj Mani Pathak.

  • Start date: Flexible
  • Duration: 8 weeks
  • Paid certificate available
  • Venue: Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee and NPTEL via Swayam (online)

Enroll

Mechanical Measurement Systems

In this course, students will learn about mechanical measurement systems and statistical analysis of experimental data. You will also find the standardized configuration and functional elements of measuring systems, static and dynamic characteristics of measuring instruments.

In addition, the course will teach you the instrumentation for displacement, strain, velocity, force, torque, power, pressure, sound, flow, and temperature measurement.

  • Start date: Flexible
  • Duration: 8 weeks
  • Paid certificate available
  • Venue: Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee and NPTEL via Swayam (online)

Enroll

Introduction to Fluid Mechanics

This course deals with the basic principles of fluid mechanics and the application of these concepts to solve real-life problems. Students will learn the concepts in fluid mechanics, mathematical operations, and examples of practical problems.

Upon successful completion, students will be able to apply these concepts to examine fluid mechanical systems.

  • Start date: Flexible
  • Duration: 12 weeks
  • Paid certificate available
  • Venue: Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and NPTEL via Swayam (online)

Enroll

Engineering Mechanics – Statics and Dynamics

The core of engineering is static and dynamical mechanical systems. Bridges, bolts, fasteners, and load-bearing members of roofs make up the static systems. Machines that convert electrical energy to mechanical energy (electric motor) make up the dynamical systems.

This course will help you to understand the equations guiding the static and dynamical systems. In addition, students will get to know the theoretical tools that can be sued to examine these systems.

The syllabuses contained in this course include:

  • Basics of rigid bodies
  •  Introduction to trusses and joints
  • Discussion on beams
  • Overview of friction and work & energy
  • Plane kinematics
  • Plane kinetics
  • Work-Energy and Impulse-Momentum methods
  • Overview of Vibrations

This course will help you to apply the basic concepts of dynamics in order to develop and solve dynamic problems. You will also know how to apply these concepts to modeling engineered machines.

  • Start date: Flexible
  • Duration: 8 weeks
  • Paid certificate available
  • Venue: Indian Institute of Technology Madras and NPTEL via Swayam (online)

Enroll

Oil Hydraulics and Pneumatics

Fluid Power discusses the production, control, and transmission of power, using pressurized fluids. In this field of study, liquids and gases are regarded as fluids. This technology is used to push, pull, regulate, or drive almost every machine in the modern industry.

Due to industrial revolutions, machines that operate using fluid power can now generate more power and higher accuracy in speed, force, and position control.

Therefore, this course will teach the introduction to fluid power such as oil hydraulics and pneumatics. This course provides solutions for a variety of problems in power transmission and control. Through this course, students will be able to:

  • Learn the underlying theoretical concepts
  • Be conversant with the construction and function of the components
  • Know how the components are selected and integrated into a system
  • Understand the operation of basic circuits, read, examine, and troubleshoot basic circuits

As one of the free online mechanical engineering courses, oil hydraulics & pneumatics is designed for every engineering student, industrial experts, and scientists working in R &D institutions.

  • Start date: Flexible
  • Duration: 12 weeks
  • Paid certificate available
  • Venue: Indian Institute of Technology Madras and NPTEL via Swayam (online)

Enroll

Manufacturing Processes: Casting and Joining

In this course, you will learn using video clips the analysis and design methods used in different casting and welding processes.

This course is recommended for undergraduate engineering students and practicing engineers in machine tool industries, automobile manufacturing industries, and foundry industries.

Prof. Sounak Kumar Choudhury teaches this course online.

  • Start date: Flexible
  • Duration: 4 weeks
  • Paid certificate available
  • Venue: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and NPTEL via Swayam (online)

Enroll


Conclusion

Studying online has proven a good track record over the years especially in the field of engineering technology. From the comfort of your home, you can study to acquire the certification that on-campus students acquire upon graduation.

These zero cost online mechanical engineering courses offer the coursework and hands-on training that on-campus students get. Through these online courses, students acquire the skills required to meet the demands of modern industries in the field of engineering.

If you wish to study mechanical engineering without visiting the four walls of the university, then, the free online mechanical engineering courses in this article are a sure bet for you.

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