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Engineering
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Engineering

Beyond small data limitations: Transfer learning-enabled framework for predicting mechanical properties of aluminum matrix composites

A research team led by Chang Keke from the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has developed an innovative machine learning framework (PAMCs-MP) for predicting the mechanical properties of particle-reinforced aluminum matrix composites (PAMCs). Despite limited existing datasets, the approach uses extensive pre-training on larger aluminium alloy datasets to guide multi-objective optimization tasks effectively. The model achieves high predictive accuracy, R² values of over 92% for ultimate tensile strength and over 90% for elongation, demonstrating ...

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Engineering

Surface-engineered ZnO nanocrystals to tackle perfluoroalkyl substance contamination

Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), a large class of synthetic chemicals, are valued for their ability to withstand heat, water, and oil. These materials are used in the production of everyday as well as industrial items. PFAS molecules are made up of a chain of carbon and fluorine atoms linked together. The energy required to break the carbon–fluorine (C–F) bond is extremely high, making these compounds durable and highly resistant to biological degradation. However, PFASs are also often called "forever chemicals,” as they do not degrade easily. This persistence leads to ongoing ...

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Engineering

Synergistic effects of single-crystal HfB2 nanorods: Simultaneous enhancement of mechanical properties and ablation resistance

Background Ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs), with their exceptional high-temperature stability, oxidation resistance, and ablation resistance, have become key materials for the thermal protection systems of hypersonic vehicles. However, ceramic materials constructed from traditional polycrystalline boride powders exhibit inherent defects under extreme service environments: grain boundaries, acting as preferential active regions for oxidation reactions and rapid diffusion channels for oxygen atoms, tend to trigger localized oxidation that spreads inward, ultimately leading to material structural damage and functional failure. ...

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Engineering

Multi-scale modelling framework predicts mechanical responses of Fe–Cr–Al alloys across composition and processing conditions

A new study published in AI Materials presents a comprehensive multi-scale computational framework capable of predicting the mechanical responses of Fe–Cr–Al alloys while incorporating both solid-solution effects and processing-induced microstructural evolution. By coupling Molecular Dynamics (MD), Phase-Field Method (PFM), and Finite Element Method (FEM) through a temperature-dependent crystal plasticity model, the work provides a pathway for quantitatively linking composition, microstructure, and mechanical performance within the broader context of the Materials Genome Initiative. Why This Matters Fe–Cr–Al alloys are among the leading candidates for accident-tolerant ...

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Engineering

EVs pose no greater risk to pedestrians than conventional vehicles

Under embargo until 4pm GMT/11am ET on Tuesday December 9, 2025 With images EVs Pose No Greater Risk to Pedestrians than Conventional Vehicles Electric vehicles (EVs) are no more dangerous to pedestrians than traditional petrol or diesel cars, according to a new study. Research by the University of Leeds into UK collisions involving pedestrians and cars found no significant difference in the pedestrian casualty rates between EVs and conventional vehicles. It ...

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Engineering

University of Utah engineers give a bionic hand a mind of its own

Whether you’re reaching for a mug, a pencil or someone’s hand, you don’t need to consciously instruct each of your fingers on where they need to go to get a proper grip. The loss of that intrinsic ability is one of the many challenges people with prosthetic arms and hands face. Even with the most advanced robotic prostheses, these everyday activities come with an added cognitive burden as users purposefully open and close their fingers around a target. Researchers at the University of Utah are now using artificial intelligence to solve this problem. By integrating proximity and pressure sensors into a commercial bionic hand, and then training ...

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Engineering

Cooperative Intermolecular Interactions Regulate Supramolecular Polymer Assembly

Supramolecular chemistry involves the study of self-assembly of discrete molecules that are used to build functional large structures. Often, these molecules are allowed to self-assemble into one-dimensional polymeric structures (supramolecular polymers or SPs) in a suitable environment, and the dynamic molecular interactions are noted for tweaking the environment and improving the features of the resulting SPs. They are being explored as the next-generation polymeric materials with applications in electronics, soft-robotics, ...

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Engineering

Engineering simulations rewrite the timeline of the evolution of hearing in mammals

One of the most important steps in the evolution of modern mammals was the development of highly sensitive hearing. The middle ear of mammals, with an eardrum and several small bones, allows us to hear a broad range of frequencies and volumes, which was a big help to early, mostly nocturnal mammal ancestors as they tried to survive alongside dinosaurs. New research by paleontologists from the University of Chicago shows that this modern mode of hearing evolved much earlier than previously thought. Working with detailed CT scans of the skull and jawbones of Thrinaxodon liorhinus, a 250-million-year-old mammal predecessor, they used engineering methods to simulate ...

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Engineering

Ultrafast material captures toxic PFAS at record speed and capacity

Researchers have developed a new material that captures harmful PFAS chemicals from water in a matter of seconds, offering a promising pathway to address one of today’s most persistent environmental threats. The study reports that a nitrate-intercalated layered double hydroxide can remove perfluorooctanoic acid, a widely detected PFAS contaminant, with an exceptional capacity of 1,702 milligrams per gram. PFAS, often called forever chemicals because of their extreme persistence, are commonly found in drinking water, soils, and even human blood. Traditional adsorbents such as activated carbon and biochar often struggle with limited ...

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Engineering

From field to lab: Rice study reveals how people with vision loss judge approaching vehicles

From field to lab: Rice study reveals how people with vision loss judge approaching vehicles Despite impaired central vision, participants relied on both vision and audition, offering new insight into mobility and safety Patricia DeLucia has spent decades studying something many of us never think about: judgments about collision that are crucial for safety. But the roots of her research stretch back to her childhood, long before she became a professor of psychological sciences at Rice University. “I grew up playing sports, and when you’re on the field, collision judgment is everything — whether a ball is coming at you, whether ...

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Engineering

Building better, building beautiful

A researcher from the University of Tokyo and a U.S.-based structural engineer developed a new computational form-finding method that could change how architects and engineers design lightweight and free-form structures covering large spaces. The technique specifically helps create gridshells, thin, curved surfaces whose members form a networked grid. The method makes use of NURBS surfaces, a widely used surface representation format in computer-aided design (CAD). It also drastically reduces computation cost — a task that previously took 90 hours on a high-end GPU completes in about 90 minutes on a standard CPU. Architects pay particular attention to surfaces capable of supporting ...

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Engineering

Invitation to co-edit a special issue on intelligent additive manufacturing

Researchers have introduced a new blockchain-enabled framework that could significantly advance dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) in future 6G wireless networks, addressing long-standing challenges in latency, security, and high-density spectrum coordination. Published in Blockchain, this work presents HierSpectrumChain, a hierarchical blockchain architecture that integrates smart-contract–driven Stackelberg auctions to coordinate spectrum access efficiently and securely among diverse wireless users. Dynamic spectrum sharing is essential for next-generation ...

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Engineering

New strategic support for UK clean industry with £2 million funding boost

The UK’s Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC), based at Heriot-Watt University, is excited to embark on a new strategic initiative, supported by £2 million from UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), to continue its vital work in catalysing industrial decarbonisation to support clean industrial growth. This funding represents a significant step forward in advancing the transition to a clean industrial future in the UK and builds on five successful years of IDRIC’s impact in driving industrial decarbonisation at pace and scale. Activity will centre ...

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Engineering

Structural racism and cultural misunderstanding compound grief for Black British and Black Caribbean communities, study finds

Inequities in how bereavement is experienced and supported among people of Black British and Black Caribbean heritage in England has been revealed in a new study led by the University of Bristol. The research, published in Death Studies today [2 December], calls for widespread changes to improve bereavement experiences and access to support for Black British and Black Caribbean communities. People from Black and other minoritised ethnic communities in the UK are known to face persistent health and social care inequities, including barriers to accessing bereavement ...

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Engineering

Water molecules in motion: Surprising dynamics on 2D materials

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers from Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) and the University of Surrey tested two ultra-thin, sheet-like materials with a honeycomb structure – graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). While graphene is electrically conductive – making it a key contender for future electronics, sensors and batteries – h-BN, often called ‘white graphite’, is a high-performance ceramic material and electrical insulator. Researchers found that this subtle difference completely changes how water interacts ...

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Engineering

Towards integrated data model for next-generation bridge maintenance

Japan is facing the urgent challenge of aging infrastructure, amidst ineffective linking of on-site experience and expertise with vast amounts of digital data in maintenance operations. This is especially the case for bridges across Japan. With a large number of bridges constructed during the rapid economic growth period, aging simultaneously, extensive inspection data and repair histories have been managed disparately across paper ledgers or departmental systems thus far, leading to inadequate integration between the experience of skilled engineers and digital data. To address this inefficiency, it is vital to leverage cutting-edge ...

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Engineering

Drones: An ally in the sky to help save elephants!

Key Findings Drones can be a valuable, non-invasive tool for observing elephant families and aiding long-term conservation efforts. Elephants can habituate to drones - showing fewer signs of disturbance both during a single flight and after repeated exposures. Disturbance behaviours were 70% less likely on successive drone flights. Careful flight protocols matter - when flown high (120 m or above), with a downwind approach, and steadily, drones cause minimal stress. Just under half of all trials showed no signs of disturbance, and those that did quickly returned to levels comparable with pre-exposure. The ...

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Engineering

Plants use engineering principles to push through hard soil

Across the globe, soil compaction is becoming an ever more serious challenge. Heavy vehicles and machinery in modern agriculture compress the soil to such an extent that crops struggle to grow. In many regions, the problem is aggravated by drought linked to climate change. But plants may in fact be able to solve part of the problem themselves – with a little help from us. It is already known that when soil becomes dense and difficult to penetrate, plants can respond by thickening their roots. Until now, however, it has remained unclear how they manage this, beyond the fact that the plant hormone ethylene plays a key role. Researchers from the University ...

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Engineering

New highly efficient material turns motion into power – without toxic lead

Embargoed copy of the research paper available on request Scientists have developed a new material that converts motion into electricity (piezoelectricity) with greater efficiency and without using toxic lead - paving the way for a new generation of devices that we use in everyday life. Publishing their discovery in Journal of the American Chemical Society today (26 Nov) researchers from the University of Birmingham, University of Oxford, and University of Bristol describe a material that is both durable and sensitive to movement - opening possibilities for a wide range of innovative devices such as sensors, wearable electronics, and self-powered devices.​ Based on bismuth iodide, an inorganic ...

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Engineering

Uniform reference system for lightweight construction methods

Lightweight components are generally designed with computer-based methods before being manufactured. There are various common methodologies. Because they use different physical and mathematical descriptions, however, direct comparisons are difficult. Moreover, the highly complex computation methods limit them to low spatial resolutions. With their Stress-Guided Lightweight 3D Designs (SGLDBench) benchmark, the researchers have succeeded in overcoming these serious obstacles. SGLDBench standardizes lightweight design methods SGLDBench permits six reference strategies such as classical topology optimization, ...

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Engineering

People in isolated cities in Africa suffer more violence against civilians

[Vienna, 19.11.2025]—Cities are often seen as hotspots of violence, with the assumption that larger cities are inherently more violent than smaller ones. This “universal law” of urban scaling has long shaped scientific thinking. But new research led by Complexity Science Hub (CSH) researcher Rafael Prieto-Curiel challenges this assumption. Published in Nature Communications, the study shows that it is not simply city size, but a city’s level of isolation, that plays a crucial role in determining violence in Africa. “Our analysis shows that the 10% most populous cities in Africa (216 cities in total) contain 66% of the urban population but only ...

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Engineering

KIMM launches initiative to establish a regional hub for mechanical researcher in Asia

The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (President Seog-Hyeon Ryu, hereinafter “KIMM”) has launched a new initiative to build a global research collaboration network connecting China and Vietnam, opening a new chapter in machinery technology cooperation across Asia. KIMM announced that it will significantly strengthen research collaboration with Jilin University (President Zhang Xi) in China in cutting-edge fields such as 3D printing, precision manufacturing, and biomimetic technology. On November 17 (Monday), KIMM President Seog-Hyeon ...

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Engineering

National team works to curb costly infrastructure corrosion

The University of Florida is part of a multi-university, interdisciplinary research team that will tackle the global challenge of halting corrosion of infrastructure, like bridges. Mitigating corrosion is a global challenge that costs the United States nearly half a trillion dollars annually. Current corrosion mitigation measures require costly chemical coatings, such as primers and top-coat layers, that cause human and environmental health risks. This project seeks to develop a coating system that uses naturally existing microbial biofilms growing on metal surfaces ...

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Engineering

AMP 2025 press materials available

Please note that each item in this release references a different embargo time! ROCKVILLE, Md. — Embargoed press materials are now available for the Association for Molecular Pathology 2025 Annual Meeting & Expo. Top clinicians, scientists and educators in the field will gather at the meeting Nov. 11–15 in Boston. Reporters are invited to attend an exciting lineup of in-person scientific sessions or access press materials electronically. See registration requirements. Featured research findings include: Using shelved DNA samples to understand the evolution of colorectal cancer Faster ...

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Engineering

Drones map loggerhead sea turtle nesting site hotspots

Florida’s beaches – particularly those in Palm Beach County – are among the world’s most vital nesting grounds for loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta), accounting for 90% of all loggerhead nests in the Southeastern United States. Where a sea turtle chooses to nest is a delicate balance between the energy spent searching for the right spot and the benefits that location provides for successful egg incubation. Because nest placement directly influences hatchling survival, emergence success, and even sex ratios, ...

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