Concentrating solar power plants use a large array of mirrors to focus the sun’s rays and capture their heat, which boils water for steam turbines to produce electricity. The technology and systems in these massive…
The magnetic soft robots in Yunus Alapan’s lab on the third floor of the Mechanical Engineering Building on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus don’t look like complex miniature droids or anything you’d find in a…
There’s a booming industry demand for microchips, which are used in virtually all electronic devices today. But meeting that demand is challenging for chipmakers, because current mechatronic systems have reached the limit for how fast…
Sleep was on Nicolas Greaves and his groupmates’ to-do list. But, with motors to test, force calculations to crunch, prototype components to 3D print and more, the tasks kept stacking up. In the end, Greaves…
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is leading a major multi-institution project to develop and test a critical fusion technology—research that will directly benefit commercial fusion power plant developers. A $19 million Fusion Innovative Research Engine (FIRE)…
Digital twins—virtual representations of real-world objects or systems such as a jet engine or power plant—are powerful computational tools for enabling engineers to better design, analyze, control and optimize complex systems. Unlike traditional modeling and…
A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers has developed a sensor that can be easily integrated with high-temperature molten salt systems to safely monitor the salt’s purity. The sensor, which can withstand the harsh environment…
University of Wisconsin-Madison mechanical engineers have developed a comprehensive framework that accelerates improvements to shock-absorbing foam materials. The materials have an array of uses ranging from sports or military helmet liners to struts that cushion…
After setting out to create a flexible sensor that could aid his advisors’ examination of the mechanical forces behind traumatic brain injury, Sinan Candan hit a roadblock. While economical and useful, the sensor he’d developed…
When a multimillion-dollar extraterrestrial vehicle gets stuck in soft sand or gravel — as did the Mars rover Spirit in 2009 — Earth-based engineers take over like a virtual tow truck, issuing a series of…