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Briefs: Materials
Self-Healing, Fluid-Inspired Material
Even tiny cracks can cause bridges to collapse, pipelines to rupture, and fuselages to detach from airplanes due to hard-to-detect corrosion in tiny cracks, scratches, and dents. A new coating strategy for metal self-heals within seconds when scratched, scraped, or cracked. The novel material could prevent tiny...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Optical range measurements, already used in manufacturing and other fields, may help overcome practical challenges posed by structural fires, which are too hot to measure with conventional...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Many devices use light to probe the quantum states of atoms in a vapor confined in a small cell. Atoms can be highly sensitive to external conditions, and therefore make superb detectors. Devices...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
A team of researchers at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering and NYU Center for Neural Science has solved a longstanding puzzle of how to build ultra-sensitive, ultra-small, electrochemical...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Researchers have developed an imaging technique that uses a tiny, super sharp needle to nudge a single nanoparticle into different orientations and capture 2-D images to help reconstruct...
Briefs: Materials
It's hard to get an X-ray image of low-density material like tissue between bones because X-rays just pass right through like sunlight through a window. Sandia studies myriads of low-density materials, from...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
To keep up with Moore's Law — an observation made in the 1960s that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles about every two years — researchers are...
Briefs: Materials
Multi-Purpose, Flexible Wing Structure for Small Unmanned Aerial Systems
Small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), also known as micro air vehicles, are promising tools for a variety of military and commercial applications. Some small UAS have flexible wings and are lightweight, making them back-packable and easy to deploy. Most UAS that are currently...
Briefs: Aerospace
Heat shields are essentially used as the brakes to stop spacecraft from burning up and crashing on entry and reentry into a planet's atmosphere. Current spacecraft heat shield methods include huge...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
NASA Langley Research Center has developed a new approach for designing aircraft liner cores for noise reduction. The cores are comprised of multiple honeycomb-shaped chambers, each...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Traditional methods, such as reverse osmosis, that remove contaminants from water are expensive and energy-intensive. Researchers have developed technology to remove contaminants from water, but...
Briefs: Aerospace
NASA's Langley Research Center has developed a method that introduces solids and particulates — specifically aerogels — into composites or...
Briefs: Medical
Titanium is as strong as steel but about twice as light. These properties depend on the way a metal's atoms are stacked, but random defects that arise in the...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Composite Advances Lignin as Renewable 3D Printing Material
Lignin is the material left over from the processing of biomass. It gives plants rigidity and also makes biomass resistant to being broken down into useful products. Researchers combined a melt-stable hardwood lignin with conventional plastic, a low-melting nylon, and carbon fiber to...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
A customizable nanomaterial was developed that combines metallic strength with a foam-like ability to compress and spring back. The material can store and release mechanical energy on the nanoscale, and fits...
Briefs: Power
Most electronics only function within a certain temperature range but blending two organic materials together creates electronics that withstand extreme heat. The new plastic material could reliably conduct...
Briefs: Aerospace
From airplane wings, to overhead power lines, to the giant blades of wind turbines, a buildup of ice can cause problems ranging from impaired performance all the way to catastrophic...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Single-Crystal SiGe/Sapphire Epitaxy
NASA's Langley Research Center has developed a new low-temperature method of SiGe/sapphire growth that produces the same single-crystal films with much less thermal loading effort to the substrate. This eliminates the time-consuming and costly high heating, long thermal soak times, and interfacial Si layer....
Briefs: Materials
Geckos, spiders, and beetles have special adhesive elements on their feet, enabling them to easily run along ceilings or walls. The science of bionics tries to imitate and control such biological...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Existing optics mounts sandwich the optic axially between two metal components, which can lead to optical surface damage and misalignment when exposed to fluctuating temperatures. Thermal-compensating optics...
Briefs: Data Acquisition
Pressure sensors play an important role in engine maintenance and monitoring systems by diagnosing problems before they happen. To capture the most accurate data, however, these sensors must be...
Briefs: Materials
For many researchers, graphene is ideal for use in filtration membranes. A single sheet of graphene resembles atomically thin chicken wire, and is composed of carbon atoms joined in...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Existing nanosensor technologies depend on an external power source (typically a battery) to operate. Chemical and biological sensors based on nanowire or nanotube technologies exhibit...
Briefs: Materials
Film Blocks Electromagnetic Interference
Electromagnetic interference (EMI) can harm smartphones, tablets, chips, drones, wearables, aircraft, and human health. EMI is increasing with the explosive proliferation of devices that generate it. A technique was developed to produce relatively low-cost EMI-blocking composite films.
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Liquid droplets are used in many applications, from printing ink on paper to creating microcapsules for drug delivery. Inkjet printing is the most common technique used to...
Briefs: Materials
When choosing materials to make something, tradeoffs need to be made among properties such as thickness, stiffness, and weight. A new material called nanocardboard was...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
RTM370 imide resin was developed to address the limitations of conventional imide resins, which are generated from commercially available symmetrical biphenyl dianhydride...
Briefs: Medical
Engineers at Duke University have developed a way to extract a sequence of images from light scattered through a mostly opaque material — or even off a wall — from one long...
Briefs: Aerospace
Innovators at NASA's Glenn Research Center have designed a superior seal assembly that is durable and highly dependable in extremely harsh environments. This...
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Webcasts
Upcoming Webinars: Sensors/Data Acquisition
From Spreadsheets to Insights: Fast Data Analysis Without Complex...
Upcoming Webinars: Electronics & Computers
Cooling a New Generation of Aerospace and Defense Embedded...
Upcoming Webinars: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Beyond AI-Copy-Paste Engineering: Advanced AI-Integration Success...
Upcoming Webinars: Power
Battery Abuse Testing: Pushing to Failure
Upcoming Webinars: Connectivity
A FREE Two-Day Event Dedicated to Connected Mobility
Upcoming Webinars: Test & Measurement
Choosing the Right N-Port Strategy: Multiport VNAs vs. Switch...
