“This study really bridges the fields of biology, physics, mechanics and materials science toward engineering applications, which you don’t typically see in research,” said lead author David Kisailus, a UCI professor. While at present, engineers do have the materials required to create innovative aerospace and infrastructural designs, there are still problems in joining various materials together without making them vulnerable to fracture. This is where the research on the diabolical beetle comes in.

Wildfires in the western US have been steadily growing bigger and more severe for decades, while the time of heightened risk known as "fire season" has been 

The diabolical ironclad beetle is like a tiny tank on six legs. … A study has now revealed now revealed the secrets of this beetle’s armor. … It has a distinctly hard-to-squish shape, notes David Kisailus. He’s a materials scientist at the University of California, Irvine. … Kisailus was part of a team that tested how much the beetle’s armor would compress. Read More

“Projections of flooding need to make sense to people, not only for building understanding of what’s at risk but also for deciding upon the investments and policies that will be made to manage it,” said Brett Sanders, UC Irvine Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and letter co-author. “Research studies that oversimplify flooding and don’t represent real-world data pose a threat to transformative action.” Read More

Guest: Jack Brouwer, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Director, National Fuel Cell Research Center, University of California, Irvine. You might think the future of cars is electric, but there’s another green alternative that was the alternative everyone was talking about a few decades ago. It’s hydrogen. A car can go three-hundred miles or more on a tank of hydrogen gas and only water vapor comes out the tailpipe. There are already hydrogen-powered buses and trucks on the road today, so why hasn’t the technology taken off more broadly?

Tirtha Banerjee, [is] an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Irvine. … Banerjee’s research has found that those strong wind gusts help loft and transport embers, which is “what’s responsible for most of the building damage,” he said. “It’s not necessarily always this big wall of flame but rather embers transporting long distances and landing on some kind of fuel nearby or directly landing on a building.” Homes that are set ablaze by embers can also then contribute to even more ember generation, Banerjee said.