Tech Briefs

Materials & Manufacturing

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

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Briefs: Materials
Inspired by barnacles, the paste provides an effective way to treat traumatic injuries and help control bleeding during surgery.
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Briefs: Energy
The synthetic material is soft but can withstand heavy loading with minimum wear and tear for engineering applications.
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Briefs: Materials
The carbon fiber reinforced material can be repeatedly healed with heat.
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Briefs: Energy
Textiles and items of clothing can be converted into e-textiles without affecting their original properties.
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Briefs: Materials
Fano Resonance Optical Coatings can both transmit and reflect the same color simultaneously.
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Briefs: Imaging
The technology shines through fabrics to show notifications for email messages, time, weather, or other forms of basic information.
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Briefs: Materials
The battery charges faster than a lithium-ion battery and is fire-safe and eco-friendly.
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Briefs: Power
A new design could extend the shelf-life of single-use metal-air batteries for electric vehicles, off-grid storage, and other applications.
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Briefs: Energy
Activated carbon made from corn stover filters 98 percent of a pollutant from water.
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Briefs: Materials
An optimized flash process could reduce carbon emissions.
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Briefs: Motion Control
A new robot developed by Caltech researchers LEO carves out a new type of locomotion somewhere between walking and flying.
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Briefs: Imaging
Researchers from SEAS have found "hidden potential" in metasurfaces.
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Briefs: Materials
These elastomers have a wide range of uses for the building, automotive, and electronics industries.
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The suit can be controlled with a double tap to the chest or via an app.
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Briefs: Medical
The handheld printer deposits sheets of skin to cover large burn wounds.
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Briefs: Data Acquisition
Applications include avionics, data storage, process control, reconfigurable manufacturing lines, and civil and structural engineering.
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Briefs: Medical
The sensor technology could also be used to create clothing that detects a variety of pathogens and other threats.
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The device combines with body power to treat tendon disease and damage, and sports injuries.
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Briefs: Materials
The system creates accurate defect standards for in-situ inspection systems.
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Briefs: Nanotechnology
Diamonds’ atomic flaws are converted into atomic sensors that watch a quantum world of materials under extreme pressure.
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
The hydrogels can morph multiple times in a preprogrammed or on-demand manner in response to external trigger signals.
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Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Biobots based on muscle cells can swim at unprecedented velocities.
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
The flexible, self-healing coating protects buildings, bridges, and anything above or below the water made of steel.
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
An electrically driven soft valve paves the way for fully soft robots.
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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
The fiber contains memory, temperature sensors, and a trained neural network program for inferring physical activity.
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Briefs: Materials
This robot can run, jump, carry heavy payloads, and turn on a dime.
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
SensiCut, a smart material-sensing platform for laser cutters, can differentiate among 30 materials commonly found in makerspaces.
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Briefs: Materials
The device provides the first step toward ultrasensitive biosensors to detect diseases at the molecular level with near-perfect efficiency.
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Briefs: Imaging
The camera combines lasers, computers, and terahertz waves to see “unseen” details.
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