Materials & Manufacturing

Manufacturing & Prototyping

Access our comprehensive library of technical briefs on manufacturing and prototyping, from engineering experts at NASA and government, university, and commercial laboratories.

Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Additive Manufacturing Model-Based Process Metrics
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Latest Briefs & News

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Briefs: Software
Innovators at NASA’s Johnson Space Center have designed a circumferential scissor spring mechanism, that when incorporated into a hand controller, improves the restorative force to a control stick’s neutral position. The design also provides for operation on a more linear portion of the spring’s force deflection curve, yielding better feedback to the user.
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Briefs: Materials
Using kirigami, the ancient Japanese art of folding and cutting paper, MIT researchers have now manufactured a type of high-performance architected material known as a plate lattice, on a much larger scale than scientists have previously been able to achieve by additive fabrication.
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Briefs: Manned Systems
Recent experiments by a team from the West Virginia University focused on how a weightless microgravity environment affects 3D printing using titania foam, a material with potential applications ranging from UV blocking to water purification. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces published their findings.
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A new method for metal 3D printing aims to make more efficient use of resources by allowing structural modifications to be “programmed” into metal alloys during 3D printing, fine-tuning their properties without the “heating and beating” process that’s been in use for thousands of years.
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Harvard researchers have realized a key milestone in the quest for stable, scalable quantum computing, an ultra-high-speed technology that will enable game-changing advances in a variety of fields, including medicine, science, and finance.
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Briefs: Materials
NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed a simplified, tool-less automated tow/tape placement (ATP) system. This invention enables several benefits that mitigate limitations associated with conventional ATP systems. Read on to learn more.
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Briefs: Nanotechnology
Developed by a team led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a self-assembling nanosheet could significantly extend the shelf life of consumer products. And because the new material is recyclable, it could also enable a sustainable manufacturing approach that keeps single-use packaging and electronics out of landfills.
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Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
Researchers have unveiled a remarkable new material with potential to impact the world of material science: amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC). Beyond its exceptional strength, this material demonstrates mechanical properties crucial for vibration isolation on a microchip. It is therefore particularly suitable for making ultra-sensitive microchip sensors.
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
The NIST camera is made up of grids of ultrathin electrical wires, cooled to near absolute zero, in which current moves with no resistance until a wire is struck by a photon. In these superconducting-nanowire cameras, the energy imparted by even a single photon can be detected because it shuts down the superconductivity at a particular location (pixel) on the grid. Combining all the locations and intensities of all the photons makes up an image.
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Briefs: Medical
Using 3D Bioprinting to Create Eye Tissue
The research team from the National Eye Institute printed a combination of cells that form the outer blood-retina barrier — eye tissue that supports the retina’s light-sensing photoreceptors. The technique provides a theoretically unlimited supply of patient-derived tissue to study degenerative retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration.
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A stretchable system that can harvest energy from human breathing and motion for use in wearable health-monitoring devices may be possible, according to an international team of researchers.
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Briefs: Medical
The ventilators are simpler and cheaper to make than those currently available.
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Briefs: Materials
A Molecular-Sized, More Efficient Electronic Sensor
Australian researchers have developed a molecular-sized, more efficient version of a widely used electronic sensor, in a breakthrough that could bring widespread benefits.
Briefs: Nanotechnology
Macquarie University engineers have developed a new technique to make the manufacturing of nanosensors far less carbon-intensive, much cheaper, more efficient, and more versatile — substantially improving a key process in this trillion-dollar global industry.
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Briefs: Materials
Using a new type of dual-polymer material capable of responding dynamically to its environment, researchers have developed a set of modular hydrogel components that could be useful in a variety of soft robotic and biomedical applications.
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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
A team at ETH Zurich has developed an ultrasonically actuated glass needle that can be attached to a robotic arm. This lets them pump and mix minuscule amounts of liquid and trap particles.
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Briefs: Energy
To improve battery performance and production, Penn State researchers and collaborators have developed a new fabrication approach that could make for more efficient batteries that maintain energy and power levels.
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A team developed a framework for designing solid-state batteries (SSBs) with mechanics in mind. Their paper, published in Science, reviewed how these factors change SSBs during their cycling.
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Cornell researchers have combined soft microactuators with high-energy-density chemical fuel to create an insect-scale quadrupedal robot that is powered by combustion and can outrace, outlift, outflex, and outleap its electric-driven competitors.
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Briefs: Materials
Dr. Song Kahye along with Professor Lee, Dae-Young have jointly developed a soft gripper with a woven structure that can grip objects weighing more than 100 kg with 130 g of material. To increase the loading capacity of the soft robot gripper, the team applied a new structure inspired by textiles.
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Centimeter-scale walking and crawling robots are in demand both for their ability to explore tight or cluttered environments and for their low fabrication costs. Pulling from origami-inspired construction, researchers have crafted a more simplified approach to the design and fabrication of these robots.
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Briefs: Aerospace
A research team at the Illinois Institute of Technology has for the first time demonstrated the use of a novel control method in a tailless aircraft. The technology allows an aircraft to be as smooth and sleek as possible — making it safer to fly in dangerous areas where radar scans the sky for sharp edges.
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Briefs: Power
A team of MIT engineers is creating a one-megawatt motor that could be a key stepping-stone toward electrifying larger aircraft. The team has designed and tested the major components of the motor.
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Devices of all types are becoming more intelligent and may include native Ethernet. However, there are many opportunities where proven serial communications will remain the best choice for cost-effective communications.
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Briefs: Materials
Engineers have made progress toward lithium-metal batteries that charge as fast as an hour. This fast charging is thanks to lithium metal crystals that can be seeded and grown — quickly and uniformly — on a surprising surface.
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Briefs: Materials
Researchers have developed a viable dust, water, and ice mitigation optical coating for space flight, aeronautical, and ground applications. The innovation of the LOTUS coating prevents contamination on sensitive surfaces.
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Integrating sensors into rotational mechanisms could make it possible for engineers to build smart hinges that know when a door has been opened, or gears inside a motor that tell a mechanic how fast they are rotating. Engineers have now developed a way to easily integrate sensors into these types of mechanisms.
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Cage structures made with nanoparticles could be a step toward making organized nanostructures with mixed materials, and researchers at the University of Michigan have shown how to achieve this through computer simulations.
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Engineers at CU Boulder have designed a robot called CLARI, which stands for Compliant Legged Articulated Robotic Insect, that has the potential to aid first responders after major disasters in an entirely new way.
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