This Week in Engineering

Internal combustion engines are all about volumetric efficiency. Like all heat engines, higher combustion temperatures mean greater efficiency, but those high combustion chamber temperatures and pressures form an ideal process for creating oxides of nitrogen in the exhaust gas stream. NOx has long been known as a major contributor to photochemical smog, and the state of California has had uniquely stringent NOx emission standards for decades. Upcoming standards set for 2027 appeared impossible to meet, but a test of opposed piston diesel built by Achates Power as part of a CALSTART research project has met the 90 percent reduction requirement without novel exhaust gas aftertreatment technologies. The engine is running in a test truck and promises better fuel efficiency and lower CO2 emissions as a bonus.

Access all episodes of This Week in Engineering on engineering.com TV along with all of our other series.

Generative design is widely regarded as the Holy Grail of design engineering automation. Simply press a button, and have artificial intelligence create an optimized part. It's a supremely difficult challenge, and, like autonomous driving, is much more difficult than it appears. Engineering.com's design engineering expert Roopinder Tara discusses the state-of-the-art in generative design with Jim Anderton.

Access all episodes of This Week in Engineering on engineering.com TV along with all of our other series.

The Finnish power utility TVO has open the first new European nuclear plant in 15 years. The pressurized light water reactor is the product of a French/German design team and promises to deliver as much as 15 percent of the nation’s total electricity needs. Although it is a decade behind schedule and billions of Euros over the original cost estimates, the plant promises to deliver clean power for decades—along with ground-breaking deep storage of nuclear waste, and an interesting experiment in the use of waste heat for agriculture.

Access all episodes of This Week in Engineering on engineering.com TV along with all of our other series.

The recently opened 1915 Çanakkale Bridge in Turkey is an engineering marvel. The world’s largest suspension bridge, the project was thought to be technically impossible as late as the mid-1990s but has emerged as a key link between Europe and Asia.

The bridge required very high towers and large, submerged caissons built on-site, as well as advanced project management and planning. Some 4,000 workers built the bridge which—despite COVID-19—was completed ahead of schedule. A consortium of two Korean and two Turkish engineering firms handled the construction, and will operate the bridge for 16 years before turning control over to the Turkish government. The estimated cost of the project is $2.7 billion, and it is expected to carry as many as 45,000 vehicles per day.

Access all episodes of This Week in Engineering on engineering.com TV along with all of our other series.

For the first time in half a century, NASA is preparing to launch a moon rocket. After multiple delays and redesigns, the giant Artemis 1 vehicle has rolled to the launch pad for the first in a series of final rehearsals for an unmanned Orion spacecraft mission around the moon. The combination of the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft has been in development since the end of the space shuttle program and shares several key technologies with the earlier vehicle, including main engines, airframe structures and segmented solid rocket boosters.

The use of proven design elements in the Artemis program is hoped to grant the system capabilities that exceed the Apollo program’s Saturn 5 launch vehicle, with better reliability and lower relative costs. And there is another similarity to the 1960s: a space race. The race today is with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, whose giant Starship is already on the launch pad undergoing tests. A firm launch date has not been set for either vehicle, although it is generally expected that Starship will likely launch first.

Access all episodes of This Week in Engineering on engineering.com TV along with all of our other series.

In the aerospace industry, airframe programs can last for decades. The 747, for example, has sustained a fifty-year production run, but maintaining legacy airframes presents a significant engineering problem: aircraft designed on paper blueprints and early CAD systems are still in service, and replacement parts and modifications are still needed.

Translating old renderings into forms that can be used by modern aviation companies and operators is expensive and ad hoc. To address this problem, a USAF sponsored program by the Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research has created a digital twin of an entire B-1 Lancer airframe, a large and complex strategic bomber. The results so far demonstrate enhanced, lower cost maintenance, suggesting that digital engineering may be the way forward for the many global operators of older aircraft.

Access all episodes of This Week in Engineering on engineering.com TV along with all of our other series.

Lighter than air flying machines predate the invention of the airplane, and open so the 1930s, were the only practical way to carry passengers are significant payloads over transatlantic distances. The combination of the 1936 Hindenburg disaster and the development of longer-range fixed wing aircraft ended the age of the rigid airship, but a new hybrid type aircraft that combines features of airships and fixed wing aircraft shows promise for heavy lift, long-duration and low carbon flight. Bradford, UK-based Hybrid Air Vehicles has developed a production ready aircraft and as recently establish a basis for certification with European aviation authorities, a critical step toward type certification. The company expects their Airlander 10 vehicle to be service ready by 2025.

Access all episodes of This Week in Engineering on engineering.com TV along with all of our other series.

Decarbonization of transportation is a high priority in the battle to reach Paris Accord CO2 targets, but in heavy trucks and industrial power, there are few alternatives to fossil fuels with current technology. Cummins Inc., a large diesel engine maker, has developed a series of fuel agnostic diesel engines for commercial use that can run on diesel fuel, natural gas, or hydrogen gas. If run on blue hydrogen, CO2 emissions can be reduced or eliminated, and a new project at the world’s largest oil refinery will demonstrate blue hydrogen with low-cost carbon capture. The Reliance Industries Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat, India, will make blue hydrogen from syngas production, part of a coke gasifier process. Reliance expects carbon capture at 30 percent of the cost of atmospheric capture.

Access all episodes of This Week in Engineering on engineering.com TV along with all of our other series.

There are several technologies under development to harness the almost unlimited potential of nuclear fusion. Tokomaks, stellarators, and even mechanical compression in liquid metals are underactive development, but a California-based firm, TAE Technologies, is developing a novel, linear approach that combines plasmas with linear particle accelerator physics. TAE projects that this unique approach to hydrogen – boron fusion so pathway to practical, commercial power reactors.

Access all episodes of This Week in Engineering on engineering.com TV along with all of our other series.

Flying taxis have been dreamed about for decades, but the combination of several technologies available today may make them a reality soon. Boeing has announced a $450 million investment in eVTOL aircraft developer Wisk, who intend to make mass producible, autonomous and electrically powered light aircraft for air taxi service. Wisk has flown prototypes under FAA’s Experimental certification, and the company sees no insurmountable technological hurdles that prevent safe flight operations with passengers. Pending FAA approval, Wisk anticipates that a fleet of autonomous air taxis could be flying in as little as five years after certification.

General Motors recently announced a major redevelopment of the company’s Hamtramck assembly operations to accommodate electric vehicle production. GM has dramatically expanded that EV investment with a plan to spend more than $7 billion in four Michigan sites to increase battery cell and electric light truck manufacturing capacity. The investment represents a record for General Motors. Centrepiece of the plan will be Orion Assembly, site of much of GM’s pioneering work in flex line technology, which will receive $4 billion of the overall investment. Light truck production is expected to begin in 2024.

Access all episodes of This Week in Engineering on engineering.com TV along with all of our other series.