This Week in Engineering

In the drive to create a zero-carbon economy by the middle of the century, multiple engineering solutions for replacing fossil fuels are in development. Power generation through wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal and other carbon-free technologies are on the rise. But transportation, particularly air transportation, is a much more difficult problem to solve with alternates.

Aviation is driven primarily by jet fuel, essentially kerosene, a simple fossil fuel easily made from crude oil by vacuum distillation and catalytic cracking. When burned at high temperatures in efficient engines, it has all the hallmarks of a great fuel: easy to handle, energy dense, cheap and safe.

The production of CO2, however, is inevitable in any combustion process. In jet engines, there is no way to sequester that carbon dioxide stream, as there can be in ground-based power systems. Sustainable aviation fuel promises to remove 80 percent of fossil-fuel-created greenhouse gases by formulating jet fuel from non-petroleum base stocks.

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The 2023 edition of the Consumer Electronics Show had its share of innovations, and many are far outside the strict realm of consumer electronics. Sony and Honda announced a major venture to produce electric cars that are as much entertainment platforms as personal transportation under the Afeela brand, and John Deere wins awards for self-driving tractors and develops a novel electric excavator batteries from Austrian-based manufacturer Kriesel.

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, and, Manufacturing the Future.

The last of 1,574 Boeing 747s has left the company’s Everett, Washington plant, and will be delivered to Atlas Air early next year. That airframe wraps up a remarkable 54 year production program, with the 747 joining the Airbus A380 as the end of four engine wide-body airliner programs. 50 years ago, “Jumbo Jets” were seen as the solution to lower seat mile costs, enabling an entirely new industry, low-cost air travel. However, the relentless drive for lower seat mile costs, combined with high fuel prices, coincided with a change in the airline industry from hub and spoke operations to point-to-point travel using smaller airplanes. 747s will remain in service as a cargo aircraft for some years, but its days as a passenger carrier are numbered.

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, and, Manufacturing the Future.

2022 was a busy year engineering, with important firsts recorded in space exploration, commercial aviation and energy. What’s in store for 2023?  Engineering.com expects that the far-reaching impact of the war in Ukraine, combined with political pressure to de-carbonize will result in acceleration in the shift away from fossil fuels. But in the interim, ultra pipeline and LNG gas supply chains will be developed quickly. Electric vehicles will dominate the ground transportation space again, and with the supply chain crunch easing, EV production rates will ramp significantly in 2023. The delivery of the Tesla semi will shift some attention toward commercial vehicles, with adoption constrained by availability of battery materials and charging infrastructure. 

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, and, Manufacturing the Future.

In 2017, Elon Musk presented a prototype of a battery electric Class 8 highway tractor, predicting that electrification will fundamentally change the American trucking industry. Trucking in America is a 700-billion-dollar annual industry, and with 4 million Class 8 vehicles registered on American roads, the fleet is considerable. While electrification looks promising, current lithium-ion battery technology suggests that 500 to 600 miles is the reasonable range that can be expected from a battery electric highway tractor. For long-haul with a single driver, this range corresponds roughly to the allowable hours of service mandated by U.S. Federal regulations, suggesting that short and medium distance intercity transportation with electric heavy trucks is feasible with current technology. With the first units now in the hands of PepsiCo, it will be possible to get real-world data on Tesla Semi performance.  

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Bell Helicopter has won a major contract to supply the Pentagon with a new, multirole and speedy light attack aircraft. It’s a tiltrotor, and it defeated a competing coaxial compound helicopter from a Lockheed/Boeing consortium. Tilt rotors aren’t new, with V-22 Osprey variants operating in U.S. military service for years, but detractors of that program have pointed to high early accident rates and maintainability issues as evidence that tiltrotors can’t replace pure helicopters for vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) assault and light cargo applications. The new Textron Bell V-280 Valor is a smaller and lighter aircraft than the Osprey, and with modern technology, promises to address the shortcomings of the older platform. If it delivers reliability and safety in service, it will allow fixed wing speeds with helicopter-like vertical lift capability, a game changer for military aviation—and perhaps urban civilian aeronautics, too. 

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, and, Manufacturing the Future.

Nuclear energy for electricity generation has been the standard application for civilian nuclear power since the industry began seven decades ago. Heat produces steam, which spins a turbine—technology which uses readily available processes developed in coal, oil and gas burning power plants for over a century. Space and process heat, however, are major energy demands for cities and in industry, and a demonstration nuclear district heat plant has powered up in Dalian City, China. In the United States, a development program for scalable, truck-transportable small modular reactors may have encountered a restraining force more powerful than physics: inflation. 

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With the successful launch of Artemis 1, NASA is back in the crewed space exploration business, with the largest rocket successfully launched anywhere. The combined 8,000,000 pounds of thrust at launch exceeds the power of the Saturn V launch vehicle that carried a dozen astronauts to the moon. The new system uses developments of legacy Space Shuttle engines and solid rocket boosters, with a booster structure derived from the Space Shuttle external tank. Development of advanced hardware from proven components was controversial, with some NASA critics stating that the approach would prove as expensive and lengthy as clean sheet designs, but with a successful launch, the new Space Launch System appears set to be NASA’s heavy lift launch vehicle for the foreseeable future. 

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The commercial aircraft business is a brutal one. The cost to develop and certify a new airframe is enormous, and any major technological advance carries risk that can be existential for the developing company. Boeing famously gambled the company on the 747 and was rewarded for success with a production program that has run for half a century. Today, costs are even higher, but in the critical midsize commercial airliner market, Boeing has recently announced that the firm will not be developing a new airplane to replace passenger versions of the 767 and 757 this decade. Some analysts feel that this will give Airbus a distinct advantage. Boeing feels that engine technology is not ready to support the development of a new airliner in this class and will continue to offer development versions of the 737 and 787 for the mid-size market. It’s a controversial decision. 

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In the race to truly commercialize orbital space launch, the guidance problem has largely been solved. Light and heavy lift orbit is relatively routine, but the cost of lifting every ounce to even low earth orbit is still an inhibiting factor in widespread exploitation of near-Earth space. Several companies are working to reduce these costs, notably Elon Musk's SpaceX. But there are competitors, including Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin.  

A critical factor in reducing launch costs is the development of a new generation of high-performance rocket engines. Blue Origin's new BE-4 closed cycle engine has been delivered for use on United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket. Blue Origin intends to use the engines on their own launch systems as well. With two major heavy lift launch companies operating in the American market, competitive pressures to launch reliably at ever-lower costs are mounting. 

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, and, Manufacturing the Future.