In the search for carbon free or carbon neutral energy sources to replace fossil fuels, hydrogen is a subject of active development. In rocketry, it’s a very high-performance fuel, and when reacted in moderate temperature combustion processes, the primary exhaust gas, water vapor, is harmless.

But the highest quality energy in any system is electric current, and fuel cells promise to deliver direct conversion of gaseous hydrogen to electricity. They have been powering spacecraft for over half a century, and there are currently some commercial applications, but technical challenges still need to be overcome before fuel cells can become a power source for popular consumer applications like motor vehicles or home power.

Jim Anderton discusses progress in fuel cell technology with Carl Cottuli, Head of Development Engineering at Bloom Energy.

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3D printing, or additive manufacturing as it’s known in the industry, have revolutionized warfare, as seen in the current Ukraine Russia war. The ability to mass-produce first-person view drones in the thousands has created a new battlefield, where traditional doctrines about armor and logistics have been changed forever. Not only do the drones make attacking armies more vulnerable, additive manufacturing allows production to be extensively decentralized, making it much harder for adversaries to degrade production capability.

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Battery technology is long been understood as the limiting factor in electric vehicle adoption worldwide. Electric vehicle batteries need to be lower in cost, offer higher energy density, and be faster to charge than current technology allows, and all major automakers are working to achieve this.

A new solid-state lithium-based design from Factorial, backed by Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis, promises to increase electric vehicle range by up to 80%, with lower operating temperatures and increased safety. Test cells have already been produced, and factorial has built a full-scale production facility just outside Boston. Widespread implementation should be ready by the end of the decade. 

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The post Is the Solid-State Battery the Solution for Weak EV Sales?  appeared first on Engineering.com.

The Scaled Composites Vanguard has taken to the air, and like most designs from Northrop Grumman’s experimental division, it’s different. Small, light in weight and powered by a relatively low power jet engine, the aircraft has the look of a miniature stealth fighter plane, and can carry 2,000 pounds of ordnance, including two air to air missiles in an enclosed weapons bay. The airplane is clearly designed to have a low radar cross-section, essential for survival in any contested airspace today.

For Northrop Grumman, this may be a replay of the company’s low-cost, lightweight fighter concept, a big hit from the early 1960s: the F-5 Freedom Fighter. 

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Artificial intelligence is not only widely anticipated but is expected to dramatically change the manufacturing landscape worldwide, forever.

The promise is huge, but to deliver on that promise, manufacturers need to develop coherent strategies for implementation, and more importantly, understand where the use cases exist for AI implementation.

New research from AI software provider IFS suggests that American firms are sceptical of artificial intelligence in its current form.

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President Biden’s Chips Act promises to do something that is widely regarded as essential for US economic and military security in the 21st century:  reestablish control of the manufacturing of critical high-end semiconductors.

Billions of dollars have been spent to attract major manufacturers such as Intel and TSMC to new build facilities in the United States, and the facilities are expected to employ the latest in production automation.

But semiconductor manufacturing is still labor-intensive, and the labor needed to produce integrated circuits in the single digit nanometer scale is highly skilled and specialized.  Are there enough workers with the necessary skills to support this production in America?

Engineering.com’s Jim Anderton discussed this critical issue with Dr. Parminder Jassal, CEO of skills-to-jobs marketplace Unmudl. 

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Orbital launch services are the key to the commercial development of space. Crude flight gets the headlines, but the vast majority of launches carry communications and Earth resources satellites, and of course, military applications.

But are there too many players in the market? Space X is in the low-cost launcher, but their major market is internal, with Starlink. And with the upcoming retirement of the ISS, the market for crewed flight is uncertain. The market may bifurcate into:
(1) fewer, heavy launch providers; and
(2) multiple small sat launchers with fast reaction capability.

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As software controlling everything from video games to jet airliners has become too complex to make completely error proof, the move to increasing flight automation continues to carry risk. No one knows this more than Boeing, but the fundamental problem of systems that are too complex for humans to check means that safety may ultimately be handed over to artificial intelligence.

First, for checking human generated code, then permitting the code itself, and finally, the piloting of the airplanes themselves. 

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For the 100 years or so of air transport, the form factor of airplanes has been essentially consistent: a fuselage, usually cylindrical, with attached wings and tail.  While relatively simple to build, with a good strength to weight ratio, aerodynamically, this form factor is not the most efficient.

Eliminating the fuselage and building the aircraft as a flying wing has long been recognized as a path to greater efficiency and performance, and since the late 1940s, multiple flying wing designs have been proposed. Very few have made it into hardware, but a form of hybrid concept, called the blended wing body, appears to be a practical way to reduce drag, and consequently fuel burn, and commercial aircraft.  

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There is plenty of talk in the mainstream media about the technical issues with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, but the real engineering issue is not rooted in pressure vessels, valves or lines. It’s management.

Starliner has launched previously to the international Space Station uncrewed, so the capability for fully autonomous flight exists at Boeing. The current flight was configured for human piloting, so the obvious option for Williams and Wilmore, which is to bring them back with a SpaceX capsule, may become necessary if NASA and Boeing can’t reconfigure Starliner to work around the thruster issues.

The zero risk option? Fly the astronauts back by SpaceX, then fly Starliner back empty, fix the issues, and launch it again. If Starliner returns unharmed, the decision will look like an abundance of caution, but all concerned will come out looking good.

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