Lowering cooling costs and reducing the carbon emissions associated with blasting air conditioning could be as simple as a coat of white paint. Replacing the often-used titanium oxide—a mineral found in countless sunscreens and reflective paints—with barite, (an artist’s pigment) and polytetrafluoroethylene (or Teflon), researchers from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering have developed an ultra-white paint that reflects up to 98% of incoming heat from the sun. The paint's effective cooling stems not only from its reflective nature, it also bounces back the heat coming from infrared wavelengths, allowing for "radiative cooling” in buildings. "The potential cooling benefits this can yield may be realized in the near future because the modifications we propose are within the capabilities of the paint and coatings industry,” said Jyotirmoy Mandal, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar and the co-corresponding author on the research. [UCLA Samueli School of Engineering]
Assessing the damage caused to a structure immediately following an earthquake can be difficult and dangerous, but researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a new laser-based sensor that could transform the process. Using optical sensor technology that projects laser lights and detects the "interstory drift" or displacement in a building, the sensors can determine a structure's integrity after an earthquake, speeding the safety assessments and repairs that follow. Researchers began testing the laser system in 2019 and, with a new $240,000 grant from the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Safety, will continue testing the technology this summer on a bridge overpass in northern Nevada. "This technology can transform the ability to assess damage and rapidly respond to earthquakes," said David McCallen, professor and director of the Earthquake Engineering Lab in the College of Engineering and senior scientist in the Energy Geosciences Division at the Berkeley Lab in a press release from the University. "We are pushing towards broad application of this new technology.” [The University of Nevada, Reno]
Almost one third of the world's population still isn't guaranteed access to safe and affordable drinking water, but, with funding from the Army Research Office, researchers from the University of Rochester may have found a simple solution: sunlight. In the paper Solar-Trackable Super-Wicking Black Metal Panel for Photothermal Water Sanitation, researchers describe how a laser-etched aluminum panel placed in a contaminated body of water can concentrate the sun's energy, quickly evaporating and purifying the water. "A solution to the global water sanitation crisis should realize efficient water sanitation with low cost materials, which should require low maintenance and should be universally viable to all types of contaminants," not just microbes, but industrial and heavy metal pollutants as well, the paper says. "In a similar manner to the rain cycle, wastewater can be completely sanitized using solar energy for evaporating water and condensing vapour into drinkable water. " [Nature Sustainability]
Stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic have changed how we move through the built environment and the sound levels of cities. But the remaining inescapable hum is still too much for some who are stuck inside, leading them to prioritize closing windows for quiet over fresh air. In Active Control of Broadband Sound Through the Open Aperture of a Full-Sized Domestic Window, researchers from the Nanyang Technological University School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering in Singapore and the University of Southampton Institute of Sound and Vibration Research in the United Kingdom suggest a noise control option for naturally ventilated buildings: a grid of speakers that, if installed over a window, can reduce broadband noise while windows stay open. "Our experiments show that up to 10-dB reduction in energy-averaged sound pressure level is attainable in the frequency range of typical urban transportation noise, with a fully-opened two-panel sliding window," the paper reads. [Scientific Reports]
People travel from around the world to visit the works of famed Catalan Modernist Antoni Gaudí, such as the Church of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, and to marvel at his proto-surrealist forms. But now, you could own a Gaudí creation of you very own: A prayer bench that dates to 1913-1914 and was crafted from recycled olive wood and wrought iron for the the crypt of the Colonia Güell church in Barcelona is going up for auction. The auction, held by Bonhams auction house in New York, will begin on July 31; all bidding will be completed remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As one of 20 original benches commissioned for the church, auctioneers anticipate that the prayer bench will sell for between $200,000 and $300,000. [Bonhams]
Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on a new model that gives robots "human-like perception of their physical environments," according to a press release. Dubbed 3D Dynamic Scene Graphs, the model helps robots generate and gather information from a 3D map of their surroundings, mimicking how humans navigate their surrounding world. Part of the model's effectiveness stems from Kimera, an open-source library mix of 3D mapping and semantic segmentation that helps the robot create a 3D, meshlike digital map: "“With this work, we are making the leap toward a new era of robotic perception called spatial-AI, which is just in its infancy but has great potential in robotics and large-scale virtual and augmented reality," said lead author and MIT graduate student Antoni Rosinol in the same release. [MIT]
This week, Exton, Pa.–based Bentley Systems' Acceleration Fund launched The Cohesive Cos., a new subsidiary that stems from the company's acquisition of Atlanta-based Cohesive Solutions. The software giant hopes that Cohesive Cos. "will act as a digital integrator to help infrastructure asset owners upgrade their enterprise environments to leverage digital twins—digital representations and simulations of a physical asset, synchronizing digital context (current existing conditions), digital components (engineering content), and digital chronology (lifecycle change management)," according to a Bentley Systems press release. "Infrastructure asset owners know their success in going digital is based on both technology as well as experienced and dedicated resources for change management," said Cohesive Cos. CEO and Bentley Systems SVP Noah Eckhouse in the same release. [Bentley Systems]
How can we safely return to the office during the COVID-19 pandemic when studies show that the virus transmits more easily indoors? ARCHITECT contributor Blaine Brownell investigates the material solutions that architects and designers could deploy to make going back a little less frightening. [ARCHITECT]
