Building a precast masonry-arch bridge that lasts centuries

Masonry arch bridges are some of the most beautiful bridges in the world. This type of construction goes back to Roman days and, in fact, some of the surviving bridges are over 2,000 years old. Although they are strong, long-lasting, and aesthetically pleasing to the eye, traditional arch bridges are expensive and time-consuming to build. As a result, most arch bridges built since the 1970s have been constructed from steel-reinforced concrete arches and slabs, which are faster and cheaper ...

UCC engineering students build shelters for refugees and displaced people

Walls made of cardboard, roofs unrolled like cling film and interlocking pods that can expand or contract depending on how many people they need to accommodate. These are some of the ideas put in to practice by civil engineering students at University College Cork (UCC), who have designed and built shelters for refugees and displaced persons. Working under the mentorship of Akiboye Connolly Architects, the students designed their shelters following briefings from UNHCR (the United Nations ...

No sweat – engineers design moisture-responsive workout suit

A team of engineers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has designed a breathable workout suit with ventilating flaps that open and close in response to an athlete’s body heat and sweat. These flaps, which range from thumbnail- to finger-sized, are lined with live microbial cells that shrink and expand in response to changes in humidity. The cells act as tiny sensors and actuators, driving the flaps to open when an athlete works up a sweat, and pulling them closed when the ...

Trinity research finds new magnetic materials and finds them fast

The love affair between mankind and magnetic materials has been continuing for two thousand years and does not show any sign of losing steam. From the invention of the compass, which enabled the 11th-century Chinese dynasty of Song to embark on long-distance navigation, magnetic materials have been key to developments in human technology. Today, magnets are everywhere in our life. The hard disk of our computer is composed of billions of tiny magnets and the device that reads and writes ...

Optimisation of film-coating suspension mixing for vessel scale-up

Rebecca Power is studying chemical and biopharmaceutical engineering in Cork Institute of Technology. She undertook her industrial placement in a pharmaceutical company. This article describes the final-year research project she subsequently completed for the client pharmaceutical company. [caption id="attachment_35810" align="alignright" width="300"] Fig 1: Film coating pan and tablet cores (Ima Pharma, 2017)[/caption] The formulation of excipients and active pharmaceutical ...

Application of sewage sludge to farmland can damage environment and human health

Sewage sludge is the organic by-product of urban wastewater treatment. The production of sewage sludge in Ireland, similar to other European countries, has generally increased: in 2015, for example, more than 58,000 tonnes of sewage sludge was produced. This is largely attributable to the implementation of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive and other legislative measures. In Ireland, approximately 80% of treated sewage sludge (‘biosolids’) is reused on agricultural land (Table 1), ...

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