This Week in Engineering

The General Electric/Safran partnership CFM International has been renewed to 2050, and the company has announced a game changing engine program that promises to deliver 20% lower CO2 emissions compared to current state-of-the-art turbofans. The engine will use advanced materials and notably, an open rotor design. High bypass turbofans may yet give way to propellers. BYD has made the first move in...

Volkswagen has taken the unusual step of going after the firm’s former board members involved in the diesel emissions scandal. Several key figures, led by former chief executive Martin Winterkorn, will pay millions of euros to Volkswagen to settle claims around their involvement in the emissions cheating scheme. Volkswagen’s insurer will take the biggest hit, over €270 million. In an aviation firs...

In another cyber-attack on critical American industry, meat processing major JBS suffered an attack which shut down several meat processing plants in the US, Canada and Australia. At its worst, the attack stopped 20% of US beef production. Russian hackers are suspected. Italian tire maker Pirelli has introduced a low rolling resistance tire for hybrid SUVs that uses latex harvested with sustainabl...

The UK-based University of Manchester and Nationwide Engineering have test poured a commercial concrete slab using a mix reinforced with graphene instead of the usual rebar, and the results show 30% better strength per unit volume, and an unexpected benefit: lower CO2 emissions. Automotive Tier 1 heavyweight Denso Corporation has formed an alliance with aerospace systems supplier Honeywell to deve...

The Biden Administration has quietly dropped a key sanction that both Democrats and Republicans have been using to block the completion of the Russia to Germany Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. While the administration has announced that their opposition to the line continues, it’s scheduled to be completed by mid-summer. Automotive Tier One major Mahle has developed a new type of electric traction mot...

The mysterious cyber-attack on the Colonial gasoline pipeline this week created something unseen in America since the late 1970s: gas lines at filling stations. Panic buying appears to have made the problem much worse, and critical infrastructure that’s cloud connected is now under the microscope. With the Biden Administration and other world governments examining the possibility of removing intel...

NASCAR is America’s favorite motorsport, but it has been historically resistant to change. With the launch of their Next Gen car, the sanctioning body has moved in a single leap from steel bodied, solid axle 1980s technology to full modern race car technology. Baidu’s Apollo AI business has launched a robotaxi system in Beijing, using factory equipped luxury cars in one of the future venues for th...

With the combination of Covid 19 related supply chain disruptions and a major fire at a critical supplier, Ford Motor Company is reporting that the shortage of semiconductors will result in 50% production setback in the second quarter. To compensate, the company is moving to an online sales model with lower dealer inventory levels. The heavy equipment industry is an important leading indicator for...

Engineers can find inspiration anywhere. Past designs, nature and scientific breakthroughs are great fodder for these new ideas. However, one of the oldest sources for the dreams we have of tomorrow is the art of science fiction. On today’s special May the 4th episode, we see how engineers can dream up future technologies to expand the quality of life for the differently abled. Obvious examples ar...

Robotic drone delivery for small parcels and last mile applications are in development everywhere these days, and major air framers like Boeing have been working on cockpit automation for decades, but what about the space in between? California startup Xwing has demonstrated fully autonomous gate to gate operation of a Cessna 208 cargo aircraft, a type commonly used for short intercity light cargo...

Communication satellites orbit 22,000 miles above the earth to provide wide area coverage as the earth rotates. That’s a long way up, and once solid propellants are depleted, orienting the spacecraft becomes impossible and the satellite is retired. Northrop Grumman has demonstrated a new robotic service satellite that attaches to communication satellites to provide orientation and extend their ser...

Rolls Royce has started construction of the world’s largest turbofan engine, called UltraFan. The 140-inch diameter fan of the engine is not only a record, but will help the engine achieve a 25 percent lower fuel burn than existing designs of similar thrust. Reduction gearing keeps blade tip velocities manageable and advanced digital twin technology tracks the history of each blade. NASA’s Space S...

Swedish airplane maker Saab has tested a new application for 3D printing: aircraft battle damage repair. Using a Gripen jet fighter as a test subject, the company has flown an external access panel 3D printed from an engineering grade of nylon, with good results. The company worked from a part scan, rather than a CAD file and hopes to make the process portable for field use in austere conditions....

Two former SpaceX engineers have formed a startup to develop a composite, piggyback air transportation system that combines vertical takeoff drones with fixed wing aircraft for downtown-to-downtown intercity transportation. It’s all electrically powered, but can it really work? Also this week, Volkswagen has placed a massive 14 billion-dollar order with Sweden’s Northvolt that will result in a maj...

Thermal power generation is all about converting heat into rotational motion, and for grid scale generation that means steam turbines. Scaling factors matter in turbine efficiency, and General Electric has delivered a new record in single blade low pressure turbine technology with a 75-inch blade. It will be used in very large steam turbines to be installed in the British Hinkley Point C nuclear p...

SpaceX’s torrid lunch rate continues, and last week the test vehicle was Starship serial number 10, which rose to 10 km before settling down on his landing pad. A post landing fire destroyed the vehicle, but SpaceX has already rolled out the next test vehicle for possible flight this week. The speed with which SpaceX flies is unprecedented in the space launch industry. If it works, the company may...

Boeing Australia has announced the first flight of the company’s new Loyal Wingman unmanned combat aircraft as part of the Royal Australian Air Force’s Airpower Teaming System. The ongoing global semiconductor shortage has taken a toll on auto production, and now it’s affecting consumer goods as well. In a rare collaboration between two major players in the highly competitive pharmaceutical indust...

Besides NASA’s spectacular delivery of the perseverance rover to the surface of Mars, there was a lot going on in spaceflight this week. The ISS received two visitors, Starlink continues to build their constellation, and Paraguay joined the satellite club. Closer to Earth, Pratt and Whitney turbofans suffered uncontrolled blade failures on Boeing 777 and 747 aircraft in two separate incidents, pro...

The Learjet brand, currently owned by Bombardier, announced that in the fourth quarter of this year, Wichita Kansas based Learjet production will end forever. A project milestone was reached this week for the ITER nuclear reactor in France as critical component manufacturing began in Europe, specifically the vacuum vessel blanket that isolates the reactor from superhot nuclear plasma. Texas power...

On today's episode, NASA’s Gateway program will create the first long-term lunar orbiting space station, to support lunar missions under the Artemis program. The agency has announced that Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been chosen to launch the two core elements of the Gateway complex. When architects or engineers need transparency, they choose glass or polymers. That may be changing, however. Newly devel...

On today's episode, The U.S. Army’s Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft program, intended to create a new generation of multipurpose combat rotorcraft, has selected two finalists: Lockheed’s Raider X, and Bell’s 360 Invictus. A team from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems, School of Physics at the University of Sydney in Australia has created a novel IC that uses circuit...

On today's episode, Biden signed an executive order that the administration declares is a substantial update of “buy American" legislation. Loon was a Google X R&D project begun in 2011 to use a network of balloons operating in the stratosphere at altitudes as high as 16 miles to create a wireless network with up to 1 Mb per second download speeds. The project was promising enough to be spun o...

On today's episode, there's a new headwind for automakers worldwide: a shortage of integrated circuits. ICs have proliferated in modern automobiles, with some models containing up to 150 chips, and multiple automakers have begun shutdowns due to the supply crunch. Newly inaugurated Pres. Joe Biden spent his first day in office by signing a flurry of executive orders, 17 in all. Two of the orders h...

On today's episode, after half a century, the most iconic program in aerospace engineering history is drawing to a close. Atlas Air Worldwide has ordered four Boeing 747-8 freighters for delivery through October 2022, representing the last 747s to be built in the program. With the success of Tesla and the rapid introduction of competing electric vehicles from mainstream auto manufacturers, it look...

U.S. manufacturing is set to soar in 2021, software dominates the car of 2030 and PSA and FCA spawn Stellantis.