Bioplastic Injection Molding Grade Is Compostable
Engineering Materials 6/19/2013 3 comments New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
100-Percent Solar Plane Flies High on Advanced Materials
Engineering Materials 6/13/2013 16 comments The 100-percent solar-powered Solar Impulse plane flies on a piloted, cross-country flight this summer over the US as a prelude to the longer, round-the-world flight by its successor aircraft planned for 2015.
GE Aviation Cuts 3D Print Time in LEAP Engine
Engineering Materials 6/11/2013 12 comments GE Aviation expects to chop off about 25 percent of the total 3D printing time of metallic production components for its LEAP Turbofan engine, using in-process inspection. That's pretty amazing, considering how slow additive manufacturing (AM) build times usually are.
Feds Launch Metals Lightweighting Institute
Engineering Materials 6/3/2013 29 comments The federal government is launching competitions to kickstart three more manufacturing innovation institutes, including one focused on Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation.
Slideshow: Anatomy of a Composite-Heavy Jetliner
Engineering Materials 5/31/2013 19 comments The airframe of Airbus's A350 XWB consists of a bigger proportion of carbon-fiber-reinforced composite structures than any other commercial jet to date: over 53 percent by weight.
NASA Tests Biofuel, Reports Reduced Emissions
Engineering Materials 5/28/2013 7 comments Initial reports from NASA's first round of flight tests of a jet biofuel based on camelina plants show fewer emissions than from conventional jet fuel.
Video: Worm Hooks Inspire Better Bandages
Engineering Materials 5/17/2013 16 comments Inspired by the hooks a parasitic worm uses to penetrate its host's intestines, the Karp Lab has invented a flexible adhesive patch covered with microneedles that adheres well to wet, soft tissues, but doesn't cause damage when removed.
Video: Seahorse Armor Inspires Robot Design
Engineering Materials 5/16/2013 5 comments Engineers at the University of California, San Diego are designing a robotic arm that takes inspiration from the loose, flexible, yet very strong structure of the armored plates on a seahorse's tail.
How to Make Light Go Faster
Engineering Materials 5/13/2013 21 comments Researchers at the Missouri University of Science & Technology have designed a new nanoscale material that can transmit light faster than the 186,000 miles per second it usually takes to travel through air.
Green Power Breaks Records in the West
Engineering Materials 5/10/2013 74 comments It has often been said that as California goes, so goes the nation. This spring, the state's wind power is setting energy generation records and solar energy generation is expected to rise sharply during the second half of 2013.
Slideshow: Next-Gen Wave Glider Robot Propelled by Solar
Engineering Materials 5/7/2013 21 comments The latest model of Liquid Robotics' Wave Glider autonomous, unmanned marine vehicle (UMV), the SV3, is reportedly the world's first hybrid wave- and solar-power-propelled unmanned ocean robot.
Corn, Wheat & Rice Trash Make Concrete Stronger
Engineering Materials 4/15/2013 24 comments Kansas State University civil engineers have used the waste products of biofuels to make a stronger cement, a major ingredient of concrete, that also gives concrete a smaller carbon footprint.
Slideshow: Composites Go to the Arctic
Engineering Materials 4/8/2013 19 comments Extreme athletes are skiing across the Arctic on an expedition to the far north of a Norwegian island, depending for survival on their wits and two custom-designed sleds that incorporate carbon composites and ultra-high molecular weight linear polyethylene.
Slideshow: Smallest Dental Labs Get 3D-Printed Models
Engineering Materials 4/5/2013 31 comments A new 3D printer from Stratasys is making digital production of models for crowns, bridges, retainers, and other dental devices affordable for the smallest labs.
Self-Assembled Devices May Transform Manufacturing
Engineering Materials 4/3/2013 33 comments The line between materials and machines will blur when modular, self-reconfigurable robots and self-assembling engineered DNA bricks change the rules of product manufacturing.
National Additive Manufacturing Institute Funds First Projects
Engineering Materials 3/29/2013 8 comments The National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute has funded its first seven projects. They span a range of technologies and focus on fine-tuning existing AM processes for a variety of goals, including tooling, materials development, and composite production.
Results: Your Opinions on a Design Ideas Forum
Engineering Materials 3/25/2013 22 comments Here's a summary of your ideas for starting a Design Ideas forum that poses design problems and asks for input from the community to help solve them in innovative ways. We also ask for a bit more feedback to help fine-tune things.
How to Transmit Light Instead of Electricity on PC Boards
Engineering Materials 3/14/2013 39 comments A new silicone-based material developed by Dow Corning and IBM promises to enable flexible, stable, and easily processable board-level optical waveguides for high-speed data transfer.
NASA Starts Biofuel Flight Tests
Engineering Materials 3/12/2013 20 comments NASA has begun flight tests of biofuels based on nonfood plants to determine their emissions and performance effects on jet engines.
Self-Assembly Meets 3D Printing
Engineering Materials 3/8/2013 15 comments Self-assembly and 3D printing, two technologies at the edges of manufacturing, are on the verge of coming together to make 3D-printed objects that self-assemble when stimulated by water.
Slideshow: Plastics Are Fighting Disease
Engineering Materials 3/7/2013 10 comments Many of the new plastics on display at the recent MD&M West show in Anaheim, Calif. were developed specifically to help fight disease. They are also getting smaller and lighter.
What's Your Opinion on a Design Ideas Forum?
Engineering Materials 3/6/2013 40 comments What do you think about starting a forum on Design News that focuses on innovative, problem-solving design ideas where individual engineers and companies can trade comments and suggestions for solving design problems?
3D Printing & Robots at MD&M West
Engineering Materials 2/26/2013 34 comments There are lots of ways to build a product, from high-speed robotic assembly lines to small, refrigerator-sized 3D printing machines that make actual metal production parts for medical or aerospace uses. Many were on display at MD&M West and co-located shows.
Polyurethane Composite Toughens Up Seawalls
Engineering Materials 2/19/2013 10 comments A pure polyurethane glass fiber composite designed for seawalls is tougher and stronger than standard glass fiber composite materials.
Video: Biggest 3D Manufacturing Machine Builds Jet Fighter Wing Boxes
Engineering Materials 2/12/2013 19 comments What may be the biggest build volume in additive manufacturing, at least for metal parts, is being done by Sciaky Inc. by combining an electron beam welding gun with wirefeed additive layering. It can make parts as large as 19 ft x 4 ft x 4 ft.
Metal/Plastic Car Wheel Boosts MPG
Engineering Materials 2/8/2013 36 comments A wheel made of metal and plastic designed for the 2012 MYFord Focus SE has shown an increase of 1.1 MPG highway in third-party tests, compared to the car's standard production wheel.
Drop Your Phone in the Sink – We Dare You
Engineering Materials 1/29/2013 50 comments What if you could actually drop your smartphone or tablet PC into the sink by accident, or into your plate of spaghetti sauce, and no harm would be done?
Update on 100-Percent Non-Food Jet Biofuel
Engineering Materials 1/28/2013 29 comments The 100-percent non-food biofuel that meets petroleum jet fuel specifications used in the historic Canadian test flight reduced emissions by 50 percent.
Flexible Tablet Prototype Is Electronic Paper
Engineering Materials 1/22/2013 35 comments The PaperTab splits a tablet's windows into separate sheets of user-editable electronic paper that store a lot of data and communicate with one another.
DuPont Recruits 500 Farmers for Non-Food Biofuel Project
Engineering Materials 1/17/2013 42 comments One of the first, and biggest commercial-scale cellulosic biorefineries in the world is targeted for completion next year by DuPont, which will make cellulosic ethanol from corn stalks and leaves.
McDonald's Trucks Log 800,000 Miles on Recycled Cooking Oil
Engineering Materials 1/16/2013 19 comments McDonald's delivery trucks in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have logged more than 800,000 miles on 100-percent, unblended biodiesel made from recycled cooking oil used in the chain's restaurants.
Video: 3D Printing With Moon Rocks
Engineering Materials 12/26/2012 14 comments Washington State University engineers have 3D-printed some simple-shaped objects using a lunar regolith simulant, an artificial version of the mixture of loose dust, rock, and soil that covers solid bedrock.
Injection Molding Goes High Volume
Engineering Materials 12/21/2012 14 comments Injection molding processes and techniques are being adapted to the high-volume production needs of automotive, medical, and aerospace applications.
Stanford Engineers Invent All-Carbon Solar Cell
Engineering Materials 12/6/2012 20 comments In a major first, researchers at Stanford University have built a prototype of an all-carbon solar cell that includes carbon nanotubes in the photoactive layer and in the electrodes.
Just How Toxic Are Carbon Nanotubes?
Engineering Materials 11/29/2012 32 comments Researchers at Texas Tech University have come up with a new method for detecting extremely small CNTs in soils, which will help determine their toxicity.
Wind Power Operating, Maintenance Costs Drop 38 Percent
Engineering Materials 11/28/2012 41 comments The costs of wind power are falling, not only for turbine cost and performance, but also for operating and maintaining onshore wind farms. In just the last four years, operation and maintenance costs have dropped 38 percent.
BASF, TenCate Join Forces on Car Composites
Engineering Materials 11/26/2012 11 comments BASF and TenCate Advanced Composites have joined forces to develop and produce glass and carbon continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastics for high-volume car production.
NASA 3D Prints Rocket Engine Parts
Engineering Materials 11/21/2012 24 comments NASA is using 3D printing to build engine parts for its next-generation heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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