Materials & Manufacturing

New on the Market

See what's new on the market, including SBG Systems' expansion of its high-performance inertial navigation systems, Ekinox, Apogee, and Navsight, with new GNSS receiver options; Littelfuse's 823A Series fuse, an AEC-Q200-qualified, high-voltage-rated surface-mount fuse; Würth Elektronik's Thyone-e radio module; the new handheld scanner from FARO Technologies; and more.

Scientists Propose Laser Scalpel with a ‘Curved’ Blade

Changing the shape of the blade will expand the possibilities of using the laser in medicine.

Material Could Unlock New Functionality in Semiconductors

Researchers have designed and synthesized a unique material with controllable capabilities that make it promising for future electronics including cellphones and computers. Read on to learn more.

Better Microelectronics from Coal

A joint research effort led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has shown how coal can play a vital role in next-generation electronic devices. Read on to learn more about it.

Revolutionizing High-Performance Computer Memory Storage

Magnets generate invisible fields that attract certain materials. Far more important to our everyday lives, magnets also can store data in computers. Exploiting the direction of the magnetic field, microscopic bar magnets each can store one bit of memory as a zero or a one — the language of computers.

NIST Tackles Wireless Industrial Systems

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is working to provide best practice guidelines to help manufacturers use wireless systems. Read on to learn more about it.

Researchers Pioneer Nanosensor for Real-Time Iron Detection in Plants

Researchers have developed a groundbreaking near-infrared fluorescent nanosensor capable of simultaneously detecting and differentiating between iron forms — Fe(II) and Fe(III) — in living plants. Read on to learn more about it.

New Smart Sensor Takes the Pain Out of Wound Monitoring

A major challenge in self-powered wearable sensors for health care monitoring is distinguishing different signals when they occur at the same time. Researchers addressed this issue by uncovering a new property of a sensor material, enabling the team to develop a new type of flexible sensor that can accurately measure both temperature and physical strain simultaneously but separately to more precisely pinpoint various signals. Read on to learn more.

Is It a Material? Is It a Robot? It's Both!

Engineers have created a type of material that can expand, assume new shapes, move, and follow electromagnetic commands like a remotely controlled robot even though it lacks any motor or internal gears.

My Opinion: Sometimes, When Competitors Collaborate, Everybody Wins

How can competitors both win when working together? Read on to find out SAE Media Group's Ed Brown's opinion on the matter.

Hopping Robots to Traverse Challenging Terrain

The hopping robot, which is smaller than a human thumb and weighs less than a paperclip, has a springy leg that propels it off the ground and four flapping-wing modules that give it lift and control its orientation.

How Much Do You Know About Electrical Equipment in Hazardous Locations?

This is critically important knowledge for all engineers and designers. How much do you know about electrical equipment in hazardous locations? Test your knowledge with this quiz.

Electronics-Free Robots Straight from the 3D Printer

Imagine a robot that can walk, without electronics, and only with the addition of a cartridge of compressed gas, right off the 3D-printer. It can also be printed in one go, from one material. That is exactly what roboticists have achieved in robots developed at the University of California San Diego.

Self-Growing 3D Objects

Professor Sameh Tawfick and his team at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana have developed a 3D process that grows polymer objects in a controlled manner to achieve a desired shape.

Space Tech Gives Treadmill Users a ‘Boost’

Creators of the original antigravity treadmill for astronauts in space have now developed a new treadmill that uses air pressure to counter gravity, making running possible for people with injuries and other conditions.

A Lighter, Smarter Magnetoreceptive Electronic Skin

Imagine navigating a virtual reality with contact lenses or operating your smartphone under water — this and more could soon be a reality thanks to innovative e-skins. A research team...

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including a practical way to make hydrocarbons powered solely by the sun; an air traffic control system for drones that can effectively and accurately track anything in an identified low-altitude airspace; and a robotic system whose primary structural platform, or “orb,” can be injected into a pipe network and perform reconnaissance of piping infrastructure and other interior volumes.

New on the Market

See what's new on the market, including Endress+Hauser's FMR63B 80 GHz radar level sensor; the TP-108 Series, the smallest of all test points from Components Corporation; Sumida America's family of Resin-Shielded Surface-Mount Power Inductors; Coilcraft's XGL3020 series of ultra-low loss power inductors; Yokogawa Electric Corporation's OpreX™ Intelligent Manufacturing Hub; and much more.

New High-Speed Microscale 3D-Printing Technique

Researchers at Stanford University have introduced a more efficient processing technique that can print up to 1 million highly detailed and customizable microscale particles a day. Read on to learn more about it.

Flexible Lightweight Radiation Shielding

An innovator at NASA Langley Research Center has developed a novel method for making thin, lightweight radiation shielding that can be sprayed or melted onto common textiles used in clothing such as cotton, nylon, polyester, Nomex, and Kevlar. Read on to learn more about it.

Fabricating Ultrastrong Aluminum Alloys for Additive Manufacturing

Purdue University material engineers have created a patent-pending process to develop ultrahigh-strength aluminum alloys that are suitable for additive manufacturing because of their plastic deformability. Read on to learn more.

New Products

See the new products, including igus' aluminum version of its drylin ® NT-60 telescopic rail; Tolomatic Inc.'s online Drive Integration Tool; Flexiv's KURAVIZON adaptive robot; Thomson Industries' upgrade to its stepper motor linear actuator online selector tool, which adds the ability to include encoders in the design process; and more.

3D-Printed Soft Robotic Joint Allows Greater Bending Angles

Researchers at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid have developed a new soft joint model for robots with an asymmetrical triangular structure and an extremely thin central column. This breakthrough, recently patented, allows for versatility of movement, adaptability and safety, and will have a major impact in the field of robotics. Read on to learn more.

Gear Motors Help Put the Squeeze on Materials Requiring Dewatering

The applications that require dewatering are too numerous to list in their entirety. Dewatering is a process that — as its name suggests — separates fluids from solids, often converting what would otherwise go down the drain or end up in a landfill into saleable products. Read on to learn more about it and how gear motors come into play.