Engineering news

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

NASA, GE aerospace advancing hybrid-electric airliners with HyTEC

Hybrid-electric cars have been a staple of the road for many years now.

Engineering

Report: Transmission and renewables would reduce carbon emissions, generation costs in western United States

If all the high-voltage transmission currently under construction and in advanced stages of permitting is built by 2030 in the Western United States—enabling the construction of new renewable energy projects—carbon dioxide ...

Engineering

The Crystal Palace was built so quickly thanks to first use of a standard screw thread, researchers find

New research has answered the mystery of how the Crystal Palace in London, which at the time was the world's largest building, was constructed in only 190 days.

Engineering

Axon-mimicking materials show promise for more efficient computing

A team of researchers from Texas A&M University, Sandia National Lab—Livermore, and Stanford University are taking lessons from the brain to design materials for more efficient computing. The new class of materials discovered ...

Robotics

Teaching robots to use color in moving objects

Research at Michigan State University is focused on teaching robots to use colors to perceive, visualize, and interpret interactions when manipulating objects. A force-interpreting optical system is being developed so robots ...

Robotics

Versatile microscale robots can fold into 3D shapes and crawl

Cornell University researchers have created microscale robots less than 1 millimeter in size that are printed as a 2D hexagonal "metasheet," but with a jolt of electricity, morph into preprogrammed 3D shapes and crawl.

Engineering

Bio-inspired wick enhances electronic chip cooling

A research team led by Prof. Ye Hong from the University of Science and Technology of China has developed an alumina ceramic bionic wick with finger-like pores inspired by the stomatal array of natural leaves. Their research ...

Engineering

Double-helical design boosts concrete crack resistance

Taking inspiration from nature, researchers from Princeton Engineering have improved crack resistance in concrete components by coupling architected designs with additive manufacturing processes and industrial robots that ...

Robotics

Developing underwater robots to venture deep below polar ice

On a remote patch of the windy, frozen Beaufort Sea north of Alaska, engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California huddled together, peering down a narrow hole in a thick layer of sea ice. Below them, ...