Fasteners—usually the less glamorous part of a mechanical design—have been grabbing headlines lately. First it was a lack of fasteners that created (or was at least blamed for) the first delay announcement for the Boeing Dreamliner. Now two metallurgists have put out a book that really dredges up the past. In “What Really Sank the Titanic” , coauthors Jennifer Hooper McCarty and Tim Foecke say that substandard rivets were responsible for the rapid descent of the supposedly unsinkable vessel. Metallurgical testing of 48 rivets recovered from the Titanic showed that slag concentrations were at 9 percent, six or seven percent higher than they should have been. Slag is a brittle byproduct of the iron making process. Design engineers put the weaker rivets in areas expected to see less stress, such as the bow. Unfortunately, that is right where the Titanic scraped an iceberg. McCarty and Foecke postulate that fewer compartments would have burst if better rivets had been used. It’s possible, they say, that the Titanic could even have limped into Halifax. They also suggest that the bad rivets may have resulted from a rush to get the boat built at a time when rivets were in tight supply.
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.
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.
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.
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.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 3
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 ...
A quick look into the merger of two powerhouse 3D printing OEMs and the new leader in rapid prototyping solutions, Stratasys. The industrial revolution is now led by 3D printing and engineers are given the opportunity to fully maximize their design capabilities, reduce their time-to-market and functionally test prototypes cheaper, faster and easier. Bruce Bradshaw, Director of Marketing in North America, will explore the large product offering and variety of materials that will help CAD designers articulate their product design with actual, physical prototypes. This broadcast will dive deep into technical information including application specific stories from real world customers and their experiences with 3D printing. 3D Printing is
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