Engineering eye: September 2015

News, rumours and gossip from the world of engineering

Calling all Trekkies… Following on from last month’s Star Trek-related news, Eye is delighted to have discovered that engineers have developed a futuristic material that once featured in the TV series. The strong and lightweight ‘transparent aluminium’ was used to make the windows of the spaceship USS Enterprise. Now, the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has made its own version that is much “tougher, stronger and harder than glass” and dubbed ‘Spinnel’. It is created by pressing a nanopowder of magnesium aluminate at high pressure into a mould and heating, before polishing. NRL says it could be used for protective products for hostile environments or laser safety windows. Eye hopes further developments occur at warp speed.

In 2013, Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla Motors and all-round ‘big thinker’, suggested a novel form of transport called the ‘hyperloop’: a network of above-ground tubes that would span hundreds of miles. Low pressure in the tubes would propel capsules filled with passengers at near-supersonic speed. While it sounded like a pipe dream to Eye, a US firm called Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has signed agreements to work with Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum and engineering design firm Aecom to develop a prototype. Construction of the prototype is set to begin in 2016. Eye will watch progress with a healthy dash of scepticism.

• If you have any news, rumours or gossip, emai engineering.eye.profeng@gmail.com