Engineering Glossary: U
14 definitions in plain language.
14 terms beginning with U. Use the filter to narrow the list, or the letters to jump to another part of the glossary.
14 terms
- UART #
- Universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter: hardware for serial communication with a start bit and stop bit. Programming, data and computing
- UL listing #
- A mark showing that a product has been tested by Underwriters Laboratories and meets safety standards. Math, units, quality and workshop
- Ultimate tensile strength #
- The highest engineering stress a material can carry in tension before it breaks. Also called tensile strength. Mechanical design and mechanics
- Uncertainty #
- A range that states how far a measured value may be from the true value. Math, units, quality and workshop
- Undercut #
- The cutting away of the root of a gear tooth when too few teeth are cut on a small gear. Mechanical design and mechanics
- Underfitting #
- When a model is too simple to capture the pattern in the data. Programming, data and computing
- Underflow #
- A result closer to zero than the smallest number a data type can represent. Programming, data and computing
- Unicode #
- A standard that assigns a number to every character in the world's writing systems. Programming, data and computing
- Unit conversion #
- Changing a quantity from one unit to another by multiplying by a conversion factor. Math, units, quality and workshop Read more: Unit Conversions
- Unit test #
- An automatic test of one small piece of code. Programming, data and computing
- UPS #
- Uninterruptible power supply: a battery backup that keeps equipment running when the mains fail. Electrical power and machines
- USB #
- Universal Serial Bus: a standard connector and protocol for data and power. Programming, data and computing
- UTF-8 #
- A way of storing Unicode characters as one to four bytes; it is the same as ASCII for the first 128 characters. Programming, data and computing
- U-value #
- The overall heat transfer coefficient of a wall or window; the reciprocal of the total R-value. Fluids, heat and thermodynamics