The UK economy is said to have clawed its way out of its deepest recession since the 1930s, but are we out of the woods yet? Gary Price and Rachel Connolly talk to representatives from various technical communities about the difficult financial year that has passed and what may lie ahead.
A solar-powered implant could give sight to the blind, according to its developers at Stanford University, USA. Miniature photovoltaic (PV) cells are being used to power a chip placed behind the retina to process light and data through the eye to the brain.
Air hardened, mineral-bound foam concretes that can be produced cost effectively for load-bearing structures, are now available, say researchers at the Technische Universitaet Dortmund, Germany. Ultraporcrete is said to combine the strength, low density and good
heat insulation of cellular and foam concrete, without
the need for energy intensive autoclave manufacturing.
A low-birefringence synthetic chemical vapour deposition (CVD) diamond could pave the way to more robust and compact lasers that operate at a wider wavelength range with high beam quality. This could open up further applications in the harsh or restricted environments of sensor systems, ophthalmology, and underwater and medical imaging.
Show jumper by night and materials engineer by day, Danielle Burrows straddles both areas comfortably. The engineer at BAE Systems’ site in Blackburn, UK, chats to Rupal Mehta about how her unflappable attitude towards new challenges and pressures has helped her settle into her job with no previous materials background.
Introducing glazing materials after secondary metallurgy could reduce the environmental impact of ladle furnace (LF) slag, a by-product of steelmaking.
The technique is designed
to make the slag easier to
handle while reducing powder dispersion.
A UK team is developing a micromechanical statistical model to help predict the mechanical durability of glass multifilament bundles used to reinforce elastomers.
A UK consortium is modelling how trisiloxane surfactants ‘superspread’ across hydrophobic surfaces at the nanoscale. The aim is to develop guidelines for synthesising safer surfactants and provide advice on how to control the stages of spreading to suit a particular application
Real-time monitoring of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) production is now possible, claim researchers in Germany. Their technique uses a combination of laser reflectance measurements and video monitoring to follow ethylene polymerisation in stirred slurries under different conditions.
