Today in Science Blog Posts
Peek into the Next 50 Years with IEEE Spectrum
In June 2014, IEEE celebrated the 50th anniversary of their magazine IEEE Spectrum with a special issue. In it, they look ahead to the next 50 years and what they will bring.
Shaping Crystals for Camouflage Surfaces
Researchers at the University of Michigan discovered a way to shape crystals with a photochemical reaction, enabling crystal structures to appear in various patterns and colors (like chameleons!)
Happy Birthday, Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi is best known for pioneering long-distance radio transmission and helping develop commercial radio. Learn about the life and work of the Nobel-Prize-winning electrical engineer.
Happy Birthday, Josef Stefan
Josef Stefan is known for deriving the relationship between the radiant energy of a blackbody and its temperature, known as the Stefan–Boltzmann law. Learn more about the Austrian physicist.
World’s Largest Solar Power Plant
Have you ever made the drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas through the Mojave Desert? If so, you might have seen the world’s largest solar-based thermal power plant.
Happy Birthday, Nicolaus Copernicus
Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus first theorized the concept of a heliocentric universe. At the time, this was controversial. Now, more than 500 years later, we believe him.
Rocket Innovations for Private Space Flight
Did you know that up until the 1920s, rockets were powered by solid propellants and oxidizers? Enter the invention of the liquid-fuel rocket. Learn more about innovations in modern rocketry.
New Technology Advancements for Indoor Navigation
Global position systems, more commonly known as GPS, make it easy to navigate from place to place. But what about navigating inside an actual building? Indoor navigation makes this possible.
2D Materials, It’s Not Just About Graphene
You’ve heard the story: a couple of scientists discovered graphene when they repeatedly pulled a strip of adhesive tape off a layer of graphite. Graphene has been all the rage due to its incredible strength, low weight, and electronic properties, but it’s not the only material of its kind. There are plenty of other 2D materials to consider for electrical applications — some of which may work together with graphene, and others that can be used in its place.
3D Printing: Material Matters
In the past, we’ve discussed a few of the extraordinary uses of 3D printing (or additive manufacturing) technology by some innovative engineers, and even printed a few of our COMSOL models. In one of our previous posts on 3D printing, we discussed some of the limitations that this technique poses from both a consumer and manufacturing stand-point — you can only print one material at a time. Now however, as was mentioned in an article in Desktop Engineering, not only […]
The Next Generation of Moore’s Law
At the COMSOL Conference in Boston, Lam Research Corporation held a keynote talk about Moore’s law and its role in computational modeling. The keynote touched on how Moore’s law has not only impacted the advancement of simulation tools, but also how the development of these tools have themselves allowed Moore’s law to hold true. The concept was something that interested me, and I know it’s been on the minds of many electrical engineers as well. Case in point, when browsing […]
Innovative Microfluidic System for Cooling Windows
The same window that allows natural light into your home also brings about an increase in your air-conditioning bill. While certain measures have been taken to improve the energy efficiency of windows, they still account for a large portion of buildings’ energy costs. As unfavorable as that is, we ultimately want our buildings to have windows, and tend to accept the sunlight in/energy bill up trade-off. However, advancements are currently underway to improve this trade-off by lessening the energy charges […]
Success Stories and Limitations of 3D Printing
From supporting research to creating custom prosthesis, what doesn’t 3D printing seem to promise these days? We all know 3D printing has arrived, and the technology is already being put into practice by companies and tech-savvy consumers everywhere. It seems there’s a new 3D printing success story published every day, and no matter how fascinating, it makes you wonder about the wider repercussions and limitations of 3D printing.
3D Printed Cloaking Device in a Matter of Hours
It’s been almost a year since we declared 3D printing the hottest topic in manufacturing, and it hasn’t cooled off yet. If anything, 3D printing has seen a recent surge in popularity. By now you’ve heard a lot about the technology and what you can print with it, but did you know you could print invisibility cloaks this way, too?
Unexpected Uses of Magnetic Levitation
Magnetic levitation, or maglev, involves suspending materials with magnetic fields. When gravity, acceleration, and other forces weigh down on an object, they can all be counteracted by magnetic pressure. Some uses that may appear to go completely against nature can actually be explained by fundamental science.
The Graphene Revolution: Part 3
Everyone’s talking about graphene right now. When was the last time a material received this much attention? Sure, other materials have peaked our interest before, but when something breaks into more mainstream news you know it’s going to be a very big deal.
The Graphene Revolution: Part 1
Graphene is a special type of material consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. Graphene in its stable form was discovered at the University of Manchester in 2003 (coincidentally while I was there studying for my Masters degree) and resulted in Nobel Prizes in 2010 for the two researchers who discovered it. Recently, graphene has been making the mainstream news; the European Commission has pledged €1 billion (yes, that’s billion with a b) to […]
A Better File Format for 3D Printing to Replace STL?
I have previously blogged about 3D printing and how it would be great if you could go from model to product in one step. Now it seems as though the Stereolithography (STL) file format is reaching its limits for being useful as a standard for this type of application. The printers themselves, and what they are capable of, are outstripping the abilities of the file formats to support their new capabilities. Moves are being made to develop a better file […]
3D Printing: Hottest Topic in Manufacturing
Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing as it is more widely known as, is on everybody’s mind right now. Manufacturing folks, engineers, and even the general public have taken an interest in 3D printing. In other words, this is not just a fascinating phenomenon to those in the industry — additive manufacturing has been generally accepted as the next “cool” thing in manufacturing.
Singing Sand Leads to Many Questions
I know, I know… I should spend the weekend relaxing. But every place I visit offers me a variety of natural phenomena I wasn’t aware of and, as an engineer and a multiphysics enthusiast, I can’t help but sit in the sun jotting down a list of the physics involved – possible coupling mechanisms, boundary conditions, materials, and so on (we talked about stereotypes attached to engineer on our Facebook page in May).
SAWs are also used to Manipulate and Mix
I have always connected Surface Acoustic Waves (SAWs) as phenomena useful for sensors; where SAW devices act as the medium that transfers mechanical energy (of what you’re measuring) to electrical (what’s used to measure it). SAWs would occur at the surface of a piezoelectric device, mechanically changing it, and then the resulting electrical behavior would be used to provide the measurement. We have a great example that shows how such things can be modeled in a SAW gas sensor.
Follow-Up on Venus Transit of the Sun 2012
After reading about the COMSOL users over at MACCOR in David’s blog post I decided to watch Venus’ transit of the Sun live via their online stream from Tulsa, OK. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity that I, like many people around the world, did not want to miss.
University of Michigan Refines Solar Car Design
I have just read a cool article about the University of Michigan’s solar car. Back when I was a young and hopeful engineering student in Australia , the World Solar Challenge really sparked my imagination. This is the race from the top of Australia (Darwin) to the bottom (Adelaide) across the desert where the cars are powered by solar energy, which is basically captured by solar cells on the car roofs.