M glossary entries

Mach number is the ratio of an object's speed or flow speed to the local speed of sound in the surrounding medium.

Machine learning is a family of computational methods that learn patterns, predictions, or decision rules from data.

Magnetic flux is the integral of magnetic flux density over a surface, representing how much magnetic field passes through that area.

A mass balance applies conservation of mass to a defined system boundary over a specified time interval.

Mean free path is the average distance a particle or molecule travels between collisions or interactions.

A reliability metric representing the average operating time between repairable failures.

A medical device is an engineered product or system intended to support diagnosis, monitoring, treatment, compensation, prevention, or clinical workflow.

The process of verifying that numerical simulation results become stable as mesh resolution increases.

Metacentric height is the vertical distance between a vessel center of gravity and metacenter, used as a first measure of initial stability.

A compact integrated circuit containing a processor, memory, and peripherals for embedded control.

A microgrid is a local electric power system with defined electrical boundaries and coordinated control that can operate connected to the main grid or, if designed for it, in islanded mode.

Mine closure is the planned transition from active mining to stable, safe, environmentally controlled, and monitored post-mining conditions.

Mine dewatering is the engineered removal and control of water that affects mine access, stability, production, and environmental performance.

Mine reclamation is the engineering and operational process of stabilizing, restoring, repurposing, or safely closing land affected by mining.

Mine ventilation is the engineered movement and control of air through mine workings to manage breathing air, contaminants, heat, and emergency conditions.

The Miner rule is a linear cumulative damage hypothesis that predicts fatigue failure under variable amplitude loading by summing the fractional damage contributions from each stress level, with failure occurring when the total reaches unity.

The study of natural frequencies, mode shapes, and damping of a dynamic structure.

Moment of inertia measures how mass or cross-sectional area is distributed relative to an axis, controlling resistance to angular acceleration or bending.

A computational method that uses random sampling to estimate behaviour under uncertainty.

A mooring system is the arrangement used to restrain a vessel, buoy, or floating offshore asset within an allowable position envelope.

Multi-objective optimization is the simultaneous optimization of two or more conflicting objective functions, producing a set of Pareto-optimal trade-off solutions rather than a single best solution.

A portable instrument used to measure voltage, current, resistance, and related electrical quantities.