This episode of Designing the Future is brought to you by Bentley Systems.

Engineering is applied science. It’s also an art, the confluence of creativity and blue sky thinking, constrained by physics. For large engineering projects, particularly in the civil engineering space, it’s also about project management. The marriage of great designs, with great planning and high-performance execution delivers projects that arrive on time, on budget and to specification. The bigger the project, the greater the complexity, and problems can scale exponentially with that complexity.

Today, there are new factors. Mass collaboration across a city, a nation or around the world is common for large engineering projects, and it’s a given that very large projects involve more than one software platform. Factors such as regulatory compliance, and data security are also in play, as well as real questions about the emergence of new technology. It’s a big subject, and it’s important.

engineering.com’s Jim Anderton spoke with Julien Moutte, chief technology officer for Bentley Systems, about the current state-of-the-art in big project engineering technology.

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Learn more about Bentley’s engineering software and digital-twin-powered, AI-driven capabilities for complex and dynamic infrastructure lifecycle.

The post Advanced technology delivers big engineering projects on time and on budget appeared first on Engineering.com.

As the pace of technological change accelerates, keeping up is becoming increasingly difficult. Whether it’s the operating systems on our laptops, new versions of our smart phones, or the new and unfamiliar features of a new car, change is inevitable. For manufacturers, each new generation of production equipment is smarter than the last, and that added capability means more information generated by each machine, at a faster rate.

A major promise of the Internet of Things is the ability to keep control of multiple machines in a production line or plantwide, frequently with multiple pieces of equipment from different manufacturers, often running different software, all under the control of manufacturing engineers who must make sense of the data and turn it into actionable insight. Older, legacy equipment can be retrofitted in most cases with IoT capability. How can users of older, legacy equipment integrate new machines into existing production processes without creating chaos?

Jim Anderton spoke with Bill Dykas, product manager for Telit IoT Platforms on connecting old and new equipment in the age of the Internet of Things. 

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The post Connecting Old and New Equipment Through the Internet of Things  appeared first on Engineering.com.

Both the former Biden and now Trump Administration’s rejection of the proposed buyout of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel will represent a turning point for the iconic American corporation. Nippon Steel has the investment capital and the technology to turn around U.S. Steel, but political considerations, especially in the new administration, mean that the future of U.S. Steel is very much in doubt.

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The post Why the Nippon Steel/US Steel Buyout is Critical for US Manufacturing appeared first on Engineering.com.

This episode is brought to you by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Visit asme.org to learn more.

With NASA preparing for the 2026 launch of Artemis 2, the first human crew to fly to the moon in over half a century, along expensive development process for NASA’s lunar program is entering flight status. SpaceX is there too, having secured the contract to produce the lunar lander which future astronauts will use for surface exploration. Both NASA and SpaceX have developed heavy lift launchers with very similar performance characteristics for their respective payloads.

Comparisons are inevitable, but at this point in the development cycle, Artemis has the lead with the Space Launch System having already demonstrated circumlunar capability, as well as proven reliability with space shuttle derived engines and solid rocket boosters. SpaceX brings reusability and lower launch costs to the table, system that can be readily reconfigured for multiple tasks. Each has a specific mission in the overall program, but with pressure mounting in the new administration to cut costs, and Elon Musk operating in an advisory role to the government, speculation is rife that the Space Launch System could be cancelled. 

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The post Will SpaceX Take Over the NASA Space Launch System?  appeared first on Engineering.com.

This episode is brought to you by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Visit asme.org to learn more.

The technology of primary steelmaking has always been based on smelting. Heat iron ores into a melt in a chemically reducing atmosphere, and the result is elemental iron, the basic building block of all ferrous alloys. And that smelting process hasn’t changed in principle for hundreds of years, with coal derived coke providing both the heat and the chemistry needed to make iron in commercial quantities. But it’s a batch process, and to scale it economically requires large equipment and investment.

A radically new technology called flash steelmaking has been developed in China, which reacts iron ore powders explosively, in seconds, compared to hours for conventional techniques using blast furnaces. If practical, the technique could make steelmaking a profitable business at small and large scale, everywhere 

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The post Explosive Technology Could Change a Century of Steelmaking Technology  appeared first on Engineering.com.

From the dawn of aviation, industry built a technological base on small-scale entrepreneurs. The Wright brothers were the original startup, and today, a more sophisticated breed of small firms are working to restart supersonic commercial flight, stalled since the retirement of Concorde. It’s a daunting task, and most companies don’t make it to the hardware stage.

Torrance, California-based Exosonic is the latest to fail, announcing their closure due to a cash shortfall, despite USAF interest in drone variants of their supersonic technology. Meanwhile, Boom Supersonic has moved to flight testing of a technology demonstrator called XB-1, as part of an ambitious program to develop a commercial airliner and a new jet engine to power it.  

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The post One supersonic jet company flies, another crashes  appeared first on Engineering.com.

A key plank in the Donald Trump election platform was the widespread implementation of tariffs on goods imported into the United States. Historically, tariffs have been a popular strategy to boost domestic employment, but the globalized supply chains over the last 30 years have changed the way most production goods are manufactured. What happens to the cost of US production if critical inputs face tariffs?

A test case may be the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, a major commercial aircraft program which was designed from the outset to have a widely distributed supply chain of major assemblies, with Boeing acting as an integrator and final assembler of those components. Special exemptions will likely be built into any tariff policy for American firms building globalized products. 

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The post The complexity of Trump’s proposed tariffs appeared first on Engineering.com.

The Boeing Starliner crewed spacecraft program was initiated by NASA to provide a second source for human lift to low Earth orbit, ensuring access to space in case of difficulties with the SpaceX Crew Dragon system. Program delays, cost overruns and hardware problems with both the Starliner uncrewed test flight, and the first passenger carrying trip to the ISS, have placed the future the program in question. 

Elon Musk, owner of SpaceX, is expected to form an important part of the incoming Trump Administration, with an anticipated role in improving government efficiency. Could that role include the cancellation of the Starliner program? Everything may depend on the next flight of Starliner. If successful, the economics would suggest continuation of the program. If not, and with the Sierra Space Dream Chaser vehicle nearing flight status, the Starliner program may be on the bubble. 

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The post What happens to Boeing’s Starliner now? appeared first on Engineering.com.

The space launch industry in the 21^st century has been characterized by a shift away from traditional, large aerospace companies to smaller startup firms. Light and medium lift to low earth orbit is widely believed to be a huge growth opportunity in mid-century, if costs can be kept under control.

Reusability is widely believed to be the key to low cost, and a new entrant, Stoke Space, is developing a medium lift launch system called Nova which promises to compete with the SpaceX Falcon 9 system, with full reusability and rapid vehicle turnaround. Nova is being developed with advanced technologies, especially in the second stage, including a regeneratively cooled metallic heatshield, and a propulsion system that takes advantage of aerospike principles. 

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The post A new SpaceX competitor goes for the medium lift orbital market appeared first on Engineering.com.

During the Cold War, most nations on Earth had three choices: ally with United States, with the Soviet Union, or attempt to maintain nonaligned status. With rapid advancement in aviation technology after World War II, most nations realize the need for high-performance military aircraft for national security, but the highest performance airplanes and weapon systems came from either the United States or the Soviet Union. Until French aerospace company Dassault developed the Mirage 3.

The Mirage 3 offered supersonic capability on a par with the fastest military aircraft in the world, combined with a simple, maintainable airframe and critically, used French derived engines, radars, and weapon systems. And to the Mirage weapon system could be purchased on a cash and carry basis, giving nonaligned nations the ability to procure high-technology aircraft without the political entanglements of the Cold War power structure. In the process, it cemented France as a major global power in the advanced aerospace sector, a status the country enjoys today. 

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The post How this French airplane changed everything appeared first on Engineering.com.