Ford Recycles CES Plastic for Car Seats Engineering Materials 1/27/2012 21 comments Ford and Unifi, maker of Repreve, will gather and recycle 2 million plastic bottles at CES and other shows for conversion into the Repreve seat fabric used in the 2012 Focus EV.
Composite Plane Repair Aided by Coating Engineering Materials 1/26/2012 16 comments Coatings that make damage visible at certain wavelengths could be useful in inspecting the composites used in aircraft structures.
Bridge Made From Recycled Plastic Bottles Engineering Materials 1/9/2012 29 comments Recycled plastic bottles and other waste plastic are being turned into structural, weight-bearing elements of a 90-foot bridge in Scotland.
Little Robots Forge Automated Welding Cells Engineering Materials 12/2/2011 17 comments Industrial robots that do welding and metal fabrication are getting both a lot smaller and a lot larger, depending on the size of the company using them and the type of welding configurations they need.
3D Printed Stool Holds 220 Pounds Engineering Materials 8/12/2011 9 comments In a demonstration of the rapidly growing capabilities of the 3D printing process, Objet printed a stool that folds and holds more than 220 pounds.
Composites Lighten Solar Car Engineering Materials 8/8/2011 13 comments New materials, combined with efficient design, produce a lightweight car that is targeting a first place finish in the 2011 World Solar Challenge in Australia in October.
Artificial Lung Is Microfluidics Marvel Engineering Materials 8/4/2011 12 comments A team of Cleveland engineers has developed a prototype artificial lung made from silicone rubber that uses air instead of compressed oxygen in a marvel of microfluidics made possible by additive manufacturing.
Resin Producers Forge Ahead on Bioplastics Engineering Materials 8/3/2011 3 comments Major global resin producers continue to show substantial interest in development of engineering plastics from renewable resources, even though acceptance in the engineering community has been glacial.
Kill the Biofuels Subsidies Engineering Materials 8/1/2011 17 comments Eliminating federal subsidies for corn ethanol should be an easy call for Congressmen debating how to balance the US budget in advance of a debt default deadline.
Old Tires & Soy Seed Ford's Gaskets Engineering Materials 7/20/2011 7 comments Ford continues its leadership in development of natural automotive materials with use of recycled tires and soy oil to make seals and engine gaskets.
Alcoa Makes DFMA Case for Aluminum's Sustainability Engineering Materials 7/14/2011 12 comments A team at the Alcoa Technical Center near Pittsburgh analyzed several tools and chose DFMA as a way to prove that aluminum is a better sustainability option than other materials for select applications.
Outsourcing Bridges Is a Crazy Idea Engineering Materials 7/6/2011 13 comments Construction workers in Shanghai are making a replacement bridge for the 2.2-mile span that was damaged in the 1989 Bay Area earthquake.
Starter motors with automatic starting capabilities will hit the auto market in a big way in 2012. Within 15 years, every new vehicle could offer "start-stop."
Branching out from its CAM software roots, PartMaker is adding a 3D CAD modeling component to its PartMaker portfolio, acknowledging that machinists need better tools for working with 3D models.
Environmental stress cracking is a common failure mode for plastics, and you may need to do your own testing to make sure that the plastic you plan to use will not crack.
The tray table that folds in half for stowage in the armrest of an airline seat is something admired for its design ingenuity, but long cursed for its operational opaqueness and flimsiness.
Thanks to embedded electronics, medical devices are getting smaller and smarter than ever. Pacemakers and implantable defibrillators are now able to call physicians. MRIs, CT scanners, and ultrasound machines are gaining mobility. And the venerable Band-Aid may soon be able to detect illnesses ranging from fevers to heart arrhythmias. On February 21, join Design News senior editor Charles Murray for a wide-ranging discussion, "Embedded Angles for Medical Products," which will explore the latest developments in medical electronics. The discussion will examine advances in medical device technology and offer an inside look at the embedded electronics behind it.
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