At the request of the National Science Foundation Engineering Directorate, the National Academies performed an international benchmarking exercise to determine the standing of the . research enterprise in the field of mechanical engineering relative to its international peers. This of course was no trivial undertaking, even for the panel of mechanical engineers assembled—11 members, mostly from . universities, with expertise across the 11 selected areas of mechanical engineering covered in the report (see Chapter 1): acoustics and dynamics, bioengineering, computational mechanics, design and computer-aided design, dynamic systems and controls, energy systems, manufacturing and computer-aided manufacturing, mechanics of engineering materials, microelectromechanical systems and nanoelectromechanical systems, thermal systems and heat transfer,.
