Engineering news
Engineering
Cleaning up toxic solar panels to bring them indoors
Safer and more environmentally friendly indoor solar panels could soon help power electronics in homes and offices, thanks to University of Queensland researchers. A team of chemical engineers led by UQ's Dr. Miaoqiang Lyu ...
13 hours ago
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Engineering
Perovskite solar cells skip yellow phase, degrade more slowly with key additives
Halide perovskites are gaining ground on silicon as a critical material for solar cell technologies: A new study published in the journal Science reports a method to make perovskite-based photovoltaics more durable, allowing ...
14 hours ago
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Creating the ultimate driver's test for automated vehicles
Automated vehicles have been steadily rolling out in U.S. cities, but scaled deployment still faces a daunting challenge: proving the technology can safely navigate the complexity of real-world driving. Virginia Tech researchers ...
19 hours ago
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Continuous lamination unlocks stable production of large-area flexible circuit boards
A new manufacturing technology has been developed for the continuous production of large-area flexible printed circuit boards (FPCBs). As demand grows for lightweight and long flexible cables capable of replacing conventional ...
17 hours ago
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Tool can help hunger-relief groups deliver food more efficiently
Engineering researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a mathematical framework that can be used to help hunger-relief organizations get food to households that need it more efficiently than conventional ...
18 hours ago
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Engineering
Ultralight carbon fiber lattices achieve aluminum-level performance at a fraction of the weight
Researchers at Seoul National University have developed a new class of ultralight structural materials that combine the load-bearing strength of engineering materials with the weight of foam. Using a method called 3D node ...
Apr 29, 2026
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Engineering
A virtual violin produces realistic sounds before wood is ever carved
There is no question that violin-making is an art form. It requires a musician's ear, a craftsperson's skill, and a historian's appreciation of lessons learned over time. Making a violin also takes trust: Violin makers (luthiers) ...
Apr 29, 2026
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Engineering
What are the reasons for traffic jams? Whether traffic flows or not depends on more than just the roads
If a city's suburban railway network is expanded, additional flats are likely to be built in an agglomeration that is better connected as a result. The opposite also holds true: If new buildings spring up like mushrooms in ...
Apr 29, 2026
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Engineering
Programmable 3D-printed filaments mimic artificial muscles with heat-driven bending and twisting
Nature is replete with slender filaments that bend and coil—from climbing grape vines, to folded proteins, to elephant trunks that can pick up a peanut but also take down a tree.
Apr 29, 2026
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Engineering
Stainless steel brake disks significantly reduce fine particulate emissions and offer exceptional durability
Until now, fine particulate matter generated by tire and brake wear has not been addressed in European emissions legislation. Only with the introduction of the Euro 7 standard—taking effect at the end of 2026 for newly developed ...
Apr 29, 2026
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Engineering
A precise measurement method for better diamond coatings
Diamond coatings are considered a key technology for numerous industrial applications—from power electronics to optics to sensors. To enable these high-performance coatings to fully realize their potential, uniformity is ...
Apr 29, 2026
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Robotics
FingerEye bridges touch and vision to improve robot handling before and after contact
To reliably complete various manual tasks, robots should be able to handle a variety of objects, ranging from items found in households to tools used in specific professional settings. While many existing robotic systems ...
Engineering
A solar cell moonlights as an LED, both absorbing and emitting light more efficiently
Imagine a display that harvests ambient light when it is not actively in use, offsetting some of its own energy consumption. Materials physics shows that this is possible; the same semiconductor material can, in principle, ...
Apr 28, 2026
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Consumer & Gadgets
Meta-earplugs reduce booming voice effect, low-frequency rumbling sounds
Workplace hearing loss is one of the most common work-related illnesses. While hearing loss is preventable with earplugs, they can be uncomfortable, and users often remove them despite the risks. Low-frequency sounds, such ...
Apr 28, 2026
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Engineering
Cell phone-based maps could reshape city planning, from bus schedules to traffic hotspots
Understanding how people use the spaces they inhabit—where they live, work, and gather—is key to effective urban planning that meets their needs. For example, knowing which routes are most commonly used to travel from residential ...
Apr 28, 2026
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Engineering
Why some hot-running parts last longer: Rotating expansion strengthens superalloy holes where cracks start
A longstanding challenge in materials engineering has been how to extend the fatigue life of critical nickel-based superalloy structures (e.g., Inconel 718) that contain holes. These hole structures, commonly used for bolts ...
Apr 28, 2026
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Robotics
Bananas, cups and peelers: Robots learn how to handle curved objects like fruits and tools
It does not take much to confuse some robots. A machine might be great at handling a simple object like a box, yet when it tries to work with a more irregular shape like a banana, it often fails.
Engineering
Motion-enhanced sensor captures ultra-high-resolution images, overcoming a pixel miniaturization bottleneck
Digital image sensors (DIS), devices that capture images by converting light patterns into electrical signals, are integrated in many contemporary electronic devices, including smartphones, digital cameras and some medical ...
Engineering
A faster, greener method to recycle lithium-ion batteries can also ease supply chain issues
As global demand for lithium-ion batteries continues to surge, a team of Rice University researchers has developed a faster, more energy-efficient way to recover critical minerals from spent batteries, potentially easing ...
Apr 27, 2026
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Robotics
How fish muscles became blueprints for smarter underwater robots
Researchers at the Intelligent Biomimetic Design Lab at Peking University have developed a bio-signal framework showing that fish muscles do far more than generate swimming motion. In a series of studies led by Xie Guangming, ...
Apr 27, 2026
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Engineering
Low-cost 3D printers could gain medical-grade precision from ultra-thin light-control film
Researchers have developed an ultra-thin optical film that improves the quality of the light used in LCD resin-based 3D printers. The advance helps ensure that tiny details are reproduced with precision, which could make ...
Apr 27, 2026
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Engineering
Study uncovers why pedestrian deaths continue to rise in the US
Vision Zero begins with a simple but powerful premise: No loss of life on the transportation system is acceptable. Despite the ambitious nature of this goal, the United States has made little meaningful progress toward its ...
Apr 27, 2026
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Engineering
Drones and AI help cities combat traffic congestion
Traffic jams are a problem in large urban areas. How can they be solved without expanding the road network? This is a challenge that researchers are attempting to address.
Apr 27, 2026
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Engineering
Bubble trouble: Hydrogen research highlights outsized impacts of tiny bubbles in water electrolysis
Hydrogen is often described as the fuel of the future—a clean, energy-dense way to store renewable power and decarbonize industries from steelmaking to shipping. But inside the devices that produce it, a surprisingly small ...
Apr 24, 2026
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Engineering
Why solid-state batteries short-circuit: New evidence points to stress-driven lithium cracking
Smartphones, electric vehicles and many portable devices rely on batteries. Their energy storage capacity, lifetime and safety will strongly shape the future of electrification. Among the most promising next-generation technologies ...
Apr 23, 2026
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