Engineering news

Engineering

Scalable aluminum surfaces method enables advancements in cooling, self-cleaning and anti-icing technologies

An international team of engineers has developed an innovative, scalable method for creating topography-patterned aluminum surfaces, enhancing liquid transport properties critical for applications in electronics cooling, ...

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

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

Precise positioning in challenging environments: A new anchor approach to ultra-wideband-assisted navigation

A new study has introduced an advanced method for visual-inertial navigation, utilizing a single Ultra-Wideband (UWB) anchor with an unknown position to achieve exceptional positioning accuracy and robustness in environments ...

Engineering

Stress tests for the Swiss power system

Researchers from ETH Zurich and ZHAW Winterthur are simulating in a new study how the future Swiss power system could be structured to withstand a drastic fall in gas and electricity imports. By doing so, they aim to contribute ...

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

Engineers 3D print sturdy glass bricks for building structures

What if construction materials could be put together and taken apart as easily as LEGO bricks? Such reconfigurable masonry would be disassembled at the end of a building's lifetime and reassembled into a new structure, in ...

Engineering

Production of solar fuels: Storing the sun's heat at 1,200°C

Closing the CO₂ cycle by converting climate-damaging carbon dioxide back into kerosene, gasoline and diesel: That is the idea behind Synhelion. The ETH spin-off uses the heat of the sun to produce synthetic fuels (Synfuels) ...

Robotics

Team develops versatile knee exoskeletons for safer lifting

A set of knee exoskeletons, built with commercially available knee braces and drone motors at the University of Michigan, has been shown to help counteract fatigue in lifting and carrying tasks. They helped users maintain ...

Engineering

Semi-metals offer new possibilities for electronic devices

Dr. Yuxuan Cosmi Lin, assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, and a team of researchers are studying the potential applications and unique physical properties of ...

Engineering

New device simplifies manipulation of 2D materials for twistronics

A discovery six years ago took the condensed-matter physics world by storm: Ultra-thin carbon stacked in two slightly askew layers became a superconductor, and changing the twist angle between layers could toggle their electrical ...

Engineering

Team develops tougher concrete, inspired by bone

Inspired by the architecture of human bone's tough outer layer, engineers at Princeton have developed a cement-based material that is 5.6 times more damage-resistant than standard counterparts. The bio-inspired design allows ...