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Game of drones: Who will be crowned king of unmanned commercial flight?
Jessica Taylor Transportation Technology & AutomotiveTechnology is flying past us every day — literally — in the form of new airborne inventions. But did you realize the sky is on the verge of opening up a big new world for small and large businesses? Without a doubt, drones are a big topic of today's tech talk. And with the talk comes innovation — innovation that could change your company.
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What can Nicaragua’s new Gran Canal do for global LNG trade?
Lucy Wallwork Natural ResourcesWhen it opened to great fanfare in 1914, the Panama Canal revolutionized the global trade of oil, raw materials and manufactured goods by allowing ships to cross between the Atlantic and the Pacific without navigating round the "sailors' graveyard" of Cape Horn.
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European manufacturers get all worked up over energy labels
Andrew Gaved ManufacturingThe cooling and heating industries in Europe have come together in a rare alliance with their compadres in the lighting sector to voice their concerns over the European Commission's latest initiative. The EC's proposal, announced this week, will "recalibrate" its decade-old energy-labeling scheme. But rather than improving consumer-driven energy efficiency, which is the intention, the EC could actually be fostering confusion with its policy, these groups suggest.
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Plastics technology revitalizing wind energy trends
Don Rosato EngineeringIn wind energy, the trend is to create larger and lighter blades to capture more wind and lower rotational inertia. New technology is being developed to build enormous turbine blades, while also eliminating the need for molds and the transportation problems typical with large blades.
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Is fracking really a waste of water?
Stefanie Heerwig Natural ResourcesOne of the critiques against hydraulic fracturing (or fracking as it is commonly called) is that the process uses millions of gallons of water per well, far too much for arid areas like Dimmit County in Texas.
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Is ‘Robocop’ a reality? Not yet, but technology is inching…
Danielle Manley Law Enforcement, Defense & SecurityIn the movie "Robocop," the year is 2028, and police officer Alex Murphy is critically injured in the line of duty. Scientists decide to "rebuild" Murphy into a cyborg police officer — part-man, part-robot. When the original "Robocop" came out in 1987, robots were merely a far-fetched futuristic concept of "The Jetsons." It was fiction. It was fun. By the time the rebooted "Robocop" movie was released in 2014, robots were real.
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Scientists develop new applications for carbon nanotubes
Alan Kelsky EngineeringNanotechnology is great, and every day researchers are discovering new ways to use it in manufacturing. One of the leading frontiers in nanotechnology is the use of carbon nanotubes — superthin sheets of carbon rolled into a tube that demonstrate amazing physical properties.
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Automotive lightweighting drives plastics applications
Don Rosato EngineeringEvery car model that is launched in the coming years is expected to include lightweighting measures. Mazda, for example, has set a goal to reduce the curb weight of all its new model cars by 15 percent (up to 220 pounds per car), through material replacement and engineering, redesigning features and shrinking parts dimensions. The company is also planning to improve its global corporate fuel economy average by 30 percent by this year.
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Biomimetic materials: New ways to copy nature
Adolfo Benedito EngineeringScience & TechnologyIn science, we have a predicament of looking for solutions to problems in the most unforeseen ways, thinking that maybe the most complex solution is always the best. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nature, after millions of years of evolution, has always given rise to the most satisfactory solutions. It is the classic methodology of trial and error, known as natural selection. It exists, undoubtedly, as a modern trend to look towards the solutions that nature proposes to us and for us to try to reproduce them.
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The 429 has a weight problem – but is Bell bothered?
Jeremy Parkin Transportation Technology & AutomotiveBell's twin-engined 429 is seeing greater success than any previous light twin the Texas-based manufacturer has ever produced, already eclipsing each of the 222, 230, 427 and 430 models in sheer airframe numbers. Yet, a big divide continues to be seen in its marketplace. The 429 was built around a set of regulations from the FAA that provide minimum specification and performance requirements to gain certification for rotorcraft with a gross weight of up to 7,000 pounds. Bell, however, wants to be able to fly the helicopter at 7,500 pounds. Bell would like to gain approval for the same helicopter to fly at 7,500 pounds, but this requires adherence to the more stringent FAR29 rules, which apply to any aircraft over 7,000 pounds. Some of the differences between FAR27 and FAR29 are technically infeasible to install on the Bell 429
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