Energy

Prototype Aims to Reduce Fuel Use, Improve Tactical Vehicle Performance

The Defense Department maintains a fleet of more than 250,000 tactical vehicles, which frequently operate in austere conditions. These vehicles often spend as much...

Turning Thermal Energy into Electricity Could Help Soldiers

With the addition of sensors and enhanced communication tools, providing lightweight, portable power has become even more challenging. Army-funded research demonstrated a new...

NRL’s Hybrid Tiger UAV Soars at Demonstration

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory engineers recently demonstrated Hybrid Tiger, an electric unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with multi-day endurance flight capability. The team integrated...

Design of New Piezoelectric Composites Using Nanocellulose

Using cellulose crystals as building blocks for the design and development of new low-density functional polymer composites.

Deformation Sensing in Soft Bio-Surrogate Materials

Accurate measurement of deformations occurring within or on soft materials will advance the next class of soft robotics and wearable biomedical sensors.

Energy Harvesting for Soft-Matter Machines and Electronics

A new class of soft multifunctional materials could be used to convert mechanical deformation from vibrations and stretching into electrical energy.

Calculating Electrical Requirements for Direct Current Electric Actuators

When designing electro-mechanically actuated systems, there are several electrical design requirements that must be determined.

Shape-Shifting Origami Could Help Antenna Systems Adapt On-the-Fly

Conventional reconfigurable electrical and radio frequency (RF) structures commonly used in applications involving real-time reconfigurability in response to fast varying...

From LASER World of PHOTONICS 2019: Light as the Key to Global Sustainability

The increased use of photonics has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions — by 3-billion tons.

Permeation Tests on Polypropylene Fiber Materials

The Toxic Industrial Chemical/Toxic Industrial Material (TIC/TIM) Task Force MFR#1 published in February 2009 focuses on inhalation hazards in an operational environment and provides a list...

Nanotube Yarns Generate Electricity When Stretched

Scientists at The University of Texas at Dallas and South Korea’s Hanyang University have developed tiny, high-tech yarns that generate electricity when stretched or twisted. The...

Energy Harvesting Could Help Power Spacecraft of the Future

A consortium is working on a project to maximize energy harvesting on a spacecraft of the future. The initiative seeks to find energy-saving and -maximizing solutions to enable...