Magazine

Low Creep, Low Relaxation Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composites

Inflatable and deployable beams and masts are often made of polymer composites and may be stored for one to two years in space before deployment.

Engineers Develop New Shape-Memory Material

The discovery of a new category of shape-memory materials could open a new range of applications, especially for high-temperature settings.

New Method to Determine How 2D Materials Expand

2D materials can be packed together more densely than conventional materials, so they could be used to make devices that run faster and perform better.

New Coatings Reduce Impact Ice Adhesion Strength

Researchers at NASA Langley are developing polymer coatings that reduce impact ice adhesion strength.

New Heat Treatment Allows 3D-Printed Metals to Withstand Extreme Heat

An MIT-developed heat treatment aims to transform the microscopic structure of 3D-printed metals, making the materials stronger and more resilient in extreme thermal environments.

AERoBOND: Large-Scale Composite Manufacturing

Industrial composite manufacturing is primarily accomplished through three methods: co-cure, co-bond, and secondary bond processes.

Detecting Counterfeit Parts with Additive Manufacturing

Researchers have developed a method of imprinting a hidden magnetic tag, encoded with authentication information, within manufactured hardware during the part fabrication process.

3D-Printed Sensors May Lead to Better Weather Research

Scientists have created the first completely digitally manufactured plasma sensors — also known as retarding potential analyzers (RPAs) — for orbiting spacecraft.

Sixth Mirror Casting Brings Giant Magellan Telescope Closer to Completion

Nearly 20 tons of extremely pure borosilicate glass made by Ohara Corporation in Japan are becoming a honeycomb mirror measuring 27.6 feet across.

New “Metalens” Shifts Focus Without Tilting or Moving

The design may enable miniature zoom lenses for drones, cellphones, or night-vision goggles.

Nanoimaging of Perovskite Solar Cell Materials

Scientists have developed a new characterization tool that allowed them to gain unique insight into a possible alternative material for solar cells.

Flexible Sensor for Robotic Sensing and Health Monitoring

Real-time health monitoring and sensing abilities of robots require soft electronics but a challenge of using such materials lies in their reliability.

Standalone Sweat Sensor Provides Immediate Results

Engineers have developed a thin, flexible, stretchy sweat sensor that can show the level of glucose, lactate, sodium, or pH of your sweat — at the press of a finger.

Stretchable Pressure Sensor Could Lead to Better Robotics, Prosthetics

The sensor can be stretched up to 50 percent with almost the same sensing performance.

Nanoelectronic Sensor to Simultaneously Measure Electrical, Mechanical Activity in Heart Cells

Using a suspended nanowire, a research team has created a tiny sensor that can simultaneously measure electrical and mechanical cellular responses in cardiac tissue — a first.

Building Earthquake Resiliency with Supercomputers

The research team has been developing very large, detailed models — like their simulations of the San Francisco Bay Area for M7 Hayward fault earthquakes — which has 391 billion model grid points.

Sustainable Hydrogen Through Solar Power

A new kind of solar panel has achieved 9 percent efficiency in converting water into hydrogen and oxygen — mimicking a crucial step in natural photosynthesis.

Scrubbing Carbon Dioxide from Power Plant Smokestacks

Aluminum formate (ALF) has a talent for separating carbon dioxide from the other gases that commonly fly out of the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants.

New on the Market

See what's new on the market in February 2023, including connectors for energy storage systems, power supplies, and more.

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow.

Product of the Month

A new simulation software that helps engineering teams understand the behavior of systems that are becoming increasingly complex.

Predicting the Failure of Crystalline Metallic Materials

Researchers have developed a theory that predicts the limits to which metals can be subjected to cyclic stress before failing.

Can Your Phone Tell if a Bridge Is in Good Shape?

A new study suggests mobile data collected while traveling over bridges could help evaluate their integrity.

Inflatable Space Habitats Use Sensors Embedded in Webbing for Structural Health Monitoring

A novel approach is moving away from conventional structural health monitoring testing methods for inflatable space habitats in favor of using sensors embedded in the flexible structural restraint webbing layers.

A New Standard in Imagery

After 50 years of NASA’s Landsat, discovery of new commercial and scientific uses is only accelerating.

5 Ws of a Self-Healing Robot

A team of researchers at Cornell Engineering has developed a soft robot that can detect when and where it was damaged — and then heal itself on the spot.

Using Laser Transceivers for LEO Satellite Links

Organizations in both the public and private sectors are currently racing to launch large numbers of satellites into low-Earth orbit (LEO).

Achieving 100 Gb/s Using O-band Technology

To ensure networks are prepared for the next wave of transmission, operators need to build wave multiplexing systems that will allow connections to migrate to 100 Gb/s.

How a UV-Visible-NIR Range Microscope-Spectrometer Works

Discussing the basic design concepts of a UV-visible-NIR range microscope-spectrometer in several different configurations.