The Germans once again proved their mettle in engineering by winning the Solar Decathlon that occurred on the National Mall in Washington Oct. 12-20. My colleague Sean Snyder pointed to the winners in an Oct. 19 blog post, but I wanted to elaborate a bit given I actually went to the Solar Decathlon.
The University of Darmstadt, the MIT of Germany, outscored 19 other colleges and universities. The University of Maryland ‘s “Leaf House” placed and a rookie team from Santa Clara University showed. SCU was picked 21st out of 20 that could compete, but lucked into the contest because another school dropped out. MIT, America’s University of Darmstadt, finished 13th. Matt Traum, who as a doctoral student participated on the MIT Solar 7 team, offers his explaination why he thinks America’s most prestigious engineering school did so lousy at his I Have the Power! blog.
The teams each built and designed a solar home and were scored on such criteria as lighting, hot water, comfort zone and architecture. For the most part, the entries looked boxy and ultra-modern. I happened to be in Washington visiting my son in college and visited many of the homes. It’s our youth who give us hope!! Nice job, decathletes!!
Almost every automaker has had to 'pick a side' when it comes to alternative fuel options and ways to divest from a reliance on gasoline. Fiat is looking to back compressed natural gas or liquid propane as an interim solution.
Plastic may not be the most beloved of materials to the more environmentally minded, but Plasti 2012 aimed to mold a different opinion of the material in people's minds.
The rare earth element market has become steadily more rational, and new sources coming online will continue to reduce costs. Still, it is unlikely that prices will drop to their former lows.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
8 
