For many, the Middle Ages is not seen as a period of great technological development, especially in the field of mechanical engineering. The period is generally agreed to lie between the fall of Rome in 476 AD and the Renaissance of the 14th century it is often seen as the doldrums of human advancement. It is often seen as a period of burning books, superstition, and all-out warfare characterized by a regression in human understanding. Although these times were undoubtedly violent this is ...

Mechanical engineering is a very wide discipline that, effectively, covers anything that moves. Its breadth is due, in part, from its need to cover the design and manufacturing of anything and everything in a moving system. This ranges from a system's smallest components to the completed, sometimes enormous, machine as a whole. Throughout history, some innovations have come to define mechanics as we know it today, the following are no exception. These engineering innovations range from ...

As a former mechanical engineering student of the then RTC, now Cork Institute of Technology (CIT), I always had an interest in pumps and process engineering. I recently gave a talk on pump fundamentals in University College Dublin for an event hosted by Engineers Ireland. At the event, I spoke about pump sizing and 'like children, there are no bad pumps - just pumps in the wrong environment'. One example would be where pumps were sized based on 'future expansion' and therefore oversized ...

Like many fields, tribology or friction analysis is very broad. It is a postgraduate field since its foundations rely upon prior knowledge of several dynamic undergraduate subjects. Although its history is very old, tribology centres around an analysis of understanding dynamic surface interfaces and interactions. As with any aspect of forensic analysis, forensic tribology applies to past events, seeking to clarify and so understand them, either to ensure they don’t happen again or, if ...

When they turn up in the family home or restaurant kitchens, cockroaches are commonly despised as ugly, unhealthy pests and are quickly killed. But in the name of science, Johns Hopkins researchers have put these unwanted insects to work. In a crowded, windowless lab, scholars and students are coaxing the bugs to share some crucial locomotion tips that could help future robotic vehicles traverse treacherous terrain. Picture the aftermath of an earthquake or the cluttered, unexplored ...

MIT engineers have just introduced an element of fun into microfluidics. The field of microfluidics involves minute devices that precisely manipulate fluids at submillimeter scales. Such devices typically take the form of flat, two-dimensional chips, etched with tiny channels and ports that are arranged to perform various operations, such as mixing, sorting, pumping, and storing fluids as they flow. Now the MIT team, looking beyond such lab-on-a-chip designs, have found an alternative ...