This Week in Engineering

As applications for artificial intelligence are developing rapidly, the need for ever higher computational power to train massive datasets for AI puts a premium on chipmaking technology. Conventional photolithography is increasingly difficult as gate density increases on modern semiconductors, and single digit nanometer devices are more time-consuming and difficult to fabricate.

Nvidia has developed a software package in collaboration with ASML, Synopsys and TSMC which is designed to run with Nvidia graphics processor units in a system that promises to eventually produce an order of magnitude faster wafer production. 2 nm devices are under study, which may represent the physics limit to PLC development with photolithography technology. 

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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 Turkish aircraft industry is on a roll. With the excellent performance of Bayraktar TB-2 drones in Ukraine, and the development of the larger, more capable Akinci twin engine high-altitude drone, Turkish military aviation is moving into systems that are comparable in performance to industry heavyweights from America, China and Russia. 

The new TF-X program will take Turkish aerospace to the next level, with the production of the first stealthy, fifth-generation air superiority fighter from a non-superpower. And it’s not just the airframes. The Turkish industries are capable of supplying a wide variety of munitions, sensors and critically, advanced active electronically scanned array radars. Stealth fighters are very expensive for smaller nations, but if the Turkish program can deliver fifth-generation fighters at something approximating fourth-generation prices, the global market will be enormous.

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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.

Carnot cycle refrigeration by mechanical compressors has been around for over a century, and it’s a mature technology. Since World War II, it has been used to heat and cool structures, but with increased urgency in reducing fossil fuel use, heat pumps are under renewed scrutiny as a low-emission climate control solution. Moving heat with this technology is significantly more energy efficient than electrical resistance heating but is more expensive than natural gas boilers for space heat applications. A wholesale switch to heat pump technology will require government subsidies, carbon taxes, direct regulation or some combination of the three unless some new, lower-cost way to compress the working fluid is discovered.

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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 recent derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio, resulting in a toxic chemical spill was a rare but not unknown event on America’s railroads. Like every other wheeled vehicle in commercial service, rolling stock relies on anti-friction bearings. And like all ball and roller bearings, heat is the major cause of failure. For safety-critical applications in railways, thermography is used to check passing rolling stock for hot bearings, setting an alarm to alert the engineer about the problem. Modern systems can determine the exact car where a hot bearing is located, but predicting catastrophic failure is very difficult. More technology is needed to prevent a repeat of this disaster. 

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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.

60 years ago, nuclear energy was touted as a power source that would deliver electricity at prices “too cheap to meter.” Experience with large-scale nuclear generation to date has shown that large commercial nuclear power plants do not produce electricity cheaply; however, the new imperative to reduce carbon dioxide emissions has given nuclear new incentive to develop.  

New, fourth-generation reactors are significantly safer, and cheaper to build and operate when compared to current designs. The new reactors are smaller, and their operating economics open the possibility for private power users to adopt the technology for industrial use, producing electricity and process heat.  

Dow and X-energy Reactor Company recently announced that the company will deploy one of X-energy’s small modular reactors at Dow’s Gulf Coast chemical plant complex. The reactor will provide electric power and process heat for steam. If successful, the initiative will not only reduced Dow’s carbon footprint, but also set the stage for widespread commercial cogeneration outside of power utilities. 

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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 World War II, modern combat doctrine worldwide has emphasized wars of speed, maneuvers and mobility. Since the pioneering German blitzkriegs of 1939 and 1940, the notion of static battle lines, seen in the First World War, has been widely regarded as obsolete. Surprisingly, the current war in Ukraine has developed in a manner that looks very similar to the trench warfare of World War I.

A century ago, that war saw very high volumes of artillery fire—so much so that artillery shortages were a clinical problem in 1916. And today, as then, Ukrainian and Russian forces are looking for sources worldwide to maintain the very high rates of artillery fire common in this war phase.

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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 recent earthquake near the Turkish-Syrian border has killed, at the time of writing, over 41,000 individuals and has collapsed over 6,000 buildings in Turkey alone. Turkey is a known region for serious seismic events and has endured significant earthquakes.

Turkish building codes from 2007, heavily revised in 2018, specify earthquake-resistant construction, and the city of Istanbul completed a $500 million project in 2015 to prepare that large city for a seismic event. While multiple and unconfirmed reports show that lax construction techniques and corruption resulted in many substandard buildings, the region contains many old, before-code structures.

The Turkish civil engineering sector is highly advanced and capable, so it seems unlikely that fault for this disaster will be found in the design process. Tighter enforcement of building codes plus enhanced disaster preparedness systems, as have been implemented in Istanbul, are logical paths forward in the aftermath of this disaster.

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.

Nuclear energy is enjoying a resurgence. Some nations are deferring the retirement of reactors and other countries are developing new generation fission designs that are safer and more cost-effective than current technology. By retrofitting existing coal-fired power plants, new small modular reactors, or SMRs, are at the forefront of this development.

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.

Lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare-earth elements have been studied extensively, as have the supply bottlenecks and predicted production shortages that have driven battery prices higher in electric vehicles. Rarely discussed, however, is a critical input for not only electric vehicle batteries but also for the entire electricity infrastructure: copper. According to a new report by S&P Global, supply shortages of the world’s most crucial metallic conductor may seriously hamper the net zero emissions target of 2050. Can the world produce enough copper to meet demand? 

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.

Tanks have been a game-changing technology in warfare for a century, and Ukraine was the site of major tank battles in World War II. In the current Russia Ukraine war, both sides have used Soviet-era tanks, with the most numerous being updated versions of the T-72. But as the war drags on, more modern equipment is making its way to the conflict, notably the Russian T-90 main battle tank. 

Currently, European NATO nations and the Biden Administration have authorized the transfer of advanced Western main battle tanks, the German Leopard 2 and the U.S. M1 Abrams. It appears that a technological showdown is shaping up between NATO and Russia in tanks and the results will likely influence tank design for years. 

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.