Engineering news
100,000,000ºC Chinese reactor blazes way forwards for fusion energy
New Atlas
"Clean, limitless" energy could be closer, reported New Atlas, after a Chinese tokamak reactor reached a core plasma temperature of over 100,000,000ºC – six times hotter than inside the Sun.
Almost half of engineers believe Brexit will make skills gap worse
Professional Engineering
Forty-seven per cent of engineers believe Brexit will increase the skills gap as employers struggle to hire talented foreign workers, new research has revealed. The work also found that 73% of the 400 professionals surveyed said the government needs to give more clarity on how leaving the EU will affect industry.
Army launches robotic warfare exercise
E&T
British troops are testing more than 70 autonomous technologies on Salisbury Plain, including drones and unmanned vehicles. Some have expressed concern about the increasing use of drone warfare.
James Dyson Award for innovative wind turbine
The Guardian
Lancaster University students Nicolas Orellana and Yaseen Noorani won the award and £30,000 for their creative solution to urban wind currents. The device, which slightly resembles a lampshade, takes advantage of vertical and horizontal wind to generate electricity.
A weakness for graphene
New Atlas
Despite years of hype, graphene has so far failed to live up to expectations. One contributing reason could be very simple, a new report found – most of the time, material sold as graphene is actually formed of less than 10% of the 'wonder material'.
Chinese plane market taking off
Aerospace Manufacturing
China will need more than 7,000 new aircraft over the next 20 years at a cost of over $1tn, Airbus research has found.
'Major step' in IoT miniaturisation claimed
Professional Engineering
Researchers have claimed a “major step” in the accelerating spread of the Internet of Things (IoT), creating a low-cost, battery-free ‘wake-up timer’ to make sensor power consumption 1,000 times lower than previously possible. It is reportedly so efficient that it runs using an on-chip solar cell with a diameter close to that of a human hair.
Are robots the solution to low UK productivity?
The Manufacturer
British firms and the government must buy more robots to help improve productivity, the head of a trade organisation has said.
McLaren opens £50m composite materials centre
The Engineer
The esteemed automotive manufacturer opened the centre in Yorkshire to "cement its status as a world-leader in lightweight materials technology", The Engineer reported.
New approach promises better batteries
Tech Xplore
Another week, another reported battery breakthrough. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University were the latest to claim faster charging and longer-lasting possibilities with their "three-dimensional, cross-linked polymer sponge" that attaches to the metal plating of a battery anode.
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