ASME TechCast

The Caribbean island of Bonaire is an idyllic vacation spot, but its power generation and grid system was unreliable. When ContourGlobal bought the energy assets it knew the system had to be reworked. The result was a 24-MW system using wind and solar, along with backup diesel generators, coupled with a lithium-ion battery storage system. A digitalized management system ties it all together, providing greater efficiencies in producing and storing renewable energy, and eliminating brownouts that plagued the old system. In this edition of ASME TechCast, Risto Paladanius of Greensmith, a Wartsilla company that provided the management system, and Giorgio Narminio of ContourGlobal, described the project at PowerGen International.

From clean energy and climate action to good health and quality education, Siemens has been at the forefront of supporting and advancing United Nation’s sustainable development goals for 2030. In this episode of ASME TechCast, Barbara Humpton, CEO of Siemens USA, talks about the role digital technology plays in building a sustainable world and improving lives. She also offers advice to young engineers on how they can get involved in addressing some of the biggest challenges facing humankind. Siemens and Engineering for Change recently announced a new call-to-action for socially minded engineers and hardware innovators to address two of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals—zero hunger and clean water. The program is called Innovate for Impact: Siemens Design Challenge and you can learn more about it on: http://bit.ly/InnovateForImpact.

When it comes to digital transformation, the aerospace industry is pursuing model-based engineering, digital twins, simulations, and agile methods for design and manufacturing. Raytheon Missile Systems, the industry’s giant, is also adopting these technologies. In this episode of ASME TechCast, Laura McGill, vice president of engineering at the company, talks about the many job opportunities available for young engineers in the aerospace industry, her own career path, as well as offers management advice for large multi-generational engineering teams that have to work together in the new digital era.

Smart cars work through sensors and technology that give the driver safety and road information. Eventually those IoT systems will connect to other vehicles, leading to the development of an overall traffic monitoring system—a building block of smart cities. In this episode of ASME TechCast, Rob Tiffany, vice president of IoT strategy for Ericsson, talks about the issues affecting connectivity between vehicles and everywhere else, as well as the development of smart cars.

Climate scientists see a clear relation between global warming and extreme weather events such as the catastrophic Australian bushfires that have devastated New South Wales and surrounding areas for months. What will have to happen before the society takes climate change seriously? What role will engineers play in building solutions to fight climate change? Let’s find out from Professor Steven Chu of Stanford University, who was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997 and has devoted his scientific career to the search for new solutions to our energy and climate challenges. Prof. Chu served as the Secretary of Energy from January 2009 until April 2013, where he was charged with helping implement President Obama’s ambitious agenda to invest in clean energy and address the global climate crisis.

Each episode of ASME TechCast brings you the innovators, the innovations, and the issues that are advancing engineering. This episode, perhaps the most quintessential ASME TechCast, presents you the top innovators in bioengineering, robotics, clean energy, manufacturing, and pressure technology for this year. Editors of the Mechanical Engineering magazine examine ASME’s core technologies annually and select one innovation from each that has successfully moved from the lab to the cusp of commercialization. Here are the Five Emerging Technologies Awards 2019.

Lockheed Martin’s Danielle Richey has a very exciting job: She’s working on sending humans out to the Moon and to Mars. She is also very engaged in inspiring and mentoring young women to pursue careers in STEM fields. John Falcioni, editor-in-chief of ASME’s Mechanical Engineering magazine, caught up with Richey to discuss her own career journey.

John Browne, former CEO of BP and chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, discusses his new book, Make, Think, Imagine: Engineering the Future of Civilisation.

Stephanie Depalma, AddWorks Lead Design Engineer at GE Additive, and Eric Utley, Protolabs Application Specialist Engineer, talk about the collaboration with Zac Posen, the famous fashion designer and founder of the House of Z, and how exactly does one produce fashion clothing using 3D printing.

Trimble’s mixed reality manager Jordan Lawver talks about partnering with Hololens to bring augmented reality to workers with a hardhat that lays drawings over the physical jobsite.