Blender also has a dope-sheet where you can record small animations, and then 'rearrange the actions' to make a full animation. For example, Blender doesn't have a 'Work Tree,' specifically, but it does have Animation Nodes, which are a little like Unity blueprints. The longer answer is: It depends on exactly what you need. The short answer is, Yes, Blender is what you're looking for, but you might need some addons. It sounds like you're looking for a CAD-style modeler that can do node-style or procedural animation. Visualization of your models is top notch, you can go photoreal.With Sverchok addon (or Object nodes that are coming into Blender) you can create geometry procedurally - it is similar to Rhino's grasshopper.Blender is quite capable with 3D printing your stuff with the help of 3D Print Toolbox addon.You can tag measurements with MeasureIt addon.But some of these modifiers do fail if they encounter non-manifold mesh or flipped polygon normals. The stack itself is like modeling history tree. There is modifier stack providing functionality like Mirror, Array, Revolve, Boolean, etc.This can bring whole lot of problems you don't want to deal with. NURBS or parametric surface tools are practically non-existent, so everything will be made from polygons.You cannot easily constrain geometry elements together (parallel, tangent, etc.The procedural stuff (modifier stack, object nodes.) has big limitations.The modeling workflow is generally destructive.You'll be fine with simple shapes, but not with engineering anything slightly more complex. Engineering workflow in Blender is slow and full of workarounds. Blender is an app designed for animation studios and entertainment industry. Good for organic modeling through sculpting too. I can recommend Blender for modeling objects to which you already know their design and parameters and you are sure the shape is mostly final (like modeling your living room or a part that broke and you need to 3D print it). Instead try free CAD apps like FreeCAD, NaroCAD, SolveSpace, DesignSpark Mechanical, OpenFoam for CFD and I am sure many others. TL:DR Blender is a weak app for actual engineering work, it's not a CAD software.

Blender 3d printing tutorial