Women in engineering: giving Porsche 911s the 'ultimate' makeover

In automotive engineering, car suspension systems often employ Proportional Derivative (PD) controllers to enhance performance. PD controllers are utilized to adjust the damping force in response to road conditions. A controller, acting as an amplifier with a constant gain, demonstrates proportional control, with output directly mirroring input.
Designing a continuous-data controller requires selecting and linking components like adders and integrators, which are fundamental in Proportional,...

The internal combustion engine is a heat engine that uses the byproducts of combustion as the working fluid instead of using a heat transfer medium to transfer heat. The combustion is done in a way that produces high-pressure combustion products that can be expanded through a turbine or piston to create work. Internal combustion engines can again be categorized into three kinds: (1) spark ignition gasoline engines, most commonly used in automobiles, (2) compression ignition diesel engines that...

The automobile's ignition system plays a vital role by ensuring the timely ignition of the fuel-air mixture in each cylinder. This ignition is facilitated by a spark plug, which is composed of two electrodes separated by an air gap. A spark forms across this air gap when a substantial voltage is generated between the electrodes, leading to the ignition of the fuel.
One can generate a large voltage using a car battery of 12 volts with the help of inductors. Inductors are known for opposing...

The design of a transmission shaft is governed by two primary specifications: the power it transmits and its rotational speed. These parameters guide the selection of the shaft's material and cross-sectional dimensions, ensuring that the material's maximum shearing stress remains within the elastic limit while transmitting the desired power at the given speed. The system's power is intrinsically linked to the applied torque. The torque applied to the shaft can be calculated by...

A heat engine is a device used to extract heat from a source and then convert it into mechanical work used for various applications. For example, a steam engine on an old-style train can produce the work needed for driving the train.
Whenever we consider heat engines (and associated devices such as refrigerators and heat pumps), we do not use the standard sign convention for heat and work. For convenience, we assume that the symbols Qh, Qc, and W represent only the amounts of heat transferred...

Steel manufacturing is a multi-stage process that begins by smelting iron ore into cast iron in a blast furnace. This initial stage involves layering iron ore with coke, a type of fuel, and crushed limestone within the furnace. The coke is ignited with a high volume of air, leading to the creation of carbon monoxide, which acts to reduce the iron ore to pure iron.
During this smelting process, limestone plays a crucial role by forming slag. Slag captures impurities within the molten iron, such...