Engineering news

Engineering

Safer all-solid-state sodium battery could cut grid storage costs and reduce lithium dependence

Lithium-ion batteries dominate the market for large-scale energy storage today. However, the element's uneven global distribution and rising costs are driving the search for alternatives. Sodium is roughly a thousand times ...

Engineering

Transparent oxide glass tops 130 GPa using conventional melt-quenching

Glass is a versatile material used in a wide range of applications, from light bulb casings to optical fibers. Recently, high-strength glass has become an important focus of materials research, as new technologies demand ...

Robotics

Robotic collective flows like matter, adapting without centralized control

Cornell engineers have developed a robotic collective that behaves less like a machine and more like a material that flows, reshapes, and adapts to its environment without centralized control. The system, called the Cross-Link ...

Engineering

These brick walls are built to come apart, move, and rise again after demolition

The construction sector still has some way to go in terms of reducing the consumption of resources and greenhouse gas emissions. One of these relates to the construction waste produced during the demolition of buildings. ...

Engineering

Custom device maps carbon capture reactions in real time

Removing carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from the air, a process called direct air capture (or DAC), is one of several approaches being developed to help reduce the concentration of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Among ...

Engineering

Building the future with robotic construction

On April 24, the Architectural Robotic Construction Lab ( ARC Lab) in The University of Texas at Arlington's College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs demonstrated its new large-scale 3D printing technology.

Engineering

Basalt could be the key to greener and cheaper cement

Ideas to reduce carbon emissions often revolve around renewable power, electric vehicles and energy efficiency. But there's another, less colorful character that's often overlooked: cement.

Engineering

New window insulation blocks heat, but not your view

Physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder have designed a new material for insulating windows that could improve the energy efficiency of buildings worldwide—and it works a bit like a high-tech version of Bubble Wrap.

Engineering

Why new kinds of steel are needed to build lead-cooled reactors

Safer operation, better fuel efficiency and lower waste mark lead-cooled nuclear power as a potentially dramatic shift from the water-cooled nuclear stations the world has relied on since the mid 20th century. A recent Swedish ...

Software

Seamless tech: 'OriStitch' threads computation and 3D textiles

Could a flat piece of fabric hold a 3D shape, the way paper does in origami? Aiming to find out, researchers from the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science developed OriStitch, a new software ...

Engineering

Glazed facades can heat up outdoor environments

While much is known about the impact of glazed facades on indoor thermal temperatures and energy efficiency, University of Adelaide researchers are exploring its effect on outdoor conditions.