For Promising Hyperloop, the Devil Is in the Details
Cornell University
As demand climbs for more fuel-efficient vehicles, knowledge compiled over several years about diesel engines and a new strategy known as “low-temperature combustion” (LTC) might soon lead auto manufacturers and consumers to broader use of cleaner diesel engines in the United States.
LakeSim, a prototype computational framework combining scientific modeling with city planning tools, will help developers design the large-scale urban projects of the 21st century, including the 600-acre Lakeside Development on Chicago's South Side.
University of Adelaide researchers are developing low-cost technology which can ‘talk’ to structures like bridges and aeroplanes to monitor their structural health and assess them for damage.
To understand how solar cells heal themselves, look no further than the nearest tree leaf or the back of your hand. NC State University researchers have developed a regenerative solar cell that uses branching channels to best mimic natural processes.
A flexible nano-scaffold could help make rechargeable lithium ion batteries last longer. Applications range from improved cell phone batteries to electric cars that can travel farther on a charge.
The splash from rain hitting a windowpane or printer ink hitting paper all comes down to tiny droplets hitting a surface, and what each of those droplets does. Cornell University researchers have produced a high-resolution “photo album” of more than 30 shapes an oscillated drop of water can take. The results, a fundamental insight into how droplets behave, could have applications in everything from inkjet printing to microfluidics.
Advanced x-ray technique reveals surprising quantum excitations that persist through materials with or without superconductivity.
Manufacturers of gas turbine engines are experimenting with higher operating temperatures to improve engine efficiency. Working with the support of GE, Iowa State engineers are developing new tests and technologies to find cooling solutions.
ENERGY – Green battery. PROSTHETICS – Better fit, function. MATERIALS – Best of both worlds.
If the mission sounds impossible, that's because it is—at least with today's technology: Build a three-pound flying machine that can, under its own control, take off, fly through a window into a model building, avoid security lasers, navigate the halls, recognize signs, enter the correct room, find a flash drive in a box on a desk, pick it up, leave a decoy, exit and land in under 10 minutes.
Earthquakes never occur when you need one, so a team led by Johns Hopkins structural engineers is shaking up a building themselves in the name of science and safety. Using massive moving platforms and an array of sensors and cameras, the researchers are trying to find out how well a two-story building made of cold-formed steel can stand up to a lab-generated Southern California quake.
What happens to a resonant wireless power transfer system in complex electromagnetic environments? Researchers explored the influences at play in this type of situation and describe in AIP Advances how efficient wireless power transfer can be achieved in the presence of metal plates.
A team of University of Michigan researchers has been awarded a $2 million federal grant to identify and test naturally diverse groups of green algae that can be grown together to create a high-yield, environmentally sustainable and cost-effective system to produce next-generation biofuels.
The first of a controversial new class of guided-missle destroyers is nearing completion.
Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology have developed a type of glass implant that could one day be used to repair injured bones in the arms, legs and other areas of the body that are most subject to the stresses of weight.
Networks of spherical nanoparticles embedded in elastic materials may make the best stretchy conductors yet, engineering researchers at the University of Michigan have discovered.
Two beachfront communities in New Jersey were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, but one fared much better than the other thanks to a long-forgotten seawall buried beneath the sand, according to Virginia Tech researchers.
It’s a jungle down there at batteries’ atomic level, with ions whacking into electrodes and eventually causing failure. Now, a Michigan Technological University scientist has developed a device that lets researchers spy on the actions of lithium ions inside a nanobattery—and use that data to develop better, longer-lasting batteries to power everything from electric cars to cell phones.
Innovative machine learning technology developed by Columbia Engineering is the driving force—in effect, the brain—behind Di-BOSS™, a new digital building operating system that integrates all building operating systems into one, easy-to-use cockpit control interface for desktops and portable devices. The system has been successfully piloted in NYC by Rudin Management, saving them energy costs and resources.
A team of researchers including members of the University of Chicago’s Institute for Molecular Engineering highlight the power of emerging quantum technologies in two recent papers published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Kamran Mohseni envisions a day when the unmanned vehicles in his laboratory at the University of Florida will swarm over, under and through hurricanes to help predict the strength and path of the storms.
University of Washington researchers have shown it's possible to leverage Wi-Fi signals around us to detect specific movements without needing sensors on the human body or cameras. Using a Wi-Fi router and a few wireless devices in the living room, users could control their electronic devices from any room in the home with a simple gesture.
Columbia Engineering researchers demonstrate that graphene, even if stitched together from many small crystalline grains, is almost as strong as graphene in its perfect crystalline form. This resolves a contradiction between theoretical simulations, which predicted grain boundaries can be strong, and earlier experiments, which indicated they were much weaker than the perfect lattice.
Texas Tech welcomes oil boom with new building and modern research facilities.
Columbia Engineering researchers have used miniaturized electronics to measure the activity of individual ion-channel proteins with temporal resolution as fine as one microsecond, producing the fastest recordings of single ion channels ever performed.
Columbia University researchers have grown high-quality crystals of molybdenum disulfide, the world’s thinnest semiconductor, and studied how these crystals stitch together at the atomic scale to form continuous sheets, gaining key insights into the optical and electronic properties of this new “wonder” material.
A team of students at has designed a new stethoscope for NASA to deliver accurate heart- and body-sounds to medics trying to assess astronauts’ health on long missions in noisy spacecraft.
DNA “linker” strands coax nano-sized rods to line up in way unlike any other spontaneous arrangement of rod-shaped objects. The arrangement—with the rods forming “rungs” on ladder-like ribbons could result in the fabrication of new nanostructured materials with desired properties.
An estimated 300 million people in the world suffer from asthma. That number is expected to grow to more than 400 million by 2025. While diagnosis and treatment in the United States is accessible, people living in the developing world have a much more difficult time. Thanks to a new product being developed by engineering students at Washington University in St. Louis, those millions of people may have new hope.
Iowa State engineers have designed and tested a concept for concrete towers to replace the steel towers used for wind turbines. The concrete towers could be a practical way to raise turbine towers from today's 80 meters to the better winds at 100 meters or higher.
Researchers are helping develop a new generation of photovoltaic cells that produce more power and cost less to manufacture than what’s available today.
With campus safety and security in mind, engineering students at The University of Alabama in Huntsville are working with the campus police department to perfect unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies for use on-campus.
The latest research from a Kansas State University chemical engineer may help improve humidity and pressure sensors, particularly those used in outer space.
University of Utah metallurgists used an old microwave oven to produce a nanocrystal semiconductor rapidly using cheap, abundant and less toxic metals than other semiconductors. They hope it will be used for more efficient photovoltaic solar cells and LED lights, biological sensors and systems to convert waste heat to electricity.
Sperm cell release can be triggered by tightening the grip around the delivery organ, according to a team of nano and microsystems engineers and plant biologists at the University of Montreal and Concordia University.
Harish Krishnaswamy, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Columbia Engineering, has generated a record amount of power output—by a power of five—using silicon-based nanoscale CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology for millimeter-wave power amplifiers. Power amplifiers are used in communications and sensor systems to boost power levels for reliable transmission of signals over long distances as required by the given application. Krishnaswamy’s research will be reported at the June 2013 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium.
A new University of Utah study has identified hundreds of previously unrecognized small aftershocks that happened after Utah’s deadly Crandall Canyon mine collapse in 2007. The aftershocks suggest the collapse was as big – and perhaps bigger – than shown in another study by the university in 2008.
Engineering researchers at the University of Arkansas have developed equipment that will prevent rolling blackouts by regulating or limiting the amount of excess current that moves through the power grid when a surge occurs.
Daniel Attinger of Iowa State University is working to put more fluid dynamics behind the bloodstain pattern analysis used at crime scenes. His research team is developing instruments and methods to produce, study and analyze bloodstains.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers has announced the 2013IShow, featuring technology innovations from ten college design teams.
Researchers at UW-Milwaukee have found a novel way to propagate multiple beams of light in a single strand of optical fiber. The discovery could increase the amount of information fiber optic cables can carry.
A bioengineering research team from the National University of Singapore (NUS) team led by Associate Professor Zhang Yong has developed a novel microfluidic device for efficient, rapid separation and detection of non-spherical bioparticles.
Edison2, the winners of the 2010 Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE, unveiled the their latest Very Light Car (VLC) inside Henry Ford Museum’s Driving America exhibit yesterday afternoon.
A new procedure that thickens and thins fluid at the micron level could save consumers and manufacturers money, particularly for soap products that depend on certain molecules to effectively deal with grease and dirt. Researchers at the University of Washington published their findings online April 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers at Columbia Engineering and Boston University have developed the first method to map evaporation globally using weather stations, which will help scientists evaluate water resource management, assess recent trends of evaporation throughout the globe, and validate surface hydrologic models in various conditions.
Technion researchers have developed and successfully demonstrated a photonic Floquet topological insulator, a new device used to protect the transport of light through a unique, lattice of ‘waveguides.’ This could play a key role in the photonics industry.
Student engineering teams from 28 universities, including San Jose State University and eight other California higher learning institutues will compete in the 2013 ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) Human Powered Vehicle Challenge West to be held Apr. 12-14, in San Jose.