Led by scientists at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, researchers turned to an unlikely model to make medical devices safer and more comfortable: a squid’s beak. Many medical implants require hard materials that have to connect to or pass through soft body tissue. This mechanical mismatch leads to problems such as skin breakdown at abdominal feeding tubes in stroke patients and where wires pass through the chest to power assistive heart pumps. Enter: the squid.
Engineering students around the world have just three months to take part in the global Valeo Innovation Challenge. The goal of the Valeo Innovation Challenge is to design equipment that, between now and 2030, will make cars more intelligent and intuitive. Students taking part in the challenge must develop bold, revolutionary solutions for the cars of 2030. Projects must be submitted to the contest’s dedicated website by February 14, 2014.
Applied Materials Inc., Santa Clara, Calif., and Tokyo Electron Ltd., Japan, announce a definitive agreement to merge into a new company whose name has not been released. This combination brings together complementary leading technologies and products to create an expanded set of capabilities in precision materials engineering and patterning. The companies expect the transaction to close in mid to second half of 2014.
Thermal Spray Technologies, Sun Prairie, Wis., in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, helped to develop innovative thermal spray coatings to improve heat protection and fuel efficiency in the next generation of jet turbine engines. The team’s experimental results were published in the August issue of the Journal of Thermal Spray Technologies in an article titled “Application of Plasma Spraying as a Precursor in the Synthesis of Oxidation Resistant Coatings.
Siemens Industry Inc., Washington, D.C., and consortium partner Midrex Technologies Inc., Charlotte, N.C., has received an order from the Austrian Voestalpine group to build a direct iron reduction plant in the United States. The Midrex plant will be constructed near the city of Corpus Christi, Texas. It is designed to produce two million metric tons of hot briquetted iron (HBI) per year, making it the largest single module of this type worldwide.
