Engineering News Today, September 2009

China, the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, is also the fastest growing market for wind power.

In a recently published study by members of Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, it was determined that China could meet future electricity needs with wind power by 2030.

Using meteorological, geographical, and price guarantees, the study determined that wind power could be delivered profitably and would greatly improve China’s air quality. Read full article

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On September 22, the Gates Center for Computer Science and the Hillman Center for Future-Generation Technologies will be officially opened.

The linked buildings on the Carnegie Mellon University campus will house laboratories, an auditorium, classrooms, offices, and more.

Along with information about the opening ceremony, reports have been released about the ‘green features’ of the two buildings. Included in the features are roofs that limit energy loss and collect rain water for building use, 310 windows, and individual ‘smart’ thermostats in every room. Read article

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Mehdi Saiidi, of the University of Nevada, Reno, has been researching how to keep earthquake-damaged bridges working after a quake.

By noticing that “bridge components tend to break in a predictable order,” Saiidi has proposed the use of a shape-memory alloy, which can ‘remember’ its original shape even after being drastically altered, in the making of bridge parts most likely to fail.

He proposes that this would keep the bridges from snapping during a quake and enable them to return to ‘more or less’ their original shape after the quake. This would be an important step in allowing increased activity of emergency crews after an earthquake. Read more

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