Engineering news

Engineering

Nothing new under the sun: Australia's long history of missed chances to build sustainable homes

Australians are no strangers to housing crises. Some will even remember the crisis that followed the Second World War. As well as producing the popular mid-century modern style of architecture, these post-war decades were ...

Engineering

Zigzags for greener construction: Design avoids concrete and steel waste

Concrete is the most widely used construction material in the world. Made from cement, water, sand and gravel, this relatively cheap mixture can be shaped as needed and withstand high forces in compression. Yet it performs ...

Engineering

Nature-inspired design uses elastic pillars to eject freezing droplets, preventing ice buildup

Water droplets under freezing conditions do not spontaneously detach from surfaces as they do at room temperature due to stronger droplet-surface interaction and lack of an energy transformation pathway. Since accumulated ...

Engineering

Self-adjusting shading system mimics pine cones for energy-autonomous weather response

Using pine cones as a model, researchers at the universities of Stuttgart and Freiburg have developed a new, energy-autonomous facade system that adapts passively to the weather. The journal Nature Communications has published ...

Engineering

Engineers 3D print tiny, intricate antennas

Today, nearly all personal electronic devices rely on antennas to send and receive data. In fact, demand is also rising for lightweight antennas for new applications, including the latest in 5G/6G networks, advanced wearable ...

Engineering

The new age of infrastructure maintenance using data from space

The concentration of the population in cities is accelerating, and difficulties in maintaining various infrastructures are arising due to extreme weather. Extensive infrastructures like waste landfill facilities face significant ...

Engineering

3D-printed fungal fuel cell offers biodegradable power solution

A battery that needs feeding instead of charging? This is exactly what Empa researchers have achieved with their 3D-printed, biodegradable fungal battery. The living battery could supply power to sensors for agriculture or ...

Engineering

A simpler, more efficient device for harvesting water from the air

A new type of prototype water harvester promises to be simpler and more efficient than traditional variations of the device at pulling drinking water from the air, a new study suggests. Built using temperature-sensitive materials, ...

Engineering

Engineers create bendable, self-heating and healing concrete

Concrete is the second largest consumed material in the U.S., and its production is responsible for 8% to 10% of carbon dioxide emissions. Civil engineers at Michigan State University have developed flexible concrete that ...

Engineering

Engineers develop new method for ultra-clean biofuel combustion

In new research published in the journal Fuel, Baylor University researchers with the Cornerstone Atomization and Combustion Lab (CAC) have unveiled a pioneering method for the efficient combustion of biofuels, using a revolutionary ...