engineering

Jun 1, 2010

Thunderstruck: AC/DC Rocks Sintering

When I say ceramics, you think of bowls and plates, right? But ceramics are also used in body armor, fuel cells, spark plugs, nuclear rods, space shuttles, superconductors and hundreds of other things you probably didn’t know about and would think are really important. New research is now showing that manufacturers can make and shape… 

Jun 1, 2010

Research: Electric Fields Make Ceramic Production Quicker, Cheaper

Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that applying a small electric field results in faster formation of ceramic products during manufacture at lower temperatures, and enhances the strength of the ceramic itself. 

May 28, 2010

NC State Part of New DOE Hub

North Carolina State University received news Friday that it is part of a team that will receive critical Department of Energy funding to support nuclear energy research.  The team, led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will been named an Energy Innovation Hub on Nuclear Modeling and Simulation.  The Nuclear Energy Innovation Hub, which includes universities, industry… 

May 21, 2010

Clark Chairs Engineering Graphics

Dr. Aaron C. Clark has been elected chair of the engineering design and graphics division of the American Society for Engineering Education. 

May 20, 2010

To The Point

Those things that look like artillery shells are actually biodegradable microneedles. These needles are much smaller than conventional hypodermic needles, and cause less pain, tissue damage and skin inflammation for patients. Because they are biodegradable, they dissolve on the skin surface and can be used for single-use drug delivery situations such as vaccine delivery. 

May 19, 2010

Lending a Hand

Research for a senior textile engineering project took students beyond your typical library visits and Google searches. Instead, it had them playing basketball games against Raleigh’s wheelchair basketball league, the Triangle Thunder, and watching the Raleigh Outlaws, the local Blind Bowlers Association’s local league, knock down some pins. For the past year, a group of… 

May 19, 2010

New Microneedle Antimicrobial Techniques May Foster Medical Tech Innovation

A team led by researchers from North Carolina State University has developed two new approaches for incorporating antimicrobial properties into microneedles – vanishingly thin needles that hold great promise for use in portable medical devices. Researchers expect the findings to spur development of new medical applications using microneedles. 

May 18, 2010

Rise Of The (Video Game) Machines

Video games are big business. And the push for faster, flashier graphics has driven not only game developers, but the development of computer hardware to handle those graphics. It’s gotten to the point where computers have a separate “brain” that only handles graphics – and these graphics processing units (GPUs) are usually 100 times more… 

May 17, 2010

Software Tool Helps Tap Into The Power Of Graphics Processing

Today’s computers rely on powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) to create the spectacular graphics in video games. In fact, these GPUs are now more powerful than the traditional central processing units (CPUs) – or brains of the computer. As a result, computer developers are trying to tap into the power of these GPUs. Now a… 

May 10, 2010

Study Paves Way For New Biofuels Models, Technologies

Biofuels hold promise as environmentally friendly sources of renewable energy, but which ones should industry and policy leaders focus their efforts on developing? A new study involving researchers from North Carolina State University offers detailed insights into how biofuel chemicals react when burned. Their data and new computer models pave the way for development of… 

Apr 30, 2010

Biofuels, Hold The Sugar

Imagine if we could make biofuels anywhere, without having to worry about biofuel crops competing with food crops. Well, the feds are now funding research that would make that possible. Modern biofuels are largely made from sugar. Basically, plants (like corn) take energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide into organic compounds (like sugar)… 

Apr 30, 2010

NC State Wins ARPA-E Grant To Study Extremophile Production Of Biofuels

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E) has awarded a grant for more than $2.7 million to North Carolina State University to support research into the creation of biofuels using microbial organisms, called extremophiles, that live in high-temperature environments. 

Apr 28, 2010

Connecting The Nanodots

Picture a really big library. Imagine that it contains 2.5 million books, and that each of those books is 400 pages long. Now imagine that you could fit ALL of those books onto a computer chip the size of your thumbnail. Researchers just figured out how to do exactly that. The trick is to use… 

Apr 28, 2010

Nanodots Breakthrough May Lead To ‘A Library On One Chip’

A researcher at North Carolina State University has developed a computer chip that can store an unprecedented amount of data – enough to hold an entire library’s worth of information on a single chip. The new chip stems from a breakthrough in the use of nanodots, or nanoscale magnets, and represents a significant advance in… 

Apr 27, 2010

Hey! You! Get Off Of My Cloud Computing!

Cloud computing is a buzzword among tech cognoscenti these days. Its proponents say that it can give people and institutions access to greater computer power than they could otherwise afford by running their programs in a collection of computers and servers located, well, somewhere else. But there are risks too – not least of which…