Materials & Manufacturing

Materials & Coatings

Access the technical resources for a range of materials and coatings. Design engineers can browse news, technical briefs, and applications for plastics, composites, rubbers, elastomers, and metals.

Stories

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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
At the scale of bridges or buildings, the most important force that engineered structures need to deal with is gravity. But at the scale of microelectro-mechanical systems (MEMS) — devices like the...
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Articles: Nanotechnology
Semi-Liquid Metal Anode for Next-Generation Batteries Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have developed a semi-liquid lithium metal-based anode. Lithium batteries made using this new electrode type could have a...
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Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Your new industrial electronic product has been designed and the board components specified. It has been prototyped, either on a development board to check functionality...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Different instruments are needed to study the interaction of contact surfaces at different length scales. Tribometers measure the coefficient of friction but they cannot...
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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses magnetic fields and radio waves to create images of organs and tissues in the human body, helping doctors diagnose potential problems or diseases. Doctors use MRI to...
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Blog: Electronics & Computers
Tufts University engineers are making transistors from a material you’re more likely to see in a fabric store than in the field of electronics.
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Blog: Test & Measurement
"Actually it was not something we really planned!" Dr. Andrew Salmon told Tech Briefs.
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Blog: Transportation
How much does windshield glazing matter when cars drive themselves?
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Question of the Week: Electronics & Computers
Will Comfort-Adjusting Clothing Catch On?
Researchers from the University of Maryland have created a fabric that automatically regulates the amount of heat passing through. The engineered yarn expands and collapses based on temperature and humidity, cooling and warming a wearer as needed. What do you think?
Blog: Materials
Scientists from Caltech and Northwestern University have found a way to generate electricity by combining saltwater with one of life's more undesirable compounds: rust.
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Briefs: Energy
Methanol is a key feedstock for the production of chemicals, some of which are used to make products such as plastics, plywood, and paints. Methanol also can fuel vehicles or be reformed to produce...
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Facility Focus: Energy
The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory — with sites in Anchorage, AK; Albany, OR; Morgantown, WV; and Pittsburgh, PA —...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Today's lithium-ion batteries use cathodes (one of the two electrodes in a battery) made of a transition metal oxide. Batteries with cathodes made of sulfur are considered a...
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Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Polymers are regularly used as thermal insulators and can even be used as thermal conductors to enable efficient heating or cooling. A new type of polymer was created that demonstrates a...
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Briefs: Transportation
Lithium-air batteries are poised to become the next replacement for currently used lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles, cell-phones, and computers. Lithium-air...
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Briefs: RF & Microwave Electronics
Researchers have created a fabric that automatically regulates the amount of heat that passes through, depending on conditions; for example, when conditions are warm and moist — such as those of a...
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Products: Electronics & Computers
Circular Connectors Binder USA, Camarillo, CA, introduced the 720 Series of miniature circular connectors with a snap-in IP67 twin distributor. The distributor — a single male connector into two female...
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Briefs: Aerospace
NASA's Langley Research Center offers a novel lifting and precision positioning device with hybrid functional characteristics of both crane-type lifting devices and robotic manipulators. The design of the Lunar...
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Innovators at NASA's Glenn Research Center have developed a new method for making small-diameter, high-grade ball bearings that are less than 0.25” in diameter thanks to the development of a new alloy made...
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Briefs: Imaging
Automated Object Detection in an Image
Recent developments in machine vision have demonstrated remarkable improvements in the ability of computers to properly identify objects in a viewing field. Most of these advances rely on color-texture analyses that require target objects to possess one or more highly distinctive, local features that can be...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A new method uses ultraviolet light to control the flow of fluids by encouraging particles — from plastic microbeads, to bacterial spores, to pollutants — to gather...
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Application Briefs: Aerospace
Roscid TechnologiesWoburn, MAhttps://www.roscidtechnologies.com Roscid Technologies has agreed to licensing terms with NASA to commercialize a NASA-designed humidity sensor. Roscid has been...
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Briefs: Nanotechnology
Fire-Retardant Coating Uses Renewable, Nontoxic Materials
Researchers developed a new kind of flame-retardant coating using renewable, nontoxic materials readily found in nature. The coating could provide more effective fire protection for several widely used materials. The coatings offer the opportunity to reduce the flammability of polyurethane...
Briefs: Materials
High-Temperature Dielectric Nanocomposite
A nanocomposite was developed that could be a superior high-temperature dielectric material for flexible electronics, energy storage, and electric devices. The nanocomposite combines one-dimensional polymer nanofibers and two-dimensional boron nitride nano-sheets. The nanofibers reinforce the...
Briefs: Materials
The color of a material can often tell how it handles heat. With clothing, for example, the darker the pigment, the warmer you're likely to feel on a hot day. Likewise, the more...
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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Bioengineers have cleared a major hurdle on the path to 3D-printing replacement organs with a new technique for bioprinting tissues. It allows scientists to create entangled vascular networks that...
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Briefs: Energy
Organic semiconductors (OSCs) have emerged as a new class of electronic materials promising a wide range of applications including organic field-effect transistors (OFET),...
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Briefs: Imaging
When light gets scattered as it passes through a translucent material, the emerging pattern of “speckle” looks as random as static on a television screen with no signal. But it...
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Smart objects are required to store and retrieve massive amounts of data quickly without consuming too much power. Millions of new memory cells could be part of a computer chip and provide that...
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