• Futuristic All-Electric Hybrid Gets 300 MPG
• Prototype Auto Engine Produces 27% Fuel Savings
• Car Heating Gets Sucked Into The Vortex
• Bat-Inspired Spy Plane Under Development
• This Is Not An Exit: Rules To Design By
• Respect For People
• New High-Resolution Bolt Is A Smart Fit
• Single Nanotube Is World's Smallest Radio
• Advanced Modeling Fuels NASCAR Team's Comeback
• Overcoming Big Challenges For Small Turbojet Engines

Feature Articles

Futuristic all-electric hybrid gets 300 mpg
Is America really ready for street-legal, cabin-enclosed three-wheelin'? Aptera's Typ-1 is a radically different vehicle designed to marry advanced aerodynamics with lightweight composite technology to create a powerful and extremely safe car that is a joy to drive. But as they say on Letterman, "Will it float?" It looks like it could. Literally.
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New 2- and 4-stroke prototype auto engine produces 27% fuel savings Ricardo and a consortium of automotive partners recently completed an advanced prototype research program based on the highly innovative 2/4SIGHT engine concept. This gasoline engine uses novel combustion, boosting, control, and valve actuation technologies to enable automatic and seamless switching between two- and four-stroke operation, with the aim of delivering significant performance and fuel economy improvements through aggressive downsizing. Read the full article Highly Flexible Servo Coupling Compensating for up to 5 times more shaft misalignment than its single-flex counterpart, the BKL-DOUBLEFLEX offers true servo performance with zero backlash, high torsional stiffness and low inertia. From 15 – 500Nm, machine designs with unavoidable tolerance stack-up get more control over the load. View single-page PDF. Car heating gets sucked into the vortex Near-instantaneous heat for driver comfort and improved safety from optimum defrosting capabilities in cold-weather climates will soon be a reality in the automotive industry due to advanced technology being developed by global automotive supplier Webasto. The Webasto Liquid Heat Generator (LHG) will be an independent, on-demand engine heating system that is a major technological departure from the typical auto heat process. Read the full article

This is not an exit: Rules to design by
Dr. Bob Norman thinks a lot. His seminal book, "The Design of Everyday Things," changed the way designers look at the process by which common household items enter and affect our daily lives. Speaking to a room full of over 4,500 engineers and professionals at the SolidWorks World 2008 Conference, Dr. Norman boiled his ethos down to four salient points the crowd could take home with them and apply to their future endeavors as designers.
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Respect for people
For years Jim Womack, founder and chairman, Lean Enterprise Institute, has visited companies where "respect for people" is a core element of the corporate philosophy. And he has asked managers in many companies a simple question: "How do you show respect?" Usually he has heard that employees should be treated fairly, given clear goals, trusted to achieve them in the best way, and held to account for results. But when he asked the best Toyota managers how they show respect for people, the answer was very different.
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New high-resolution bolt is a smart fit
Seeing is believing, they say. Critical bolted joints often require exacting tightening procedures to establish the optimum clamp load. Direct Tension Indicator (DTI) SmartBolts were invented by Stress Indicators, Inc., to set up the proper bolt tension with no need for torque wrenches, strain gages, wires, or electronic or ultrasonic equipment. In fact, there is no need to touch or contact the fastener at all in order to verify its clamp load condition. A simple glance is sufficient.
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Shrunken 100 billion times: Single nanotube makes world's smallest radio
Physicists at the University of California, Berkeley, have built the smallest radio yet — a single carbon nanotube one ten-thousandth the diameter of a human hair that requires only a battery and earphones to tune in to your favorite station.
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Advanced modeling fuels NASCAR team's comeback
As the wins and top-10 finishes over the last two years in the Nextel Cup and Busch Series accumulated, theories abounded on what triggered the amazing comeback of the Richard Childress Racing team. The team was benefiting from greater use of technologies such as digital shape sampling and processing (DSSP) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) by engineers who know how to translate research results into on-track performance.
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Overcoming big challenges for small turbojet engines
One of the most challenging aspects in the development of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) is designing compact, lightweight propulsion systems for delivering the required performance. In one recent project, Tusas Engine Industries, based in Turkey, used finite element analysis (FEA) to develop the high-speed, precision radial compressor impeller for a microjet turbine engine to be used in UAV applications such as target drones.
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Top 5-Star Product: Desktop factory provides production systems in miniature
Physicists at the University of California, Berkeley, have built the smallest radio yet — a single carbon nanotube one ten-thousandth the diameter of a human hair that requires only a battery and earphones to tune in to your favorite station.
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Top Engineer's Toolbox: Remote-controlled LED board
Got the itch to trip some low-power lights fantastic? Well Texas Instruments has something for you to practice on — a wireless remote-control RGB light-emitting diode (LED) design kit.
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