The exam of GATE 2019 Mechanical Engineering will be held in the month of February. For an all-round preparation of this exam, here are some of the scoring subjects of the GATE Mechanical Engineering Exam.

Every paper in GATE exam follows more or less a definite pattern and marks distribution for particular subjects, therefore it is of utmost importance to work on those subjects which have relatively higher weightage than other subjects.
For example, aptitude and mathematics, production and manufacturing technology, Strength of material, thermodynamics, Fluid mechanics, theories of machines, heat transfer, engineering mechanics, and industrial engineering.
Based on an analysis of the previous year papers, here is brief summary that would enable you to decide the subjects you should invest more time on, to score better in the GATE Mechanical Engineering paper.

Scoring Subjects of GATE Mechanical Engineering Exam

Let us now see the subjects which will help you gain more marks in the exam of GATE Mechanical Engineering.

1. Engineering Mathematics and Aptitude: (30 marks)

  • Engineering mathematics contains 10 questions which account for 15 marks and Aptitude section follows the similar pattern, i.e., it also contains 10 questions, for which a total of 15 marks are
  • These two segments consist of 30% of your GATE paper. Students often ignore these subjects and end up getting lower marks.
  • You can excuse some of the subjects like RAC, material science but do not compromise with aptitude and mathematics. One can easily score 10 plus in aptitude and 12 plus in mathematics. So, prepare these sections well.

Book for Mathematics: Higher Engineering Mathematics by B.S Grewal plus previous year papers will be sufficient.

Book for Aptitude: Previous year paper of all streams will be sufficient; R.S Agarwal book for verbal and non-verbal part is also a good source for the preparation of this section.

2. Production and manufacturing technology: (14-18 marks)

  • After Maths and Aptitude, Mechanical engineering paper contains a lots of questions from production and manufacturing.
  • Production and manufacturing technology itself is a huge topic and is subdivided into metal cutting technology, forming and material science.
  • Important topics include: machining time calculation, Taylors law, merchant circle diagram, orthogonal cutting analysis, angle measurement in ASA & orthogonal system, casting numericals, resistance welding numerical, arc welding numericals, EDM, ECM processes.

Book:  A textbook of Production Technology by Dr. P. C. Sharma (S. Chand publication)

3. Strength of material (SOM) + Machine design: (5-8 marks)

  • SOM and machine design are different subjects but questions that come in GATE exam are a combination of the two concepts.
  • Important topics are: bending stress distribution and shear force distribution in beam, thermal stress formula based question, bending equation, twisting equations and application, theories of failure, beam deflection, moment area method, Castigliano’s theorem, bi-axial stress condition, Mohr’s circle,  band brakes design, S.N diagram, Soderberg line , Goodman line, Gerber parabola, bearing load calculation.

Book: Strength of Materials by Dr. Sadhu Singh,  Design of Machine Elements by V. B. Bhandari

4. Thermodynamics and cycles: (8-12 marks)

  • Important topics include: 1st law of thermodynamics, Entropy generation, calculation of irreversibility, heat pump and refrigeration cycle numerical, Clausius inequality, simple Rankine cycle numerical, regeneration; reheat cycle, Carnot Cycle, Otto and diesel cycle analysis and their comparison, Brayton cycles, air compressor,  Turbine work ratio, back work ratio ,change in entropy numerical,  steady flow energy equation applied to turbine and compressors, concept of throttling process and free expansion process with T-S diagram.

Book: Engineering Thermodynamics by P. K. Nag

5. Fluid mechanics: (6-8 marks)

  • Fluid mechanics is the 2nd subject in GATE mechanical exam which has a vast syllabus after Production technology; therefore it is very important to study important topics if one has limited time at hand.
  • Important topics are: Newton’s law of viscosity, stream function,  potential function, poiseuille equation, cote flow, flow through pipes and darcy factor, Bernoulli equation, Hydrostatic force calculation in flat and curved surfaces, Force calculation due to internal flow, propulsion numerical and turbine diagram calculation( pelton, kaplan and francis).
  • The application part of fluid mechanics is itself a huge topic but luckily GATE exam often asks direct formula-based questions from these topics. So make a thorough revision of formula and diagram in fluid machines.

Book: Hydraulics and Fluid Mechanics by Modi and Seth

6. Heat Transfer: (5-6 marks)

  • Questions from heat and mass transfer are relatively easier in GATE mechanical paper but one needs to pay attention as some tricky questions are always asked from this subject.
  • Important topics include: Fourier law applied to slab, cylinder and sphere, heat conduction equation with and without heat generation, derivation of heat conduction equation for various shape of conductor, transient heat conduction numerical, Biot number, critical thickness numerical, Shape factor numerical, radiation formula for different cases, radiosity numerical, empirical formula of heat convection in free and force condition under laminar and turbulent condition. Concept of prandtl number applied to determine velocity and thermal boundary layer relationship, boundary layer depth derivation from von karman momentum equation, formula based numerical from shear velocity and depth of boundary layer in sub-laminar region. Variation of shear stress, heat transfer coefficient along flow in laminar-turbulent region. Displacement and Momentum thickness.

Book: Basics of Heat & Mass Transfer by Dr. D. S. Kumar

7. Theory of machines : ( 8- 10 marks)

  • Important topics are: Inversion of mechanism, quick return mechanism, crank and slotted lever mechanism, Instantaneous centre method, balancing under dynamic condition, gyroscope formula application and direction sense, Flywheel design, flywheel energy analysis, and Turning moment diagram.

Book:  Theory of Machines by S. S. Rattan

8. Engineering Mechanics: (2-5 marks)

  • Important Topics are: Joint methods, section method, virtual work method, impulse momentum theorem, collision problem, work energy theorem, Friction problems class 11th level  , cone of friction, sliding motion and rolling motion problems , spiral motion numerical are very important.

Book: Engineering Mechanics by S. Ramamrutham,  Basics of H. C. Verma

9. Industrial engineering: (5-7 marks)

  • Following are the important topics under industrial engineering: Inventory management formula application under different cases(all 5 models), lead time, reorder level, CPM, PERT, Hungarian method, LPP, least cost method for transportation problem,  LPP, least square method, Johnson method, Advance Johnson algorithm, forecasting,  queuing model direct formula based numerical, error calculation like MAD, MSE, bias.

Book: Operations Research by Hamdy A Taha and Martand Telsang.

Bonus tip:

Make notes of G codes, M codes, transformation matrix formula for CAD model and practice BLU (basic length unit) previous year problems. This can give you extra 5-6 marks.

Don’t forget to download GATE preparation app for GATE ME exam. It provides free study notes, quizzes, previous papers, videos, and all the updates and notification related GATE exam.