US Navy

3D scanning: the achilles heel of IP protection for 3D printing

Jerry Fisher unexpectedly found himself in legal hot water after publishing 3D models of a famous Michelangelo statue located on Augustana College's campus. Mr. Fisher used hundreds of photographs of the statue to create a 3D model. After uploading the model to MakerBot's Thingiverse, Augustana College requested that Mr. Fisher take it down, on the grounds that he had violated copyright law.

Method for scaling up production of thin electronic material

Sheets of graphene and other materials that are virtually two-dimensional hold great promise for electronic, optical, and other high-tech applications. But the biggest limitation in unleashing this potential has been figuring out how to make these materials in the form of anything larger than tiny flakes.

Realizing carbon nanotube integrated circuits

Individual transistors made from carbon nanotubes are faster and more energy efficient than those made from other materials. Going from a single transistor to an integrated circuit full of transistors, however, is a giant leap.

World's largest ocean thermal plant

Makai Ocean Engineering celebrates the completion of the world's largest operational Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority.

Electric vehicle end game: self-powered, energy autonomous

The end-game with electric vehicles by land, water and air is for them to be self-powered. They will create all their electricity from ambient energy such as light, wind, waves and tide where necessary storing it until needed.

Graphene gets competition

Graphene, the only one atom thick carbon network, achieved overnight fame with the 2010 Nobel Prize. But now comes competition: Such layers can also be formed by black phosphorous.

Sol-gel capacitor dielectric offers record-high energy storage

Using a hybrid silica sol-gel material and self-assembled monolayers of a common fatty acid, researchers have developed a new capacitor dielectric material that provides an electrical energy storage capacity rivaling certain batteries, with both a high energy density and high power density.

Tough biogel structures produced by 3-D printing

Researchers have developed a new way of making tough biocompatible materials, called "hydrogels," into complex and intricately patterned shapes.

Wave generator supplies grid power in Hawaii

Northwest Energy Innovations, LLC has developed the Azura™ wave power generation technology for converting the endless supply of ocean waves into electricity to meet the rapidly growing global demand for renewable energy.

Advanced Electric Drive - the ultimate propulsion for quiet ships

Propulsion systems of tomorrow must provide optimum performance over the whole mission range, concerning efficiency, reliability, redundancy and low noise.

Boosting confidence in new manufacturing technologies

DARPA's Open Manufacturing program seeks to build and demonste rapid qualification technologies that comprehensively capture, analyze and control variability in the manufacturing process to predict the properties of resulting products.

Bulletproof battery

New battery technology from the University of Michigan should be able to prevent the kind of fires that grounded Boeing 787 Dreamliners in 2013.

Atom-thick CCD could capture images

An atomically thin material may lead to the thinnest-ever imaging platform.

Simple way to make material for energy storage, electronics

Researchers have created flexible, patterned sheets of multilayer graphene from a cheap polymer by burning it with a computer-controlled laser.

Operational wave energy project

Wave energy developer Carnegie Wave Energy Limited is pleased to announce that the first of its new generation CETO 5 wave energy units has been successfully installed and is operating at its Perth Wave Energy Project site off Garden Island, Western Australia.

Robot fleet observes marine life in the open ocean

A fleet of seven robotic vehicles were launched into the ocean off southwest England this week, in the most ambitious project of its kind in Europe. The vehicles are aiming to travel up to 300 miles over the next 20 days, and will be collecting scientific data about ocean processes and marine life.

Research shows how giant clams harness the sun

Evolution in extreme environments has produced life forms with amazing abilities and traits.

Crumpled graphene could provide an unconventional energy storage

Researchers have now found that crumpling a piece of graphene "paper" — a material formed by bonding together layers of the two-dimensional form of carbon — can actually yield new properties that could be useful for creating extremely stretchable supercapacitors to store energy for flexible electronic devices.

New technology may lead to prolonged power in mobile devices

Researchers have created technology that could be the first step toward wearable computers with self-contained power sources or, more immediately, a smartphone that doesn't die after a few hours of heavy use.