Engineering news

Engineering

Pagoda-inspired floors reduce tower sway while cutting material needs

Imperial and Arup pioneer a new approach to designing tall buildings that uses the building's own weight to reduce movement in high winds and earthquakes. Inspired by traditional Japanese pagodas, it makes towers safer while ...

Engineering

A new way to watch heat move through electronics

The same overheating problem that happens to our laptops also plagues computer servers and data centers around the world—and heat management is only getting harder as computer chips get more compact and powerful.

Engineering

Neutron imaging peers inside iron redox flow batteries

A renewable energy future will rely on cheap and scalable battery technologies. A promising option is an all-iron redox flow battery, which uses iron—an abundant, low-cost, and safe material. Battery performance depends on ...

Engineering

Waste heat becomes cooling energy: Research team develops next-generation heat pump system

A next-generation heat pump system that can provide cooling using low-temperature waste heat of approximately 40°C (104°F) from factories and data centers has been developed. Unlike conventional air conditioning systems, ...

Engineering

A cooling ceramic wall to combat urban heat

In light of rising temperatures and more frequent heat waves, the Institute of Architecture and Media at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) is presenting an energy-efficient solution to urban heat islands: 3D-printed ...

Engineering

New system detects small defects for packaging seals

Every year, billions of products are sealed in film packaging. This packaging must be reliably leakproof, especially in regulated sectors such as in the medical and food industry. In the OCTInline project, researchers at ...

Engineering

Scientists map moon regolith to aid lunar bases

A strong foundation is key to any building, and this doesn't apply only to construction on Earth. As humanity slowly expands throughout the many worlds of our solar system, and possibly beyond, understanding planetary surfaces ...

Robotics

Porous 3D-printed feet cut quadruped robot power use

Quadruped robots, which walk on four legs, are increasingly used for tasks such as inspection, transportation and search-and-rescue operations. However, their repeated leg movements consume far more energy than the rolling ...

Engineering

Study advances solar desalination with multifunctional membrane

As the world's population grows and industry expands, many countries in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia are facing a freshwater scarcity crisis. Finding sustainable ways to produce clean water has become an urgent ...

Engineering

Why making lighter and better batteries takes time

Lithium-ion batteries have revolutionized our lives since they first came onto the market in the early 1990s. They are now used in all sorts of devices, such as cellphones, laptops and electric vehicles.

Engineering

Charging drones mid-flight with lasers

Wireless charging is nothing new for our phones, watches, earbuds and other tech. Now, researchers want to bring wireless power to the skies—recharging drones in flight by beaming a laser under their wings.

Engineering

Efficiently cooling satellite components in space

Space is a vacuum. Heat therefore cannot be transferred to the surroundings by thermal conduction. This poses a problem for any type of space-capable electronics, which can quickly overheat under these conditions. The only ...

Engineering

NASA's X-59 prepares for first supersonic flight

NASA's X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft is preparing for some of its most significant flights yet. The X-plane is about to begin a new block of test flights that will include its first time flying faster than the speed ...

Engineering

Underground acoustic signals reveal hidden tunnels

For decades, engineers have searched for underground tunnels by sending signals from the surface downward—an approach that can miss what lies below. By reversing that approach, researchers at the Department of Energy's (DOE) ...

Engineering

New technology for smarter indirect Time-of-Flight cameras

Researchers from Kyushu University and DENSO IT Laboratory, Inc. have developed a new method to improve the accuracy of indirect Time-of-Flight (I-ToF) cameras. The technology considers the practical limitations of real-world ...