Though gas ovens are considered more energy efficient than electric ovens, they still face challenges with dissipation of heat into the environment. Porous volumetric ceramic burners are a combustion technology that may improve heat transfer in gas ovens, and researchers in Germany investigated the technology’s heat transfer mechanisms to better illuminate its potential.
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Common lithographic techniques used to etch patterns onto a surface run into difficulties when cutting 2D materials. Researchers at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne developed a thermal scanning probe lithography method that can cut the smallest reported feature for a direct cutting method to date.
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Thermal energy storage technologies are one way to store energy generated from renewable sources. But producing materials that can contain the high-temperature and corrosive materials integral to this technology is an ongoing area of research. Two recent ACerS journal articles explore methods of fabricating C/C-SiC CMCs for use as container materials.
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Although chocolate is a simple pleasure for many people around the world, the science behind chocolate as a food and as a material is deliciously complex. Now an industrial designer has re-engineered the chocolate chip to maximize taste and texture, giving it optimal surface area with angular features.
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Determining viscosity of a glass through experiment is a slow and expensive process. In two recent papers published in JACerS, Penn State professor John Mauro and his colleagues show how it can be predicted much easier by using dilatometry and DSC to calculate parameters for a glass viscosity model that was proposed in 2009.
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What happens when a company specializing in industrial heating technologies teams up with a seasoned pizzaiolo? You get a Neapolitan pizza cooked in record time! Find out how Kanthal engineers created the fast-baking electric oven.
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It is one thing to develop a new material or process—but improving existing materials and processes is also important in making better products. Two papers in the May-June issue of International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology focus on improving effectivity of existing processes.
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Ultrahigh-temperature ceramics are promising materials for protecting aircraft wings from friction during hypersonic flight—but thermal shock can cause these ceramics to crack. In the cover article for the March 2020 International Journal of Ceramic Engineering & Science, researchers in China report how wing shape affects thermal shock behavior of UHTCs.
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Performing microscale experiments at ultrahigh temperatures is difficult because the high heat can destroy the testing mechanisms. Researchers demonstrated a new method, which combines targeted laser heating and transmission electron microscopy, that may overcome this problem.
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By incorporating electrospun nanofibers, The North Face’s new Futurelight gear is designed to be more breathable and lightweight than any other performance material currently on the market.
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