Research Guides: Engineering Comprehensive Guide: Technical Reports

What is a Technical report

A technical report is a document that describes the process, progress, or results of technical or scientific research or the state of a technical or scientific research problem. They are prepared for internal or wider distribution by many organizations. Technical reports often present cutting edge research before being published in journals or conferences.

Free Online Resources

Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center (CRREL)
The results of CRREL's research projects are published in a technical report series covering topics of interest to Civil and Environmental Engineers. Reports from 1995 to present are available, as well as some older ones.
Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC)
DTIC helps the Department of Defense (DoD) community access pertinent scientific and technical information to meet mission needs more effectively.
Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (EECS) Technical Reports
Contains theses, dissertations, and technical reports in the disciplines of electrical engineering and computer science. Provided by UC Berkeley.
EPA Technical Reports and Publications Page
Use this link to access research reports and technical documents published by EPA.
Los Alamos National Laboratory Report Resources
The Research Library provides extensive collections of books, journals, databases, patents and technical reports and offers literature searching, training and outreach services. The library's R&D component pursues cutting-edge work in areas such as open archives, recommendation systems and visualization, emergency response information systems, and discovery systems.
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
1920–present. Indexes technical reports, conference papers, journal articles, and other publications sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). NACA Reports, Technical Notes, and Technical Memoranda are available in fulltext from 1917–1958. Some NASA reports are fulltext.
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NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) provides access to aerospace-related citations, full-text online documents, and images and videos. The types of information include: conference papers, journal articles, meeting papers, patents, research reports, images, movies, and technical videos – scientific and technical information (STI) created or funded by NASA.
National Technical Information Service (NTIS)
To promote the Commerce Department's and Federal data priorities, including open access and open data, by providing information and data services to the public, industry, and other federal agencies in ways that enable U.S. innovation and economic growth.
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The National Technical Information Service serves as the largest central resource for government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information available today. For more than 60 years NTIS has assured businesses, universities, and the public timely access to approximately 3 million publications covering over 350 subject areas.
National Transportation Library
Documents relating to highway and transportation engineering.
Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI)
OSTI.GOV is the primary search tool for Department of Energy (DOE) funded science, technology, and engineering research and development (R&D) results and the organizational hub for information about the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI).
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The site contains over 70 years of energy-related research results and citations collected by OSTI. It includes journal articles/accepted manuscripts and related metadata, technical reports, scientific research datasets and collections, scientific software, patents, conference and workshop papers, books and theses, and multimedia funded by DOE through a grant, contract, cooperative agreement, or similar type of funding mechanism from the 1940s to today.
Technical Report Archive and Image Library (TRAIL)
A collaborative project to digitize, archive, and provide persistent and unrestricted access to federal technical reports issued prior to 1975.
USGS Publications Warehouse
The Pubs Warehouse provides access to over 130,000 publications written by USGS scientists over the century-plus history of the bureau

Search for Technical Reports

Science.gov
Science.gov searches over 60 databases and over 2200 selected websites from 15 federal agencies, offering 200 million pages of authoritative U.S. government science information including research and development results. Science.gov is governed by the interagency Science.gov Alliance.
WorldWideScience.org
A global science gateway comprised of national and international scientific databases and portals. WorldWideScience.org accelerates scientific discovery and progress by providing one-stop searching of databases from around the world (Architecture: What is under the Hood). Multilingual WorldWideScience.org provides real-time searching and translation of globally-dispersed multilingual scientific literature.