This Week in Engineering

Flying taxis are one of the most widely anticipated technologies in aviation, but it’s a very difficult problem to solve. Safety, cost, range and environmental considerations have delayed development by decades, but a new generation of e-VTOLs, combined with advanced engineering tools and materials, suggests that this may be changing. 

At the 2023 Paris Air Show, one of the companies developing this technology, Supernal, announced partnerships designed to develop the aircraft and the technology to mass produce the aircraft concurrently. 

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Current lithium-ion battery technology is limited by physics and economics. Lithium-based batteries are heavy, expensive to produce and are relatively slow to charge. A new silicon nanowire anode technology developed by Amprius Technologies promises to deliver lithium-ion batteries with double the gravimetric and volumetric power density of current systems. The solution to the cost problem is to use an alternate battery chemistry. BYD battery business unit FinDreams plans to do just that with the first large-scale sodium ion battery production plant, planned for Jiangsu province in China. Sodium ion batteries are lower in performance, but are much more cost-effective compared to lithium alternatives. 

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

With a chronic industrial labor shortage in America, combined with climbing interest rates and high inflation, the challenges for American manufacturing are increasing. Geopolitical conflict with Russia, strained relations with China and the emergence of artificial intelligence are adding even more uncertainty. For the automation sector however, these challenges present a golden opportunity for a major revamp of the how, why and where of American manufacturing.

Association for Advancing Automation CEO Jeff Burnstein makes the case for a bright future, in conversation with Jim Anderton at Automate 2023 in Detroit.

https://www.engineering.com/story/automation-ai-and-reshoring-inflation-and-interests-rates-wont-stop-growth?fromID=267

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Autonomously guided vehicles, or AGVs, are now common in warehouses and factories. Soon, they may be on city streets, delivering fast food and gourmet meals to homes by Uber Eats, Pizza Hut, 7-11 and others. Can small delivery robots reliably get time-sensitive deliveries like fast food to consumers as efficiently as human delivery drivers? We’ll know soon.

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Standardization is important for the widespread adoption of any mass consumer technology. The Edison lamp base is an example, as is the standardized shape and form of gasoline and diesel fuel pump nozzles worldwide. Electric vehicle charging has yet to develop a single global standard, and the two largest currently are Tesla’s NACS and CCS, which are used by the majority of other electric vehicle makers. Ford has taken a significant step in incorporating Tesla supercharger locations into the company’s charging network for Mustang, F-150 and Transit electric vehicles.

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recalled almost a million GM midsized SUVs due to defective airbag inflators. According to NHTSA, deployment of the airbags may propel metal shrapnel into the passenger compartment, causing possible injury or death.

The manufacturer of the modules, ARC Automotive, has rejected the government allegations. The company argues that single-digit failures in parts manufactured in quantities of million or more represent a sample size statistically too small to justify wholesale replacement.  

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

Since the V-2 rockets of World War II, it’s been axiomatic in large rocketry that a flame deflector is necessary below booster engines to reduce the risk of damage to the launch pad and the booster. Last week’s launch of the SpaceX Starship used no deflector, and post-launch pad damage was extensive. Several booster engines failed shortly after launch, possibly as a result of debris, thermal and acoustic effects. Future launches will likely feature a flame deflector, water deluge system, or both. 

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

The collapse of a parking garage in lower Manhattan has thrown a spotlight on the structural integrity of older reinforced concrete buildings and bridges in the U.S.. The site is left with unstable partial walls and multiple damaged vehicles which represent an environmental hazard due to fuel, lubricants and coolants. Although the collapse occurred with little warning, a forensic engineering study should reveal the the cause in due time. But the building had been cited for cracks in concrete by municipal authorities a decade ago.

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable

The Environmental Protection Agency has been setting U.S. motor vehicle emissions standards for over half a century, and in the process has reduced the output of unburned hydrocarbons, particulate matter, oxides of nitrogen and carbon monoxide by several orders of magnitude since the unregulated engines of the 1950s. Today, however, the Biden Administration is proposing a set of rules that include strict CO2 emissions limits. With no technical way to remediate CO2 emissions from internal combustion engines, the rules may set the stage for the eventual elimination of gasoline and diesel-powered cars and light trucks. 

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable

Circulating of fluid through woven into a garment was used successfully during the Apollo moon landings to regulate the astronauts’ body temperature. A new development by researchers at Switzerland-based École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne has resulted in miniature tube pumps in the form of fibers that allow high-pressure fluidic circuits to be woven into textiles without an external pump. Pressure and flow are created by electrohydrodynamics, propelling ions in a special dielectric fluid. No external mechanical pump is needed, so the system could be used to create advanced devices for simulation, or potentially as an assistive exoskeleton. 

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Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable