The use of additive manufacturing as a rapid prototyping technology has become universally accepted across all key industrial sectors, allowing design engineers and manufacturers the ability to assess the robustness of a design before pushing the button on full production. A rapid prototype can be held and assessed by all departments involved in the design…
A Metal Sheet Stamping Simulation Promises Improved Car Part Production
The process of stamping metal sheets to create parts used in automotive products such as car doors has received a virtual upgrade in the form of a simulation method devised by Kanazawa University-based researchers. Their simulation can be used to optimize a metal stamping press in its conceptual design stage, thus reducing the costs of…
Better Microring Sensors for Optical Applications
Tweaking the design of microring sensors enhances their sensitivity without adding more implementation complexity. Optical sensing is one of the most important applications of light science. It plays crucial roles in astronomy, environmental science, industry and medical diagnoses. Despite the variety of schemes used for optical sensing, they all share the same principle: The quantity to…
Smart Software Tool Paves Way for Changing How Things Get Designed, Made, and Supplied
If you don’t like wandering through big-box stores trying to find the furniture you need, and then struggle to assemble it, researchers have proposed a solution: Smart software that helps you design your own furniture, 3D print the joints and assemble the whole structure at home. “This work has implications for changing how the supply…
Beanie Babies, the Invention of CubeSat, and Student-Designed and Built Satellites
The democratization of space began 20 years ago with Beanie Babies – or, more accurately, the clear acrylic box that brought them home. These 4-inch (10-cm) cubes inspired space engineer Bob Twiggs to create CubeSat, the first satellite with a standard design. From 1957 when the first human-made satellite, Sputnik-1, was launched until 1999 when Twiggs proposed CubeSat, satellites came in…
Novel Method for Improving Imaging Techniques in Geophysical and Material Studies
One of the remarkable aspects of science is its ability to extend our sense of perception beyond touch and sight, often using the information provided by the “scattering” of waves. A group of researchers from the Department of Civil Engineering, led by Prof Terumi Touhei, at Tokyo University of Science, working on the “inverse scattering”…
Beyond the Metal: Investigating Soft Robots at NASA Langley
Into the Spiderverse’s newest crew of villains include a brilliant scientist named Doctor Octopus who uses flexible robotic arms to commit her dastardly deeds. Her bionic arms can throw objects, aid her in moving quickly in fight scenes, and a host of other functions. While we can leave the evil geniuses to the movies, two genius…
Study: Reducing Carbon Emissions While Improving Health Is Economically Attractive
It’s a classic policy dispute: How much should the current generation invest in reducing carbon emissions for the benefit of future generations? A study published in Nature Communicationshelps answer this question by quantifying whether reducing carbon emissions — which will have global benefits in the future — also improves air quality now. Preventing many of the…
Radical Desalination Approach May Disrupt the Water Industry
Hypersaline brines—water that contains high concentrations of dissolved salts and whose saline levels are higher than ocean water—are a growing environmental concern around the world. Very challenging and costly to treat, they result from water produced during oil and gas production, inland desalination concentrate, landfill leachate (a major problem for municipal solid waste landfills), flue…
New Plastic Allows Recycling Without Losing Properties
Although recycling plastic is common in many cities, the truth is that current plastic materials are typically only 20 to 30 percent recyclable, with the remaining plastic winding up in incinerators and landfills, where the carbon-rich material slowly decomposes. Now, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have designed…
TI Enables System Reliability in Hybrid and Electric Vehicles
Texas Instruments introduced fully tested reference designs for battery management and traction inverter systems, along with new analog circuits with advanced monitoring and protection features to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions and enable hybrid electric vehicles and electric vehicles (HEV/EVs) to drive farther and longer. Speed time to market while achieving more accurate battery monitoring Scalable…
Autonomous Go-Karts: Don’t Pour a Bottle of Milk Over This Race Winner
In less than a month, Helio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon and last year’s champ, Will Power, will look to add to their Borg-Warner trophy cases by winning the Indianapolis 500. But one of the winners at events at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this May won’t be a person. It will be an autonomous car.…
Freezing Method for Inspecting Parts
“How on Earth did they make that?” says Francesco Simonetti, commenting on an ice sculpture of a swan. But Simonetti isn’t admiring the taxing work of shaping a block of ice into a bird. He’s admiring the swan’s crystal-clear transparency. Simonetti, an aerospace engineering professor at the University of Cincinnati, is an expert in sound…
NIST Research Sparks New Insights on Laser Welding
On its surface, the work is deceptively simple: Shoot a high-power laser beam onto a piece of metal for a fraction of a second and see what happens. But researchers say the physics of laser welding is surprisingly complex. A better understanding of the interaction between laser and metal could give industry more control over…
Five Challenges Engineers Face in Power Supply Design
Electronic system designers, engineers, program managers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) must address numerous challenges in the selection or development of an appropriate power supply for their systems. These challenges include a multitude of aspects related to the product development cycle, time-to-market, reliability and warranty, parts availability, and life cycle costs. In some cases, an…
Coffee Machine Helps Physicists to Make Ion Traps More Efficient
Scientists from ITMO University have developed and applied a new method for analyzing the electromagnetic field inside ion traps. For the first time, they explained the field deviations inside nonlinear radio-frequency traps. This allows to reconsider the prospects nonlinear traps applications, including ion cooling and studies of quantum phenomena. The results are published in the Journal…
Using Wood to Protect Wood from Catching Fire
Although many of our homes and buildings are constructed from wood, wood is not immune to catching on fire, but that may be changing with a spray-applied retardant coating. The spray- or brush-applied coating is made from nanocellulose, which is suited for improving fire properties of wood-based materials. Ultimately, this reduces the access of oxygen…
Bridge over Coupled Waters: Scientists 3D-Print All-Liquid ‘Lab on a Chip’
Researchers at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have 3D-printed an all-liquid device that, with the click of a button, can be repeatedly reconfigured on demand to serve a wide range of applications – from making battery materials to screening drug candidates. “What we demonstrated is remarkable. Our 3D-printed device can be programmed to…
Squishy Robots Can Drop From Helicopter and Land Safely
Sometimes the toughest among us come in shapes that are round and just a little bit squishy. New soccer-ball-shaped robots, created by engineers at UC Berkeley and Squishy Robotics, have the remarkable ability to fall from a height of more than 600 feet and be no worse for wear. Built of a network of rods linked…
Researchers Use Physics to Locate Gaseous Leaks More Quickly in Complex Scenarios
Engineers at Duke University are developing a smart robotic system for sniffing out pollution hotspots and sources of toxic leaks. Their approach enables a robot to incorporate calculations made on the fly to account for the complex airflows of confined spaces rather than simply ‘following its nose.’ “Many existing approaches that employ robots to locate…
How Slippery Surfaces Allow Sticky Pastes and Gels To Slide
An MIT research team that has already conquered the problem of getting ketchup out of its bottle has now tackled a new category of consumer and manufacturing woe: how to get much thicker materials to slide without sticking or deforming. The slippery coatings the team has developed, called liquid-impregnated surfaces, could have numerous advantages, including…
Redesigning the Fire Extinguisher to Suck Fire in Space
The Department of Mechanical Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology has developed an unusual fire extinguisher that sucks flames and burning materials into a vacuum chamber. Once safely captured inside the chamber, the flames and materials are suffocated or extinguished. Dubbed Vacuum Extinguish Method (VEM), the reverse concept extinguisher is geared toward special environments that…
Recommendations for High-Performance Dispensing in the Automotive Industry
This guide showcases the latest dispensing solutions for assembly fluids in automotive manufacturing. It covers: • Best solutions for accurately applying greases, oils, solder pastes, and other industrial materials • Dispensing components including next-generation mixers for 2-part epoxies • Jet valve systems for cyanoacrylates / anaerobics Find the highest-performing dispensing solutions designed to increase process…
How to Select the Best Dispensing Components
This guide showcases the latest dispensing components for quality, consistency, and reliability in your dispensing process. It covers: • Optimum syringe barrels and cartridge systems • Variety of pistons, each designed for dispensing specific fluids • Precision dispensing tips, including stainless steel, tapered, and more. Find the highest-performing dispensing solutions designed to increase process control…
Stratasys Direct Manufacturing Expands Additive Metals Capacity With Velo3d’s Sapphire Printer
Stratasys Direct Manufacturing, a subsidiary of Stratasys, Ltd. (NASDAQ: SSYS) and one of the largest providers of additive (3D printing) and conventional manufacturing services in North America, is expanding its additive metals offering with the addition of VELO3D’s Sapphire™ 3D print system and Flow™ software. The Sapphire laser fusion metal additive manufacturing system allows for…