What are the best journals for Mechanical Engineering?

From a 17,500-venue index, the highest-ranked Mechanical Engineering journals include Progress in Materials Science, Journal of Material Science and Technology, International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture, International Journal of Plasticity, International Materials Reviews. The top 40 of 526 ranked venues are listed on this page; all 40 are Scimago Q1. Each shows its open-access status and indexing, and predatory venues are excluded. For a shortlist matched to your specific paper, use the Journal Finder (15 credits; free account starts with 25).

How were these Mechanical Engineering journals ranked?

By Scimago quartile first (Q1 → Q4, then venues without one). Within a quartile, venues whose main OpenAlex subfield is Mechanical Engineering come before those that list it second or third, and ties go to OpenAlex cites/paper over a 2-year window. A venue whose main subfield is unrelated to Mechanical Engineering — fewer than a quarter of the venues filed under that subfield (or fewer than five) are also filed under Mechanical Engineering — is listed after all the others. Where cites/paper decides, a journal with fewer than 30 papers in OpenAlex over the four most recent publication years is listed after those with more: a two-year average over so few papers can rest on a single article (4 of the 526 journals ranked here are below that floor; none of them is among the 40 shown). Cites/paper is a transparent citation rate, not a licensed Impact Factor, and journals flagged as predatory are excluded.

Why don't all Mechanical Engineering journals show a quartile?

Scimago doesn't cover every journal — many strong regional and open-access venues are absent from it. We show "no Scimago quartile" for those rather than hide them; it's a coverage gap, not a quality judgement.

How do I find the best journal for my specific Mechanical Engineering paper?

Paste your title and abstract into the Journal Finder — it returns a shortlist matched to your paper's topic from the same index, with acceptance-fit signals, open-access status, and predatory flags. A free account starts with 25 welcome credits; each run costs 15.

Mechanical Engineering · 526 journals ranked · top 40 listed

Best journals for Mechanical Engineering

The top 40 of 526 Mechanical Engineering journals, ranked by Scimago quartile, then by how central Mechanical Engineering is to each journal, then OpenAlex cites/paper (2-year window), drawn from a 17,500-venue index. Predatory venues are excluded; the FAQ below gives the exact ranking rule. These are field-wide rankings — for a shortlist matched to your specific paper, paste your title and abstract into the Journal Finder (a free account starts with 25 welcome credits).

Data as of 18 October 2026 — the date our venue index was last rebuilt from OpenAlex and Scimago.

Match journals to your paper →

All Best open-access journals

1
Progress in Materials Science
34.5 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
2
Journal of Material Science and Technology
18.8 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
3
International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture
17.9 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
4
International Journal of Plasticity
17.5 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
5
International Materials Reviews
14.4 cites/paper · Q1 · Taylor & Francis
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
6
Energy Conversion and Management
12.3 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
7
Virtual and Physical Prototyping
11.5 cites/paper · Q1 · Taylor & Francis
Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
8
International Journal of Minerals Metallurgy and Materials
11.2 cites/paper · Q1 · Springer Science+Business Media
ScopusWeb of Science
9
Energy
11.0 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
10
Acta Materialia
10.5 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
11
International Journal of Thermofluids
9.7 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
Open AccessDOAJScopus
12
Journal of Manufacturing Processes
9.2 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
13
Journal of Materials Processing Technology
9.2 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
14
Tribology International
8.5 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
15
Progress in Natural Science Materials International
8.2 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
16
Materials Research Letters
8.2 cites/paper · Q1 · Taylor & Francis
Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
17
Additive manufacturing
7.9 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
18
Journal of Materials Research and Technology
7.7 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
19
Case Studies in Thermal Engineering
7.6 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
20
Engineering Failure Analysis
7.4 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
21
Applied Thermal Engineering
7.1 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
22
International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer
6.8 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
23
Materials Science and Engineering A
6.8 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
24
International journal of greenhouse gas control
6.3 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of Science
25
CIRP Annals
6.1 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
26
Materials & Design
6.0 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
27
Scripta Materialia
6.0 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
28
Transactions of Nonferrous Metals Society of China
5.9 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
Open AccessScopusWeb of Science
29
Friction
5.9 cites/paper · Q1 · Springer Nature
Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of Science
30
Wear
5.8 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
31
Materials Characterization
5.7 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
32
Acta Metallurgica Sinica (English Letters)
5.6 cites/paper · Q1 · Springer Science+Business Media
Scopus
33
Marine Structures
5.6 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of Science
34
Science China Technological Sciences
5.5 cites/paper · Q1 · Springer Science+Business Media
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
35
Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
5.5 cites/paper · Q1 · Oxford University Press
Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
36
International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer
5.4 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
37
Minerals Engineering
5.4 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of Science
38
Chinese Journal of Mechanical Engineering
5.4 cites/paper · Q1 · China Machine Press
Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of Science
39
Archives of Civil and Mechanical Engineering
5.4 cites/paper · Q1 · Springer Science+Business Media
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
40
CIRP journal of manufacturing science and technology
5.4 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed

“Cites/paper” is the OpenAlex 2-year citation rate — a transparent signal, not a licensed Impact Factor. Many regional and open-access journals are strong but aren’t covered by Scimago, so they show “no Scimago quartile”; that’s a coverage gap, not a quality judgement.